Yoshiko Sai’s third album – another gem in a tragically brief yet remarkable career – is being reissued once more. Originally released in the mid-1970s, Taiji No Yume emerged from a fortuitous chain of events. Sai, whose primary passion was poetry, began writing during a period of illness. It was only through her encounter with singer Rabi Nakayama that she ended up in the recording studio, where she completed a discography that blends psychedelic textures with experimental folk-rock fusion.
On Taiji No Yume, this convergence of chance and talent is elevated by the presence of key collaborators such as pianist Masahiko Sato and polymath Yuji Ohno, whose fluid, jazz-inflected playing lends the album a sense of weightlessness. This quality perfectly complements the album’s dreamlike mood, which feels at once fantastical and delicately composed.
The nine-minute title track serves as the album’s centrepiece and final statement – a sweeping synthesis of the album’s motifs. It opens with a shimmering piano motif, soon giving way to castanets and Latin-tinged rhythms, which in turn dissolve into a cinematic arrangement of strings and horns. Throughout, Yoshiko Sai’s voice dances across the surface like vapour – light, poised, and utterly transportive.
