lecca – City Caravan (a J!-ENT World Groove Album Review)

October 25, 2008 by Dennis Amith

“Lecca’s 4th album “City Caravan” shows her diverse style in music as she flows from reggae, reggae house and pop. But her acoustic tracks on this album are what I was attracted to and overall, a pretty cool album if you are a fan of Lecca’s works.”

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BAND: lecca

ALBUM: City Caravan

LABEL: cutting edge

CATALOG #: CTCR-14585

DURATION: 56:56

RELEASE DATE: July 30, 2008

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

prologue
TAO ～City Caravan II TAO ~ City Caravan II
CIRCUIT BUS feat. Voicemail CIRCUIT BUS feat. Voicemail
愛&lie&wine
アミュレット Amulet
When a girl loves somebody When a girl loves somebody
Mirror
interlude
宵祭 Eve
家路始～City Caravan III ~ City Caravan III home starts
さよならを言う前に To say goodbye
家路終～City Caravan III ~ City Caravan III final home
時の中で In time
BELLE EPOQUE feat. Diggy-MO’ BELLE EPOQUE feat. Diggy-MO ‘
サンセット Sunset
epilogue
City Caravan City Caravan

Japanese born/Waseda University graduate and reggae singer lecca (pronounced as Rekka) debuted back in 2005 as an Indie artist (for Alpha Enterprise) before being picked up by Cutting Edge in 2006. She’s part of a group of Cutting Edge reggae artist with duo MEGARYU and reggae artist PANG.

With lecca’s music, you get a bit of reggae house and pop. But with the release of her fourth album “City Caravan”, it’s a bit of a mixed bag as you get a mix of a variety of music. From her first vocal track on the album titled “TAO~City Caravan II” and the 13th track “時の中で”, you get mid-tempo pop ballads but by the third track “CIRCUIT BUS” and track 14 with “BELL EPOQUE”, you step into familiar lecca territory with an upbeat dance track. And then you get the reggae dancehall with her fourth track “Ai & lie & wine”. And then you get tracks that are more reggae-style with “When a girl loves somebody”, “Mirror”, “Sunset” and one of my favorite tracks on the album “さよならを言う前に”

But the surprising tracks were the “City Caravan III” tracks featuring an acoustic-based song with lecca, no dance beats just her vocals and I fell in love with these tracks.

Although this album does not come with a DVD, it does come with a CD-extra mpg of her song “Ai, Lie & Wine” which features a video of lecca singing and jamming with her two background dancers. The dancers were quite interesting as they really are doing these interesting dances.

The CD insert booklet features lyrics, production credits and pictures of lecca with a girl.

Overall, I was very pleased with Lecca’s fourth album “City Caravan”. I have had this CD playing in rotation for the last two weeks and I continue to find tracks that I just find enjoyable and just so fresh. In a way, she gives me the vibe like how UA did back in the 90′s and her ability to incorporate variety of genres into her music.

Lecca is one of Japan’s reggae artists but this album showcases that her voice can transcend to possibly other genres if she wanted to. I just fell in love with the various incarnations of “City Caravan” on the album.

Overall, a pretty cool album from lecca!

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