Great artist, great anthology!
J. Lund | SoCal, USA | 02/07/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"UA is one of the more remarkable artists on the contemporary world music scene, putting her stamp of individuality on an eclectic brew of styles including jazz, reggae, folk, rock, soul, dance, pop, etc. As provocative as the music is, what really grabs the listener's attention is her smooth, emotive, one-of-a-kind voice (difficult to describe, although at one point I offered Sade-meets-Bjork...naah, even that doesn't do UA justice). She sings almost entirely in Japanese, but unless you have a phobia re: music sung in a foreign language, I'd say the multitude of plusses FAR outweigh that minor hinderance for non-Japanese speaking buyers.UA recorded a number of albums and singles from 1995-1999, then took three years off from recording under her own name. In the interim she did record an excellent alt-rock CD as a member of the group Ajico (no tracks represented here), and then appeared as the lead actress in the award-winning motion picture MIZU NO ONNA. In 2002 she finally issued a new studio album, quickly followed be a stunning live CD/DVD (SORA NO KOYA). Now comes this career retrospective ILLUMINATE, which serves as a great intro to her artistic genius. Japan has taken an unsung lead in eclectic musical innovation over the past few years, and no "jpop" artist shines brighter--even on a worldwide scale--than UA.Disc One collects 12 of her 15 single releases (my only question is why not all fifteen? All would have fit on the CD). The earliest tracks are fine off-center pop songs (with dance and funk elements at times, including a track produced by Mondo Grosso's Shinichi Osawa). Yet UA was quickly raising the bar by dipping deeper emotively while expanding her musical parameters. The tracks veer towards rock (KANASHIMI JOHNNY), Hawaiian (AMAI UNMEI), reggae (SKIRT NO SUNA), and electronica (SENKOU), among others. At no point does these genre-explorations result in a lack of focus, though. Every track is a gem, but to me the highlight is the indescribable single mix of KAZOE TARANAI YORU NO ASHIOTO...a beautiful melody over a loosely-coordinated grab-bag of contemporary groove sounds.Disc Two offers a selection of album tracks--possibly selected by the artist herself (I haven't been able to confirm that). The tracks are not arranged chronologically, yet they all flow together despite their differences. If anything, this disc is the more progressive of the two, which is saying something given how forward-thinking the "hits" were on the other CD. The amazing thing is that this 2CD set could easily go 1-2 discs more without a dropoff in quality...that's how consistently strong UA's albums are. But unless you're a collector, ILLUMINATE should more than adequately get the picture across to potential new fans that UA is a truly special musical artist."
