Review by Jason de Sah

Maki Nomiya, besides being the ultimate MAVEN of music and style, is absolutely brilliant! Here she departes from her fabulous pop sound to a more dance oriented album and the results are perfection! Its has awesome 80's inspired grooves and super catchy tunes. I highly recommend this CD for any fan of dance, club and pop music with STYLE.

I really love this album of swing gems from the wonderful Akiko and produced by musical genious Yasuharu Konishi. Like most Japanese artists in the genre, Akiko really gets it meaning she understands what a real swing album should sound like. Unfortunately in America, they're doing these shmaltzy boring renditions of this music and calling it 'campy' because they just dont get it. I highly recommend AKIKO for a fresh, fabulous, swinging time. A must have!

This album has long been a collectors item on vinyl and now you can finally have it on CD! Miyoshi Umeki was a big star in the states during the 1950's and this was her second and last album for the Mercury label in 1959. It's beautifully arranged and produced and Miyoshi sounds the best she ever has. The only problem is that this album was recorded when stereophonic sound on records was in its infancy so the stereo recording of this album is actually inferior to the mono. The reason is that her vocal is only on one side of the speakers and the orchestra on the other. Perfected stereo records have the orchestra split between both sides and the vocal in the middle for perfect sound. Even though this CD release used the stereo masters, its still quite enjoyable and highly recommended!