Soto – »Soto EP« (Creation Centre)

Experimental J-Pop Two of the four members of experimental Pop-outlet Soto made a first impact on me with their debut release for the Creation Centre Netlabel under the name of Oto. Situated between LA and Kyoto, equipped with a certain focus on Folk and Pop, Soto took a good step towards traditional song-structures, slightly moving away from pure sound design and tapestry.

Actually, there is a rather big amount of Westcoast-Pop within this tiny EP. “My Blue Plane”, the last of the four tunes, brings forth a strong Beach Boys flavor, dressed in an introvert shoegaze outfit. Simon & Garfunkel came to my mind, too. You can’t beat beauty, that’s a fact, no matter how many generations passed! Make sure to catch all the little noise, flutes, guitar and vocal-layers… stunning, ethereal.

But there are three more songs to be heard. The opener “Playful Day” is a Animal Collective-style meditation on delay and reverberated clusters of guitar, just fine. “Only Star” comes off as a surprising mixture of smooth Jazz-vocals (Japanes language), chamber Pop and loose snippets of rhythm. The violin introduced here is more prominent deployed in the third tune “Orange”. A sweet and innocent Pop-song with melodica, strings and fine guitars-noise in the back, super.

The haunting artwork was done by Ryoko Uchida (no infos though…).

Soto in their Rehersal Room