The world is full of music experts willing to judge what separates a true artist from a manufactured one and, inevitably, each of them will always have a different point of view on this matter.
To our website, by listening to countless hours of music on a daily basis, that difference is created by different factors; of course, natural talent and ability, either as a singer/songwriter or as a singer and/or a musician too, all those elements play a fundamental role in spotting that difference, but there is more to it.
Yes, one can be particularly gifted on singing, or playing guitar, piano, double bass, trumpet or any other given instrument, but if a listener cannot feel that empathy, that powerful emotional connection that links an artist with the audience, no matter how popular that artist might be, that detachment, that "planned attitude" will come out apparent, sooner or later, to the eyes and ears of a music fan.
In that respect, Bluebird Reviews is very fortunate to get a constant wide choice of material of said “True” artists, releasing their new bodies of work in various music genres. On this very subject, Bluebird Reviews came across very recently to an absolutely mesmerizing promo album received from the Swiss-Polish-Japanese singer, composer and pianist Yumi Ito, called Lonely Island, where the sole voice and piano of the artist in question were at the core of this very remarkable record.
Ito’s musical history is rather interesting; a Swiss singer with Japanese and Polish roots, Yumi Ito started making her mark in the music business back in 2016, releasing an album of Jazz classic standards revisited in a more contemporary and imaginative Free-Form Jazz, called Intertwined, a record that, already back then, started showing encouraging signs of a rising artist that was starting spreading her musical wings into the skies of music with talent, originality and highly interesting sonic creativity.
Through the years, Ito forged even more her own artistic style, a style that incorporates Contemporary and Latin Jazz, Vocalese, Bebop and even Alt-Pop, all based on a Free-Form and Improvisational vocal and sonic structure, where a piece or a song can take the listener to different tangents in the most unpredictable and enthralling way at the same time and supported, to top it all up, by an extraordinary vocal talent and a first-class songwriting style, as amply demonstrated by Ito in more recent albums, such as the 2020 one called Stardust Crystals and 2023’s Ysla, among others.
The aforementioned Stardust Crystals and Ysla albums had an even greater impact, on Yumi Ito’s career, thanks maybe to the great skills of Ito as a songwriter, often deeply personal and intimate, combined with the way the Swiss singer/songwriter was able to create, from a vocal performance perspective, the perfect symbiosis between her songwriting and the imaginative arrangements created for those songs, where the messages emerging from Ito’s lyrics were able to get through a music fan’s soul in a very profound way through this inspired artistic alchemy.
Rolling the tape forward in 2025, Ito then decided to re-dress some of the songs part of the Ysla and Stardust Crystals albums in a more intimate fashion, solely through vocal and piano, wanting to create, perhaps, a more personal dialogue between the singer/songwriter and her listeners, a concept that might as well have inspired the album title Lonely Island.
It is impossible to pick up a specific highlight, from Yumi Ito's new album, because all the 10 compositions included in this modern masterpiece contain artistry at 360 degrees, delivered, at every point of the record, in the most organic, emotionally unfiltered and both stylistically and creatively impeccable style.
One of the greatest points of this album comes from the harmonic bridges that Ito manages to create between her voice and her piano playing, with the singer/songwriter's vocal style either moving in waves, side by side with her Free-Form Piano playing style or by distilling Vocalese improvisations, where the artist let the piano taking control of her emotions, in a spontaneous automatism between the Ito's voice and piano, where one can portray the artist sitting on her own, in a room, just her with a piano, eyes closed, letting the music flow in line with her emotions.
Lonely Island's lyrical themes are all very personal to Ito's heart; love, fear, losses, loneliness, afterlife, courage, all sentiments that Yumi Ito explores with incredible candour and purity, armed solely with an incredibly powerful vocal range, great piano playing skills and a unique inbuilt ability to connect to one's soul through an effortless amount of talent and a disarming lyrical honesty.
When Yumi Ito, whilst introducing her new album, described Lonely Island that wanted to sound as a sort of House Concert, she was absolutely right. Lonely Island is an intimate dialogue between Ito and the listeners and, at the same time, a great opportunity to listen not only Ito's enormous vocal and musical talents all around, but also to her wonderful soul.
A record to cherish every day, to help making ourselves feel more alive and to be in touch with our emotions at every stage of our existences, through the mesmerizing, mystical and soulful atmospheres created by an outstanding artist like Yumi Ito.
Lonely Island is out now and it is available to be purchased via Yumi Ito's Official Website
