Chara

Vocals, Guitar, Piano

Before the Shiinas, the Coccos and the Bonnies, a sweet whispering voice was furthering music and breaking clichés in Japan. If you are a fan of any of the abovementioned composers/vocalists, realizing for yourself how she has heavily influenced most independent and multi-talented female artists of the nineties and new millennium should be your next priority. Yet, Chara is a name that comes up so often when talking about good music coming from the East that you may already be familiar with her eclectic style and uplifting personality.

The best part of it all is that instead of taking her turn in the limelight to then concentrate on raising a family and nurturing her private life, her marriage and child-bearing has but strengthen her will to make music. Twelve years after her official debut and countless years after the beginning of her musical journey, Chara's passion for music has never dimmed and her fans return the favour by never getting over how amazing this artist is.

A first glance, Chara may appear odd-looking and odd-sounding but the incredible charisma this artist exudes on camera, in her music and most likely in person, slowly shifts the oddness into beauty the more you see and hear her perform her emotional pieces. As always, genres fail to help in the description of this artist's music because of the diversity involved. She doesn't usually go from one extreme to the other in minutes, normally sticking to comforting and heartening music, but always experiments with new sounds and approaches.

There is nothing quite like Chara's voice: Soft as a child's but so sincere, no one could ever believe she is pretending to be someone else and that its cuteness is staged. The love and compassion emitted by that said voice can make you hope, dream, cry... but after the final word has been uttered, there's always this "feel good" emotion present.

Chara sings like an angel and also dances like a one. Her songs being the essence of her life, she can get very emotional singing them. Also, as distinctive as her voice may be, she sees herself as a musician first and foremost. It is very hard to separately evaluate the music and vocals in her songs because of how they harmoniously converge into a whole. Among her credited instruments are the piano, drums, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, synthesizer, tambourine and all sorts of little personal touches to add depth to her songs. It is those little details, blatant effort and sweet emotions that put Chara in a league of her own.

Chara started to show interest for music at age four, begging her parents to take piano lessons. At elementary school, she had already composed two songs and was an excellent pianist. At fourteen years old, she formed her own band and, after going solo realizing she could do most of the work herself, scored a record deal with Sony music in the year 1990.

A major turning point in her career was the movie Swallowtail Butterfly produced in 1996 by internationally acclaimed director Iwai Shunji, in which she starred as an optimistic prostitute in a shanty-town. Singing her message of hope in this grim setting gave a shot of positive energy to an entire generation. The world of cinema also gave Chara the love of her live. She married the king of underground movies, actor Tadanobu Asano, in 1994, whom she met during the filming of PiCNiC, another movie she participated in. They now have two children, Sumire and Himi, and live a relatively private life together.

I was about to write that Chara had more-or-less disappeared since her last album Yoake Mae, having only appeared in various compilations and remixes. But lo and behold Chara has a new single scheduled for January 07. Fantasy will be the title song and will also feature a cover of an Ofcourse hit Yes-No.