Salyu
Merkmal

Red smoke in the eyes and cherries in the right hand.

Listening to a Salyu album is like wandering into a field of red poppies and appreciating its poetry, like letting your tongue be caressed by a marshmallow just entered into the oral cavity, feeling its sweetness, its softness, and its essence.

Salyu's music manages to be simple and innovative at the same time, with its continuous poignant transformation at every note. Often compared to the immense Bjork, this fascinating Japanese singer and musician draws inspiration from her muse, ultimately offering her own soul to songs that come to life and, almost playfully, delve into the listener's personality in a joyful game of hide and seek. The music thus becomes passion and play, art and feeling. A constant intersection of arty feelings that stretch back from the notable debut of the singer, the masterpiece "All About Lily Chou Chou" (2000), the soundtrack of the extraordinary film of the same name by Shunji Iwai under the pseudonym Lily Chou Chou, continuing in the excellent "Landmark" (2005) and "Terminal" (2007), up to the redemption greatest hits, "Merkmal" (2008), essential for getting to know the artist and appreciating her continuous changes in direction: from electronics, to jazzier tones, reaching folk, pop, and a few touches of blues.

This isn't pop music: it's some sort of union of immediacy and complexity that finds its point of no return in the captivating opening "Platform" (also included in the soundtrack of the thriller "Metro Ni Notte"), proceeding with other enchanting gems, like the syncopated calm of "I Believe", a pained and sorrowful electronic ballad that sends rapid chills on the skin, like ants wanting to feed on emotions. A flash in the clear sky and a vortex of mid-air suspensions. Sighs coming directly from the heart that blend until the liberating final scream on electric guitars that chase each other and on the thundering of a drum that touches the atmosphere, making "I Believe" a piece of undeniable value, fluttering like a lilac butterfly dancing among snowflakes.

And "Landmark", a fabulous introspection with prayer-like tones that moves from whispers to shouts, with an ending that, after the icy intercession of the beautiful opening, concludes in incisive and poetic rock. "Name", so subdued as to evoke emotion with intertwining violins and an always moving voice.

With drool at the mouth, the notes flow gently, chasing each other in my room and I, in the center of it on the white marble floor with legs crossed and absorbed in my thoughts, let myself be overcome by the magnificent notes and feel my lips scenting of blueberries, as "Tower" begins, a cheerful and lively elegy with tinkles and percussions that caress and flirt. A cry of life against the night sky and the overwhelming desire to cut through the darkness with a silvery cutter on the sonic spiral of "Valon", a ballad that intertwines sonorous desires of immense intensity with bursts of sulfurous and raw hip hop, yet surprisingly effective.

Concluding the circle, the enchanting "Glide", the minor piece of the debut album, but undoubtedly a song not devoid of charm and with that warm and enchanting essence of the best Salyu, a multifaceted and beautiful goddess of the ether and stars, with skin that smells of strawberries and a smile of pancakes.