Singer-songwriter Mayu Wakisaka harbors dreams of Hollywood, but she's not about to enroll at drama school.
"I want my songs to be used in Western TV dramas and commercials," she says. "I don't really want my songs to be sung at karaoke . . . I'm really bad at making things that sound like J-pop. So when you consider that, the songs naturally end up sounding like they were made for a more Western fanbase."
Wakisaka's debut full-length album, "Half Way to You," was released here last month and will come out in South Korea and Singapore on May 30. It's a compilation of tracks from her previously self-released EPs and, true to her own descriptions of them, they don't sound like typical Oricon chart fare: There are no cheesy, easy-to-sing karaoke choruses here. Some of the standouts include "24 Hours," a quiet acoustic ballad in which Wakisaka counts down the moments until she leaves a lover, the country music-inspired "Between You and Me," and "Into the Wild," a dynamic track with quiet verses that sample natural sounds before leading into a soaring chorus that evokes a nostalgic longing for youthful romance.