Courtesy of Yamaha Music Communications

When jazz diva Akiko Yano first heard the music of electronica wunderkind Rei Harakami, her response was immediate. “I was astonished,” she says in an interview at their record company’s Sendagaya office on the occasion of the release of their debut album Yanokamick.“I thought to myself, I’ve found a genius.”

With Rei Harakami’s floods of notes and breakbeats rhythms earning him a lion’s reputation in the electronica underground over the last decade, Yano wasn’t the first to recognize his talent. But she was the first to recruit him as an intimate songwriting partner, the fruit of which first appeared as the Japanese-language album Yanokami last summer, and now in the English incarnation Yanokamick.

Harakami’s initial impression of Yano, an eccentric veteran jazz pianist and singer who was also once married to Ryuichi Sakamoto, was slightly different. “I’d listened to her music as a teenager, and first saw her on TV,” he recalls with a chuckle. “Even though she was a backup singer, she made the strongest impression. But I never dreamed we’d end up working together.”

Yet after the two met at a Quruli concert, it didn’t take much convincing for Yano to bring Harakami onboard for a series of collaborations. With her being in New York and him in Kyoto, the songwriting took the form of repeated back-and-forths over the internet. “We chose a couple of my early songs, and then he started to rearrange them,” Yano explains. “He would make basic maps of his version, put it on computer, and send it to me. I would listen, record my piano and vocals, and send it back. Sometimes he would do something further, sometimes not. It was pretty simple.”

As a result, the two didn’t actually play face-to-face until the day prior to last fall’s sold-out debut at Liquidroom. By this time Harakami had already transferred all his keyboard lines to an eight-track mixer, which he uses for live mixes in concert. “I have no idea where all those ideas come from,” says Yano with a hint of frustration. “It’s a mystery to me. He won’t show me; I don’t know what he’s doing.” Apparently Harakami suffers from a bit of stage fright. “I get too nervous playing keyboards in front of people—something strange might happen!”

Yanokamick is a confection of melodies both electronic and acoustic, with Yano’s whispered, girlish vocals (an influence on J-pop stars like Yuki) often taking on the topic of love over the course of the album’s 11 songs. It may not work for those who like their music dry and their lyrics ironic, but for listeners who are ready for arty flights of musical fancy, it’s a charm.

The Japanese version of the album, Yanokami, has been fairly successful for such a difficult-to-categorize collection, but it turns out that the English versions of the songs were the first to be written. Yano has lived in New York for 17 years now. “When you see a Japanese artist trying to make it happen in English, it might be really hard,” she grants.

“A French artist with a French accent will sound nice, but when it comes to Asian accents, it’s a different matter. I do struggle with that, but with Yanokamick we’re just putting it out and hoping for the best.”

With at least four managers and record company folk in the meeting room and a full schedule of interviews with the English press this afternoon, it’s clear that there are high hopes for Yanokami’s success abroad, even if they’re still searching for an overseas label. The pair first ventured overseas in March, where they performed at a jazz festival in Singapore.

Yano’s inventive take on love songs is intensely personal and imagistic. “It should be really self-centered,” she muses. “Years ago I composed a song called ‘Love Is.’ The words are from the Bible, Corinthians 13: ‘Love is long-suffering and kind.’ And you know what? Love is long suffering; that’s the first thing to define it. It’s pretty deep, right? And I do agree with it. I can’t sing the Bible, but I can try to say similar things based on my own experiences.”

How does Harakami feel about matching his futuristic electronica to love songs? “It depends on how you approach love, but I do try to think about how the song is understood,” he begins haltingly.
“Do you actually listen to my lyrics?” interjects Yano.

“When they enter my consciousness yes, but other times no,” confesses a slightly flustered Harakami. “I begin with the music, and if it’s good, then I listen to the words, and I may think, ‘Wow the words are pretty powerful too.’”

Yanokamick is available on Yamaha Music Communications.

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