Ballsack’s J-Pop Midlife Crisis, pt. 18: コシミハル

Starting sometime last year, I started really getting into Japanese music. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, because I had always thought I hated singing in Japanese. Turns out I don’t! In the night threads for the following week, I’ll write a little about each of my favorite artists that I’ve discovered, and share a streaming album for you to dutifully ignore.

Miharu Koshi is a popular musician who started releasing material in the 70s, but really came into her own in the 80s with albums like Tutu and Parallelisme, which combined synth pop with Japanese new music. She began to collaborate with Haruomi Hosono, who founded the Yellow Magic Orchestra (they’re show up again on Sunday with Akiko Yano).

She took a lot of inspiration from French music, and, later in her career, released some Chanson albums, but her synth-pop stuff is great.