Shintaro Sakamoto - Yoo-hoo (2026) [Hi-Res]

No, there's no family connection between Shintaro and Ryuichi Sakamoto. But there are musical links, certainly, in their minimalist approach and stylistic freedom. For two decades, the psych-pop guitar hero was the driving force behind Yura Yura Teikoku, a trippy psychedelic rock trio with a minimal, hypnotic rhythm section that quickly became cult favorites in Japan after forming in the late eighties. A year after the band split, Shintaro Sakamoto struck out on his own with How to Live With a Phantom (2011), a debut album with a feel-good exotica and funk vibe, full of bubblegum female choruses going "ooh-ah ooh-ah." Six uneven releases later, we have the inspired Yoo-hoo. An onomatopoeia that neatly captures the coolness of its ten groovy tracks. As if sailing through the tropics at sunset, we drift between sixties psychedelia full of wah-wah ("The Clock Began to Move"), jazz-funk flights of fancy ("Numb" and its blazing saxophone), Caribbean shakes ("Protect Your Brain" and its güiro), and Hawaiian sensuality with endless lap steel slides. The vocals are languid, the flutes mesmerising ("Is There a Place for You There"), the marimba delicate ("Ghost Town"). The Japanese musician favors space, slowness, undulation and warmth, and it feels good. A welcome invitation to let go in these turbulent times. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz