Toshi - Breaking Through

Toshi

Toshi - Breaking Through

TOSHI
TIME TO SHARE
Epic/Sony Music
Sept. 21, 2004

Can you hear with your eyes closed?

Forget everything your mind, your society, or your community have told you about what soul music looks like. Forget it all because it doesn’t have a color. There is only a sound. And Toshi has mastered the sound of soul even though he hails from a land 7,000 miles away from the birthplaces of soul music.

Toshi - Time To Share
Toshi - Breaking Through
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ABOUT THE ARTIST

Toshi began to search for soul music on vinyl. As a young teenager, he came across an offer on a soda bottle in his father's store. In exchange for dozens of bottle tops, he would receive a free album. "I don't know if my father ever found out," says Toshi with a smile. "But there were a lot of opened soda cans with no tops in that store!" His reward was a vinyl album from The States with an English title that he couldn't even read. "There were five black men with Afros standing there. And all I could read was 'Stylistics.' And it took me three years after that to finally get a record player so I could hear it!"

By then, Toshi had also been introduced to Stevie Wonder and the album that changed his life. "Songs In The Key of Life was the first album I actually bought,” says Toshi. "And it changed everything for me. His voice, his songs, everything was different from anything I had ever heard before." Don't bother asking Toshi how or why his definitive obsession for soul music came about because there is no earthly reason. But understand this when Toshi opens his mouth in song nothing but bonafide soul spills out.

"I can't explain it," he says with a sigh. "It's just always been this way. I love soul music and that's what I was meant to do. I knew that very early in my life."

By junior high, Toshi had his own band. But he was frustrated. "I wanted to sing a specific kind of music. But my band couldn't play it. It's different, especially for Japanese people. They loved it but they couldn't play it. Toshi went to Tokyo to study economics after high school. But he spent more time performing in various clubs than hitting the books. And the process was very humbling. "One night, there'd be one person in the audience," he says. "The next night, maybe three people. The next week, maybe ten people that would be a good night."

His tenacity paid off. On one of those sparse nights, a major record label representative was in the house. He introduced Toshi to a jazz musician who was looking for a vocalist for his upcoming jazz album. "I went to the studio and performed one song and that was my first experience in the studio. I was so nervous! But the music was well received and that song became one of my demo tracks." Since the release of his vocals on that jazz album, which was an instrumental part in getting his solo career off the ground, Toshi has never played to a small audience again. In a career that has seen Toshi work with the crme de la crme of the modern soul world, from Raphael Saddiq, to The Roots' Ahmir Thompson, and Angie Stone, Toshi has enjoyed an incredible career, selling over ten million records worldwide and gaining the respect of soul music's most respected artists.

"It is quite an amazing feeling when someone I admire like Ahmir from The Roots tells me that I could change the way people think about soul music,” says Toshi in a soft voice. "It means so much to me to be respected by the people who love and understand the same music that I do."

ABOUT THE ALBUM

On his latest release, Time To Share, Toshi clearly shows how he has earned the accolades of his peers and why they all clamored to be a part of his project. The album’s opener sets the stage for the experience. "Beating Of My Heart” begins with a soft and peaceful, oceanic sound. Toshi's gentle murmurs and coos echo the instrumentation light synthesizers. The effects taper off and leave nothing but the sound of a steady and strong heartbeat. Under rich, harmonious backgrounds, Toshi croons: "You are more to me; you are the very beating of my heart."

With a sound that is part Maxwell, part D'Angelo, and yet 100% originally Toshi, he effortlessly commands not just the lyrics or the melody of soul music, but the very emotional essence of what makes it real. The instrumentation is sparse, allowing Toshi's voice to shine through. It is a set-up to a stellar album with a specific mood.

"You may not notice when you first listen," says Toshi. "But I use the word 'share' in almost every love song on this album. Which is why I titled my album Time To Share. I want people to share with me, feel the emotions I felt when I recorded the music. Underground hip-hop favorite and critical darling Mos Def shows up on the aptly titled "Living For Today,” an intricate mid-tempo that focuses on the importance of taking things day by day. It’s about settling in with a loved one and not worrying about what will happen the next day. Toshi approaches this track with confident command and his simple lyricism easily becomes complex thoughts. At a time when the love sentiment in music is reduced to physical attributes and material goods, it's enlightening and refreshing to hear Toshi and Mos Def's heartfelt missives on true love.

In addition to paying homage to modern soul music, Toshi brings it 80s style, with pop-inflected tunes that make it impossible to keep still. "Breaking through,” an album highlight is one of those '80s throwbacks. The melody and the message are all about that intense rush of emotion you feel the first time you know you are in love. The bass and keyboards beg for live interpretation it's a song made to start of a furious night of dancing on a promising first date.

Several years ago, Toshi made an acquaintance in the music industry that would prove to be one of his most valuable and treasured friendships. "I met Angie Stone during a writing session with Raphael Saddiq," says Toshi. "She helped me put into words a lot of the things I wanted to say and we had so much in common that we just instantly cliqued. We've been very good friends ever since."

That kinship is evidence on, "Hold Me Down," on which Angie and Toshi engage in a sweet duet. All differences aside, they are truly a natural pair. Musically, it’s a mellow, lush groove with similar backing vocals. And Angie's incredible vocals bring out the best Toshi's as well.

A full, intense introduction, replete with several backing vocals, starts off the meditative and pensive "Shadows of Your Love." There are subtle strings here and percussion here, layered with synthesized keys. The combination works as a wedding proposal, vows, and a wedding march, all in one achingly sweet ballad.

On "Neva Satisfied," a dramatic production, wind instruments compete for space with gospel-like choirs and a stuttering beat. Toshi wails about the pull of a woman that he can't escape. With a spoken-word style of singing, he tries out a falsetto that is accomplished and pristine.

After one listen to Toshi's emotionally charged album, there will be one obvious question. How? How does a man born and raised in one of the most homogenous countries in the world pick up the vocal styling that originated in the American Deep South? How? How can he master the feeling, the effect, and the essence?

You can ask. But be prepared. Toshi will sit back in his chair, run his fingers through his hair and sigh. He'll close his eyes for a minute and think. And then he may try to explain, in his halting Japanese accent. "Whenever people ask me that kind of question, it's very tough for me to answer because I have no reason. It's very natural. I listened to Marvin Gaye. At the same time, Outkast was listening to Marvin Gaye. At the same time George Michael listened to Marvin Gaye. Different countries same music. It motivated me the same ways that it motivated them. Music truly is universal. We can all understand each other through music."

Listen without prejudice. Surrender to the soul. Experience the wonder that is Toshi.

http://www.toshionline.com

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