Syoko is a pretty strange name, but that’s how it reads in the booklet. I recently discovered Syoko Suzuki when her latest album, Sweet Serenity came across our desk. I really had no idea what to expect, but the impressive looking electric guitar that Suzuki’s holding on the album cover had me thinking I was in for the standard Japanese fem rock, but boy was I wrong.
If I had to sum Suzuki up in one word, it’d be “versatile.” There’s a large variety here despite album’s short running time of about 35 minutes spread over 9 tracks, but it’s all great. The album’s subtitle, “and Chocolate Milk-Tea” suggests even further that Suzuki doesn’t take herself too seriously, and is just out to have fun.
Find out what’s in store for you if you happen to pick this one up after the jump.
The album opens with the title track, “Sweet Serenity & Chocolate Milk-Tea,” a bluesy track featuring some great guitar work and Suzuki’s measured vocals. The harmonies are excellent, and overall, it sounds quite full and downright gritty despite its simplicity.
Next up, Suzuki takes you into some classic 90s alternative music with grungy electric guitar and an angsty singing voice with lots of reverb. The chorus section is amazingly catchy, and will have you singing along “Electric fingers!” Being able to identify this track as 90s alternative rock makes me feel really old, as it’s the sound of my childhood. I love it. Taking another turn, “Still a Woman in Her 30s” takes a classic rock approach with more subdued vocals and lovely harmonies, sounding like a cross between The Beatles and surfer rock.
So, what are we missing? Oh, country music! “Rose Pink Cheeks (My Mama Said, So)” is some country music that I can actually get behind with its stereotypical country pedal steel guitar, contemplative bass, and choral-like harmonies from Suzuki. “My mama said so” is actually sung in English, which is a nice touch. This was an unexpected treat for sure.
It’s hard to classify anything here as pure pop, but “Father Figure” is the closest thing. It combines a lovely electric piano and emotional string swells to Suzuki’s guitar and low-key vocals. It’s a nice laid back track with some great moments. “Turning Down the Proposal (For Now)” and “5 Years / And Then…” also feature piano, but both rely mostly on Suzuki’s voice. There’s a nice bit towards the middle of “Turning Down the Proposal (For Now)” where a saxophone repeats the same melody that Suzuki just sang, and the English singing of “5 years, 5 years, 5 years, and then…” are both nice touches.
“Truthfully a Sad Relationship” gets a bit more playful with its stop-and-go rhythm that skips along with some rock organ and Suzuki’s filtered voice. I hate to say The Beatles again, but this one definitely reminds me of their later years. A fiddle joins in towards the end, lending the piece an even more playful sound. This is another of my favorites. The album closes with a distant echo of “Sweet Serenity & Chocolate Milk-Tea,” which is titled as a reprise version. It’s short, but is mainly meant to bring the album full circle.
And that’s it. There’s a lot here, but it’s way too short. I found myself wanting more. I guess Suzuki has been at this for awhile, and it’s nice to see an artist who tries to do something different rather than sticking to whatever their record producers think they do best. I love this album, and recommend checking it out if any of the tracks sound interesting to you. There’s nothing here that isn’t good. Pick it up at Play-Asia if you’re interested.
Are you getting tired of the same old J-rock from Japan? Are you surprised to hear that Syoko Suzuki has included a country song on this album?
[Special thanks to Brandon Robison for translating the track titles]
Tags: Blues, Country, J-pop, J-Rock, Music Reviews, Reviews, Sony Music, Sweet Serenity, Syoko Suzuki
Regarding “Syoko”: The name itself isn’t strange by Japanese standards. It’s actually the same as “Shoko”, just written in the Roman alphabet using the Kunrei-shiki standards (Syuichi=Shuichi Uchiyama is another person who does this), as opposed to a Hepburn variation like we non-Japanese are typically accustomed.
It’s always nice to see Syoko getting some attention — she’s my favorite recording artist from Japan, and a sort-of cause of mine (I’m always trying to turn people on to her music). Anyway, I agree “Sweet Serenity” is a really good — albeit somewhat short — album.
(Regarding Shoko/Syoko: she actually romanized her name as “Shoko” up until about five or six years ago; still, all re-releases of her old material still credit her as “Shoko Suzuki”; additionally, when she wrote an email to me earlier this year she signed it “Shoko”).
She is definitely a very versatile artist. She started out as more of a pop/ballad singer (though she’d occasionally throw in a standard rock song), and has written songs for many of Japan’s most notable female pop singers – like Seiko Matsuda, Kyoko Koizumi, and Maaya Sakamoto. Around 1995 she formed a rock band with her then-husband, and her music took more of a rock/pop/Beatle-y turn, with plenty of country music touches here and there (it may have helped that she did some work with Puffy and Tamio Okuda starting in 1997). She’s also a solid multi-instrumentalist: her excellent 2000 album “Love, painful love” is entirely self-performed (i.e. she plays guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, banjo, etc.).
Sadly, a lot of Syoko’s older records (the three superb records she recorded for Warner Music Japan, in particular) are hard to find or out of print entirely. However, over the past year and a half she’s been re-releasing her old Epic/Sony albums (9 in all) in a trio of 2CD/1DVD box sets, the last of which was just released yesterday in Japan.
She’s also got ties to some pretty influential artists – on “Sweet Serenity” alone there’s ex-Boredoms guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto, ex-Super Junky Monkey bass player Shinobu Kawai, and Moonriders member Masahiro Takekawa.
But anyway, wonderful review, and I hope you decide to dig further into her discography.