Artist Spotlight: December- Natccu

Welcome to my Artist Spotlight, every month on my World Tour show (Sunday's 4-5pm KCC Live) I select an musician or band and play tracks from their discography, and on this blog I'll be writing about the artist or musician in question. This month's Artist Spotlight is Natccu from Japan.

Described by her website as a 'singer and a songwriter, but not a singer-songwriter' (which doesn't make much sense but hey its a free world) Natccu (pronounced na-chew) plays the guitar on most of the tracks from her debut album (called Sketchbook) her music genre has been described as a mix of Rock, Japanese Pop and Jazz, at live shows she is accompanied by a second guitarist, a bassist and drummer. Her website also features several of her songs available to listen to as does her Myspace.

I mentioned seeing Natccu in my blog about Japanese bands coming to play during the Liverpool Sound City Festival and I was impressed by her performance, and was able to get a seven track E.P from her, the E.P really shows versatility in this artist. The bouncy, bass laden first track Apple Z were the guitars screech under Natccu's vocals is very different from the balladesque Crescent Moon which is sung in English (a Japanese version of which, Kagen No Tsuki also appears on this E.P as the) the song sounds like The Goo Goo Dolls Slide but at the same time shows that Natccu can evolve her style from a pop punk genre to a soft melodic rock sound, shifting gears to a guitar heavy track like third track Calendar.

Randoseru Salaryman is another track which have a strong bass line but also has some synth sounds, while the guitar isn't as heavy in this track it fills the strong presence Natccu leaves behind when she isn't singing. Her track Hakushon! Bless You features sci-fi guitar sounds over a bounding beat, while her vocals switch between English and Japanese at a drop of a hat adding spontaneity to her style, perhaps this is where the Jazz influence comes in, though the sixth track on her E.P Tareta Cosmos has a back room jazz feel to it despite the wavering Japanese vocals which change their pattern from a soft spoken style to an intense growl that really throws the empthasis into the word she is singing.

Natccu has toured the UK three times, she first toured in October 2008, before returning in May this year and finally again in July, she is currently playing a few dates in Japan and hopefully is planning on releasing a second album.