Over the course of a career that has spanned more than four decades Akiko Yano
has straddled genres ranging from disco to electronic to funk to new wave to
synthpop, but it's for jazz-styled j-pop that she is perhaps best-known. Her
sense of whimsy and mischief have seen her compared to Kate Bush. Born Akiko
Suzuki in 1955, Yano got her start in music studying jazz piano in high school
and by 1976 she had recorded her first album, 'Japanese Girl', in Los Angeles
with Lowell George and Little Feat. She was briefly married to Makoto Yano, the
producer on 'Japanese Girl', but the re...