Tsuki Amano - Uma Salmon 23 July 2007
Since her debut in 2001 Tsuki Amano has created a sizable, impressive discography; and that includes the fact she ‘retired’ in August 2008, but return in 2010. A decent chunk of her music is already on NyaaTorrents, which to me indicates she’s managed to garner a decent fan-base outside of her native country. In my experience most people—inside and outside of Japan—recognize Tsuki Amano for providing the ending themes for the second and third games in the Fatal Frame franchise.All of that said, I remain compelled to say that Tsuki Amano is an indie artist, if only for the fact that she willingly adopts that moniker.Tsukiko Amano has spent most of her life as a musician, saying that she began studying the piano at the age of five. By the time Amano finished high school she had already invested years improving her vocals and her guitar skills. And she already showed promise as a songwriter in an industry where many artists perform music composed by others—especially solo female musicians, or am I the only one who has that impression?Amano’s early singles and albums were not massive commercial achievements, but they were by no means failures either. Her Western-influenced rock styling and her strong sense of independence proved popular enough; Amano would not only write her own songs but was typically involved in every little detail of her albums, e.g. creating the cover art herself. She attracted the attention of Pony Canyon, a major label, and it is there that Tsukiko Amano would release her most commercially successful music. I think her 2005 album A Moon Child in the Sky did the best in terms of the Oricon charts, but I am just pulling that off the top of my head; I am too lazy to fact-check and could easily be wrong on that, heh.Amano released this album I’ve ripped today, Uma Salmon, during her stint at Pony Canyon. The name is a reference to the actress Uma Thurman, as Japanese often uses the ’s’ to imitate the English ’th’. This was not the first album that Amano named after an actor. It was a pattern for album names during the first seven years of her career, e.g.1. Sharon Stones2. Meg & Lion3. Winona RidersSpeaking of names—acute readers who are kind enough to read this long-winded diatribes of mine will have noticed I have written her name as both ‘Tsukiko’ and ‘Tsuki’. The former is her real name. But in 2008 she announced to her fans that she would henceforth go by ‘Tsuki’. And then she entered her brief retirement soon afterwards. Upon her return she continued to use the name Tsuki, and so that is the name I used when uploading this album, even though her name was still Tsukiko in 2007.I realize I have said almost nothing about the album itself. All I really can think to say is that it’s an awesome rock album, and like Winona Riders it is a collection of B-sides and other songs that were not previously released on any of her studio albums. I would not call Uma Salmon her best album, but I also don’t believe Amano’s ever released a bad album. So if you like this then I’d expect you will like everything else she’s done.As always, enjoy! And feedback, questions, and requests are always welcome.