This week’s featured artist is not very well known, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m bringing him up here. His name is Leo Imai and he was born in Tokyo in 1981. His father is Japanese and his mother is Swedish, and that might be the reason why he was brought up in London instead of Tokyo. Before he started his music career, he studied at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) and at the university of Oxford.
Leo made his debut in Japan in 2006, with an indie album called ‘City Folk’. He later next year played his music at the Summer Sonic Festival. Shortly after the festival he made his major debut through EMI Music. In February 2008 he released his first major debut album ‘FIX NEON’.
I think this guy is underappreciated, he has a great voice and a very unique style, a style that is a bit crazy, but in a good way. His lyrics are in both English and Japanese, and he makes it sound really good. I strongly recommend listening to his album ‘FIX NEON’, my favorite tracks on it are ‘Tokyo Lights 2′ and ‘Emergency’.
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His Japanese has a really wierd accent to it…
Hmm, really? Well, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it ^^
I really like your taste in music. The song Blue Technique is quite good as well.
He has quite a strong English accent… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eCz4t1yFYo. My Japanese isn’t good enough to detect whether it is accented.