Nao Yoshioka - Flow
“Flow” is Japanese soul/R&B singer Nao Yoshioka’s long-awaited 5th album, which comes after a hiatus of five years. Back in New York in 2019, she had poured her efforts into her previous album “Undeniable”, with the ambition to gain greater recognition among fans and the music industry. However, in a familiar tale, the pandemic halted the momentum she had built, and she was forced to re-evaluate. Moving back to Japan, she found herself in a difficult place, experiencing physical and mental setbacks, actively questioning whether it was worth continuing with her music career. Fortunately for us, she stuck with it, finding joy in learning new things outside of singing such as dancing and cooking, and discovering the world and herself anew.
With a renewed sense of purpose and freed from past constraints, Yoshioka connected singers, producers, and engineers from all over the world to create this album “Flow”. Drawing on her interest in jazz, funk, classic soul, and R&B, she called up the likes of Devin Morrison, Jarreau Vandal, MXXWELL, Reuben James, Musicman Ty, and JAEL. This results in a really smooth, radiant sound with some bounce and spice, riding the latest trends in Afrobeat, modern G-funk, and 80’s nostalgia. Each of the songs are quite different in terms of style, but one of Yoshioka’s strengths is her ability as a singer to modify her vocals to match each scene, she can be upfront and sassy (“Unapologetically Me”), warm and romantic (“Knock on Your Door”), or breathy and fragile (“Selfish”) when required, sometimes within the same song.
Of course, she’s always had these skills, but what feels different this time around is this sense of lightness and joy, it’s not as forced as her previous work. Perhaps as a sign of maturity, “Flow” feels effortless, like she’s really having fun with the process and being less concerned about the results. The key theme of the album is flow as a state, of being fully absorbed in a process or task, and throughout the album it sounds like she’s learned to let go and ride the waves, attaining inner peace and a greater appreciation for things. The lyrics contain various references to feeling free and enjoying life, the most obvious being the opening track “Free as a Bird”, where she even playfully sings like a bird, or on “Feeling so Bright” when she sings “you’re my delight, we fly like butterflies”. Though she often sings about love and someone as the reason for her emotions, at times it could be also interpreted as self-love or a more general love of all things, and this way the songs can be enjoyed more broadly rather than just by people in love. And in the case of “Feeling so Bright”, she’s actually singing about her love of music itself, grateful for rediscovering her “peace of mind” which “makes the world a different place”.
Arguably, the album’s statement piece is “Unapologetically Me”, the lesson Yoshioka learned over these past five years. If life is unpredictable, and there’s no stable future, you might as well be true to yourself and live freely. Powered by this approach, she brings so much positive energy as she embodies independence and being unpredictable. She leads herself, walks her own path, with no regrets and no apologies to be handed out. The propulsive beat and dynamic synthbass from Khari Mateen compels you to march forward too, or perhaps more appropriately, dance your way down the street without caring what anyone thinks. Sonically, who better to capture that free-spirited motion than the in-demand Japanese trumpeter Takuya Kuroda, whose jazzy riffs color the piece and elicit an excited yowl from Yoshioka. Her vocal delivery here feels like a microcosm of her personality, it’s bold, cute, expressive, and yes, unpredictable when she slides on some key notes. Funnily enough, she sings this way on the line “don’t try to impress everybody”, yet that’s the part that leaves the greatest impression.
At the same time, the album isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, there’s contrast provided in some of the darker songs like “Nobody Chase Me” and “You Never Know”. The former is bound to resonate with people struggling with modern life as Yoshioka expresses a need to get away from external pressures and reflect on her own in peace, while the latter touches on some of the things she felt during her difficult period, struggling every night. Again, this is extremely relevant to today, because, well, you never know what other people are going through under the surface. It’s one of the more interesting tracks, contrasting her down and out delivery in a lower register with skittish artificial voices, a restless harp, and haunting reverb off her emotional vocal expression.
In terms of flow, it’s certainly impressive that Yoshioka can easily flow like water from one style to the next and deliver a variety of sounds by collaborating with different producers and musicians around the world, but the drawback is that each song is kind of contained in itself. It feels like there’s a missed opportunity because when you have a single producer or a DJ, there’s an awareness of how the songs segue from one to the next. If the album was truly to embody flow, it would be nice to have instrumentals or skits that could make the songs flow into one another. Call that an open request for a deluxe version.
As it stands, “Flow” is a wonderful gift, it comes from a true love of music and life that you can hear in every song. It’s a ray of hope for those who are struggling, and affirmation for those who are living in the moment. It was most likely a tough five years for Nao Yoshioka, but “Flow” finds her at a new artistic peak, stronger and wiser than ever. And since we’re all interconnected in this cosmic flow, we’re lucky we get to be part of the journey too.
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