Help Me Find This Japanese (?) Acoustic Indie Album

April 28, 2022 10:17 AM

This is a shot in the dark, but Spotify recommended an album to me a while ago that I wanted to listen to again but I can't find it.

From what I remember, it was a Japanese artist, and the artist name, album title and song titles were all in Japanese so I didn't know how to even Google it. I'm not the best with Asian scripts, so it may have been Korean or Chinese, although it looked Japanese to me. The album cover was an abstract cityscape of rooftops (kind of like this), and I think the predominant color palette was yellows and oranges. The genre seemed to be acoustic indie/lo-fi, and I believe it was primarily a single individual playing the songs on acoustic guitar with lyrics. Any help would be appreciated!

posted by ultraviolet catastrophe to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

Not sure on this but try Japanese artist Ichiko Aoba(青葉市子). She has most songs accompanied only by acoustic guitar. If that’s not it she’s definitely in the same vein as what you described.
posted by boredoms at 11:08 AM on April 28, 2022

have you tried looking through your spotify history? i just checked mine in the android app and it went back three months.
posted by noloveforned at 11:29 AM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

and you can get a longer spotify play history as a json data file by request here- this youtube video goes into some details.
posted by noloveforned at 11:38 AM on April 28, 2022

Response by poster: I did look through my Spotify history but didn't see it in there. I don't think it goes back far enough. Ichiko Aoba is in my Spotify history because I listened to her yesterday :)
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 12:26 PM on April 28, 2022

Was the voice male or female? I thought of Ohashi Trio and Yomo to Ohana, but I think they are both transliterated
posted by chocotaco at 12:34 PM on April 28, 2022

Response by poster: It was a male voice. The voice actually reminded me of Sean Lennon's.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 12:40 PM on April 28, 2022

This is very shot in the dark but I just happen to be a fan of Jake Shimabukuro, a Japanese acoustic ukelele player who I think is fairly popular. He doesn't sing but he does collaborate with others so maybe this could help point you in the right direction. If you listen to more along these lines perhaps the recommendation will come up again...
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:02 PM on April 28, 2022

I wouldn't call the image "abstract" but any chance it was this NSP album? They're a decades-old folk band but released this in November 2020. Only thing is, I couldn't find them on Spotify, but maybe it's one of those things that varies by region.
posted by paperback version at 4:52 PM on April 28, 2022