ROMANTIQUE

Her fourth album overall and the first of three European albums. With Ryuichi Sakamoto continuing from the preceding record and Kazuhiko Kato newly joining, she made the European colors that had begun to show themselves deeper and more distinct. A2, a light mellow song, could seem like a work from the Sugar Babe period, but the remake on B5 is another matter. The lovely singing, like a flower blooming in a wasteland, now rides a bossa rhythm and turns into the refined gait of a woman walking a Paris street. The joy of swimming in her own musical world is also visible in the slightly more contemporary A2.