notes:

• 小島麻由美 (or kojima mayumi) - probably the only jazz/blues influenced singer i really like, without veering too far into those genres, cos i hate jazz, really. girlish blues?
• neil and iraiza - aka horie hirohisa and matsuda gakuji. closest in style to their friend kaji hideki, but owes more to the uk than sweden. i love ny and johnny marr? albums are my favourites.
• meligrove band - okay so i downloaded a leaked copy of their upcoming album planets conspire. after not bothering to listen to them for a few years because i had too much sloan in my head, i figure maybe i should loosen up a bit, and maybe even listen to rooney, whilst resisting the call of ‘mediocre’!
• bice - having not released anything since 2002 (let love be your destiny album), i was worried she had disappeared for good. apparently not though, as she’s still performing. been listening to her music a lot to and from work on my minidisc, trying to figure out the balance of drums, acoustic & electric guitar and vocals. it sounds so good.
• at 17 - their new album bian bian bian (’change’) could be marked as ‘more mature’ - no more silly children’s ditties or the like. needs more time to digest, although the title track is already stuck in my head.