Daija

Pseudonym used by 一ノ宮頼子 (Yoriko Ichinomiya) in the early 2000s. Before devoting herself to songwriting, Daija has been a dancer and a professional soccer player, and travelled all around the world. As an urban artist inspired mostly by the New York scene of the 1990s (funk, hip-hop, r'n'b, acid jazz and lounge, but also, more occasionally, shoegaze and trip-hop), her music was a mix of these influences and could result either in catchy, flirtatious songs with a funky beat, smooth love ballads with a 90s r'n'b feel or unusually sad, melancholic dream pop songs with existential, surrealistic or esoteric lyrics. One of her characteristics was to use whispered, sensual vocals instead of regular soul-inspired singing. Sometimes world elements were incorporated, such as sitar in the song "To the Unseen Ground". Daija released one EP titled "Aphrodisiac" (媚薬) in 2000, and one album titled "Chaos" in 2001. Later on, she changed her style to contemporary folk and jazz, and released new music, this time under her real name. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.