Kabutomushi | Cassette

Mei Semones | Kabutomushi - Cassette

From Brooklyn, NY! Young singer-songwriter who studied jazz guitar at Berklee! Impressive singing in both Japanese and English. Her overwhelming talent is a complex encounter of jazz, bossa nova, and J-POP. A beautiful voice with deep shades, sharp jazz guitar passages, shifting polyrhythms, melancholy strings... A mysterious "sound" world you've never heard before. Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan to a Japanese mother, Simonez began playing piano at the age of four and switched to electric guitar at eleven. After playing jazz guitar in high school, he studied guitar performance with a focus on jazz at Berklee College of Music. After moving to New York City in 2022 and releasing a single and EP, May and her band collaborated with post-bossa balladeer John Roseboro and toured for the first time with the melodic rock band Raavi. They were recently featured extensively in Rolling Stone magazine. Favorite Japanese artists include Regal Lily, yonige, Ichiko Aoba, Kimijima Ozora, Lamp, and tricot.This work was recorded with a self-formed band, with a talented member from Berkeley who also plays the viola and violin. A new indie act that doesn't fit into any existing genre. They performed at Blue Note Place in January 2024 with Mamiko of chelmico. They also performed together. He says, "My favorite artist is John Coltrane. And Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. It's not my music at all, but I take a lot from it in terms of harmonies. I take a little bit of Coltrane's Coltrane multi-tonic system and dominant7 sharp11 chord.