“SUN”や“地獄でなぜ悪い”といった先行シングル群が指し示した通り、ソウルやオールドタイミーなジャズ～R&Bに真っ向から取り組んだ4作目。生まれ持ってのソウル・シンガーというタイプでは決してない男がブラック・ミュージックの秘境に踏み込む……という点において小沢健二やceroとの近似性も見い出せるかもしれない。が、ともあれ彼は元来のフォーキーな詩情を損なわずに豊かなグルーヴを獲得することに成功しているし、唯一の弾き語り曲“口づけ”が本作にまったく違和感なく収まっている点がそれを証明しているように思える。SAKEROCKの解散を経て、マリンバをフィーチャーしたインストを披露しているのも感慨深い。ソロ・アーティストとしてのレンジを確実に拡張した傑作!
[English Translation]
Gen Hoshino "YELLOW DANCER"
As indicated in its pre-released singles such as “SUN” and “Jigoku de Naze Warui? (Eng. Why Don’t You Play in Hell?),” in his fourth album, Gen Hoshino has worked head-on on soul music, old time jazz, and R&B. Though he’s never the by-nature soul-singer type, he has dared to step into an unexplored area of black music. In that sense, we might be able to find a similarity to pop musician Kenji Ozawa or cero, the pops band. However, he also succeeds in obtaining a rich groove without ruining his own folky poetic sentiment, which is proved by the fact that the only acoustic guitar sing-along song “Kuchizuke (meaning Kiss)” fits absolutely perfectly and comfortably in this album. Also heart-warming is the point that the album contains an instrumental featuring a marimba after the dissolution of SAKEROCK (, the instrumental band Hoshino used to play the marimba in). Through this masterpiece, he has proven that he has surely expanded his range as a solo artist.
