Where were you when you heard that defining record, that sound, that something that seemed to be an unearthly bolt from the blue, an indefinably moving sound that eats up your senses and tells you nothing is how it seems and won't be ever again?

I was driving a beat up jeep around the hills in Wakayama, they weren't my wheels and it only had a tape deck. I had bored of the tapes in the glovebox when I remembered that tape grubbily pressed into my hands the previous night by a friend -'listen to this, her voice could turn water to wine' ...I fumbled with the eject button to get the tape in....

I got goosebumps and hairs stood on end when I heard the beauty of the voice on the tape, I had no frame of reference to compare it too, at first it seemed as if the tape player was playing in reverse, the vocalist 'slid' between notes in a way I had never heard. I was listening to the voice of Tomoko Uehara who is part of Okinawa's 'Rinken Band'
and yes I still get the goosebumps when I hear her sing and I'm still no nearer explaining what it is that is so heavenly about that voice...listen for yourself....