Oh, Yoko is none other than Will Long of Celer fame along with Rie Mitsutake aka Miko, on this their debut album out on Normal Cookie Records, we experience a pleasant mix of lo-fi electronic/acoustic pop folk that is both highly accessible and challenging at the same time. Pastoral ambience and playful electronics go hand in hand with soft female vocals sung and spoken in both Japanese and English.
An array of instrumentation appears here, mostly electronic but with the addition of acoustic guitar, mandolin, accordion and soothing found sound like rainfall (‘Song With Coyotes’), birdsong (‘Treehouse’) and TV and film samples, including one of a news interview of Paul McCartney being asked about the shocking death of John Lennon (‘Newsbreak’). The electronic element is one of vintage quality, analogue synth sounds mix with modern bleeps and warm piano and the pop side is very lo-fi like on ‘Grand Prix’ with its drum machine hand claps. This is a super little album full of wonderful surprises, limited to 500 copies packaged in a triple fold card sleeve featuring photography from Rie Mitsutake.