Yosei – The Wind-Up Waltz

Releasedate: 14-04-2010; Label: Brus & Knaster/Playground Music
By: Lara Cappelli

Yosei is the Japanese word for “fairy” and also the name of this Swedish Alternative band from Stockholm. The main composer of the band is Lina Langendorf which cares for vocals, saxophone and flute together with Martin Nilsson on guitars, Putte Frick-Meijer Johander on bass and vocals and Andreas Ekstedt on percussion and vocals.

The Wind-Up Waltz falls somewhere between Pop, Folk and Jazz. The central feature as well as the pooling element is present in Lina Langendorf’s voice which comes to the listener with pureness and delicacy. All the songs are built around it so that it outshines by comparison to the other instruments that, apart from some cases such as “The Wind-Up Waltz”, sound like just a background of it. When having such an importance, the vocals are required to sound as driving and outstanding as possible, and Lina’s ones partly do. Her style is pretty close to a jazz singer’s and does a great job on all the songs. The final result of The Wind-Up Waltz kind of worked for me as it flowed extremely smoothly, still without leaving any remarkable trace on me. That’s maybe because of the lack of something which could dampen the general unchanging sound now and then. However, I’m convinced Yosei will be able to deliver that kind of diversity the album is missing of on a live situation.

Tracklist: 1. The Raven 2. The Fisherman’s Song 3. Lily 4. Bitter Lane 5. The Illusionist 6. Blue Parrot 7. The Maple Leaf 8. Little Heart 9.The Wind-up Waltz

Links:
MySpace