Shintaro Sakamoto is the genius ex-frontman/guitarist of Japan's recently disbanded Yura Yura Teikoku. 'Let's Dance Raw' is his new sophomore solo album, and starting to describe it is somewhere between sweet slide-guitar and choral computerized children. Children's vocals have been present on past YYT endeavours (mostly the amazing 'No Memai'), but Shintaro makes sure to switch the style, pitch-shifting to the point of auditory phantasm in some songs, namely the most abundant example "Birth of the Supercult". Still, it isn't the all encompassing sound of the album, though the methods of including it are noteworthy because no one has really done this similarly, which really sums up Shintaro's music in general -- you never know what you're going to get.
Wasn't even aware he had solo outputs (his first in 2011), so I'm glad I made my way back via an interview with him and the amazing Buffalo Daughter. Shintaro appears on a track on the latest Buffalo Daughter ("Love & Food"), the equally & wonderfully zany 'Konjac-tion' album.
