Acoustic, jazz and eclectic folk rock.

15 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Folk-Jazz, JAZZ: Jazz-Rock

Show all album songs: navigating by stars Songs


Details:
"Lee, navigating by stars" is the first solo album from Lee Takasugi,lead singer and songwriter of Los Angeles-based indie band, "Visiting Violette." Five years in the making, this album began in "The Cave," recording studio owned by actor/musician, Billy Bob Thorton. Seven songs were produced by grammy award-winning engineer/producer,
Jim Mitchell (Warren Zevon, Guns 'N Roses), Lee Takasugi, and her two principal band-mates, Glenn Suravech and Shin Kawasaki. The second half of the album was recorded at "GrooveMasters," owned by Jackson Browne. There, Lee teamed-up with Co-producer/engineer, Bil Lane, (Jacob Dylan, Vonda Shephard), where they finished the rest
of the album in different stages in studio and via internet.

The end result is a compilation of 15 songs, rich in acoustic warmth and story-telling depth. There is a lot of space and air pushing between instruments, allowing the presence of breath, string noises, bowing noises and wooden piano hammers to come through with character. This
approach to recording mirrors the over-all theme which surfaces in many of Lee's lyrics. She writes about different stages of our unrest and how we constantly battle to keep our spontaneity and expression in this fast-paced and confusing world. --The preservation of humanity
and sanity amidst all our doubts, questions of purpose, feelings of aloneness, mistrust, and fear-- On the positive end, Lee attacks love songs with a passion, open heart and vulnerability that basically scream, "Here I am! What are we waiting for?!"

Like the Indigo Bunting Bird, a night-travelling bird which the album is named after, Lee captures in song, the journey that we all travel. We often knock about like creatures making sense of the night, but our goal is to hopefully learn to use the stars to guide our way--and what those "stars" are, is open to interpretation.

Overall, "Lee, navigating by stars" is a testament to having faith and returning to what makes each of us the
most simple, the most grounded, and the most able to believe in ourselves.