Baku Furukawa (古川麦)

Mixing anything from bossa nova, jazz, hip hop to traditional folk and Shibuya-Kei, Baku Furukawa offers us an eclectic soundtrack to our summer trips.

“Xìn”(”信”, “letter” in Chinese) is the third album from singer-songwriter Baku Furukawa (古川麦). It seems as if the songs on “Xin” were letters from around the world, wherever he has traveled to play guitar.

Baku Furukawa’s music includes various influences, from bossa nova, jazz, hip hop and traditional folk to Shibuya-Kei J-Pop. And he got lots of help from his friends – from Japan and from other countries.

May Inoue (CRCK/LCKS) played flowing guitar on “Ritual”. On “Weep”, Baku whispers like rap, inspired by his friend’s hip-hop unit Okumura from USA.

“Why” features vocals from Manami Kakudo (角銅真実). “Town of Light” has Chorus by Amy Tseng (曾稔⽂) from Taiwanese group DSPS. Shin Rizumu played Brazilian bass guitar and keyboards on “Vacilando”. Thus, Baku has made eclectic album with his friends.

20 years ago, one of the Shibuya-Kei originator Kenji Ozawa made his last album before his long brake, named “Eclectic” – influenced by hip hop, jazz, neo soul like D‘Angelo or Erykah Badu.

In my personal opinion, Baku’s new effort has a similar value to Kenji’s eclectic masterpiece. Anyway, this album will give us some cool breeze in this hot summer!

Stream “Xin” LP on Spotify.

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Baku Furukawa on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, www.

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