Kotaro Oshio - Hard Rain

Oshio Official Site

Awesome guitar picking XD I think it should be renamed 'romantic rain' rather than 'hard rain'. It's nowhere close to a torrent.

Fromwkik
Kotaro Oshio (押尾コータロー, Oshio Kōtarō) is an acoustic guitarist from Japan. Born in Osaka, on February 1, 1968, he is most well known for his work on the steel string guitar.Oshio's music is classified within various categories including pop, new age, and jazz. His style has drawn comparisons with other highly regarded musicians such as Michael Hedges. Oshio's musical technique includes fingerpicking, slap harmonics, and precise strumming.

While his albums include mostly original material, Oshio is also well known for his covers and movie soundtracks. His unique skill in interpretation and arrangement can be heard in tracks such as "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" from his album "Starting Point".

New York City - Norah Jones

It’s really not so good an idea to fill your ancient, tiny-capacity MP3 player with Norah and Norah only, and set out on the road, thinking it’d make even the grimmest parts of the journey tender and not without subtle meanings. Especially when it’s an album featuring Norah singing about a labyrinthinely fascinating city that you'd always wanted to see for yourself. Especially when your own travel happens in winter, to harsh, unrelenting places like Chinese tourist destinations. (Of course you can renounce the idea of even bringing a player to drown out all other interesting, real sounds in travel. I got to do that when I am out of battery, which happens pretty often anyway.)

The thing about Norah is that she comforts you like opium. You keep coming back for more. You laugh, you fall into a reverie to the lyrics set to her low, smoky voice, and as you wake up lingeringly you cry, and cycle repeats. It’s subversive in that it could quietly wipe out everything else (N.B.: in emotionally turbulent times), and it's bad travel company exactly because of that. In the small town of Yangshuo, as I sat with newly made friends on the road side watching people and (unmoving) karst rocks and good humouredly chatting, we asked what music we each were listening to on that stretch of the journey. The guys chuckled (in slight embarrassment?) “oh, I know Norah Jones…but I never listen to romantic stuff like that ye know..” (guy’s pick was rock, more or less predictably.) Never occurred to me before that Norah’s music would be described as ‘romantic’, and then I thought, maybe, only girls and women listen to Norah? I personally would feel a little amused imagining a guy transfixed to her music for weeks on end like I sometimes do. Only on reflection did I realize that the subject matters and the perspective of her lyrics, poetic, poignant and at times melancholy, are mostly a very feminine kind. But I’d very much like to see someone disagree. :-P

About this album of New York City (which is actually by the Peter Malick Group featuring Jones)—if you had listened to the other more famous Norah albums (Come Away With Me and Feels Like Home) this one would not disappoint you in the least. The collaboration sees Norah attack the ‘70’s singer/songwriter style country/bluesy’ songs (quoting an unremembered source) with vigor and heart, and the result is that the album has a distinctly different and refreshingly lively feel as compared with the solo efforts. It’s really difficult to pick a favourite to put here, as all six tracks featured are equally great. I’ll just put the title track on YSI first. (coming later due to Taiwan earthquake and my being partially cut off to servers across the ocean..) UPDATE: download here before it expires around 6 Jan. Thanks to zhu for circumventing the problem from north America instead. All material from the web and meant for non-commercial purposes only. =D

New York City

I can't remember what I planned tomorrow
I can't remember when it's time to go
When I look in the mirror
Tracing lines with a pencil
I remember what came before

I wanted to think there was endless love
Until I saw the light dim in your eyes
In the dead of the night I found out
Sometimes there's love that won't survive

New York City
Such a beautiful disease
New York City
Such a beautiful,
Such a beautiful disease

Laura kept all her disappointments
Locked up in a box behind her closet door
She pulled the blinds and listened to the thunder
With no way out from the family store

We all told her things could get better
When you just say goodbye
I'll lay awake one more night
Caught in a vision I want to deny

And did I mention the note that I found
Taped to my locked front door
It talked about no regrets
As it slipped from my hand to the scuffed tile floor

I rode the train for hours on end
And watched the people pass me by
It could be that it has no end
Just an action junkie's lullaby

New York City
Such a beautiful disease
New York City
Such a beautiful,
Such a beautiful disease

We were full of the stuff that every dream rested
As if floating on a lumpy pillow sky
Caught up in the whole illusion
That dreams never pass us by
Came to a tattooed conclusion
That the big one was knocking at the door
What started as a mass delusion
Would take me far from the place I adore

New York City
Such a beautiful disease
New York City
You are my beautiful,
Such a beautiful disease

Bossa Nova & Ono Lisa

Alright, pick of the moment (see sidebar) issue—Bossa Nova and Ono Lisa. What and who? See the wikipedia links for details, I’ll just say a short word on each—

Bossa nova was derived from samba, and was very much influenced by jazz. It became massively popular in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. It also enjoyed major international success during brief periods of popularity such as after the release of the film Black Orpheus in 1959 and with Stan Getz's recordings in the 1960s. Bossa nova repertoire consists predominantly of songs, while the instrumental music similar to it is generally called samba-jazz. Perhaps the best known bossa nova song is Antonio Carlos Jobim's The Girl from Ipanema (A Garota de Ipanema), which is widely known in both its original Portuguese and in English translation—which is also the autoplay item you hear in our current ukuradio right now. =)

And as for Ms Ono (小野リサ, Ono Risa)—she is probably the best bossa nova artist in Japan right now. Born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1962, she moved with her family to Tokyo at 10. From then on she spent half of every year in Japan, and half in Brazil. She is a native speaker of Portuguese and Japanese, and has released albums in Portuguese, Spanish, French, English and Italian. Her first album, Catupiry, was released in 1989—she was 27 then—after which she released about one album a year. She became internationally more recognized in recent years, when her passion and talent in bossa nova was remarked upon by Brazilian jazz artists, including the author of Girl from Ipanema. Her characteristic warm, gentle voice blends the light-hearted joyousness of Latino music and the dreamy feel of cool jazz, soothing and delighting lovers of this genre.

I'll upload her As Time Goes By album as soon as yousendit begins working on my computer again, check back soon. =d
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Update: YSI is down for the moment, so I am using MegaUpload which doesn't seem to have an expiry date somewhere..here is the download link to the album, which I shall take down in a week's time. If you missed it, request and I'll send it personally to you again. Enjoy~ =)
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Update: as zhu has pointed out, this is more likely a compilation of sorts than a formal release. But that's minor, which means we are just without an album cover for this one, lol.

Track list to As Time Goes By

1 RED BLOUSE
2 BEIJO PARTIDO
3 MOON RIVER
4 SO DANCE SAMBA
5 Samba De Verao
6 o barquinho
7 PALPITE INFELIZ
8 MOONLIGHT SERENADE
9 TEA FOR TWO
10 AS TIME GOES BY
11 ANGEL`S EYES
12 I WISH YOU LOVE
13 BE WITH ME
14 PRETTY WORLD
15 YESTERDAY