Zee Avi / ghostbird / Japanese Alternative?
Zee Avi is not a Japanese or Korean artist, which this blog is known for writing about. Still, you should read the post and listen to her amazing music even if English music isn’t your thing. ;)
Zee Avi is one of the artists that I just cannot find a flaw with. She has a one-of-a-kind voice, she has guitar skills despite being as tiny as she is, and she speak 4 freaking languages. Seriously, that’s some hot stuff. Her first self titled album was one of my favorites of 2009, and that was probably my favorite year for English music, so she is definitely up there as one of my favorite artists. Everything about her just fits my ascetic.
Well, it’s been a good two years since her that album (She did release an EP after it… But it kind of sucked. It was just a few songs off the album that were slightly differently produced. It did have an amazing new song called I Wish I Never on it, though, so I’ll give it a pass.), and we’ve finally gotten news about a new album hitting stores in August. Upon watching this video and listening to the new single, I am a happy, happy fanboy.
I’m gonna quickly start with the title, and why it just fills my heart with so much happiness. The name of the album is “ghostbird” and, unless Zee’s space bar and shift keys are broken, you actually stylize the title with no space and in lowercase. Until this album, I have only seen this in asian countries, and even with that being said, it is rarely seen outside of Japan. To see this on an English release does a little bit more than blows my mind. I’m under the impression that the reason why English artists don’t do this is because they don’t care how it’s stylized because they just want the meaning of the title to stand out, or they think the fans care that much to memorized the obscurely written title of a song/album. Despite either of these, Zee seems to be doing this anyway. Way to bring new ideas into the industry, Zee. If this is a hit, and people pay attention to it, I’m sure we’ll see this in the future with different artists.
Now the single, The Book of Morris Johnson, is a complete deviation from Zee Avi’s genre, but not necessarily her style. Her first album was jazz and acoustic, with a little alternative sprinkled on there. This new song, however, is straight up alternative, complete with strange sounds and perplexing production (Alliterations). This seems like a risk Zee would take, though. She’s so creative as it is, and she’s getting more comfortable as a professional artist, so she feels more confidant making a move like this. Also, she actually used this song as an experiment to write a melody to another person’s lyrics, so more risk taking there. However, the main point I want to bring up about the song is how exceedingly Japanese it is. Anyone who is familiar with the Japanese alternative genre knows what I am talking about. While I’m not too involved with the genre, from what I’ve heard, this song could easily be a song by a Japanese alternative artist. Compare this to anything by Shugo Tokumaru; there are loads of similarities in production, melody, style of lyrics (Almost random), and so on. She’s bringing even more new ideas with this song. Well, at least they are new ideas to her and her audience. She very well may not even be aware of the similarities, but because she’s asian (And actually lived in Asia for most of her life), so she has a better chance of knowing of Japanese ideas as opposed to most other artists.
I have no doubt in my mind that Zee will make an amazing album. She’s such a breath of fresh air and new ideas. From what we’ve heard from the promo video and the single, how could it not be? Again, she’s gotten all of her nerves out and she’s completely comfortable being a professional artist now, so there’s almost no reason for this album not to be perfect. And I honestly believe that this is not my bias talking (Well, it probably is, but my unbias would still agree that this will be an amazing album.).
