Mai Yamane

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Mai Yamane (山根麻衣, 山根麻以)
Background information
Born	9th October 1958
Origin	Japan, Izumo (出雲市)
Genre(s)	Jazz, Blues
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter
Years active	since 1980
Website	http://www.futsuunouta.net/F_mai.html

Mai Yamane is a Japanese singer, well known for her work on the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack with Yoko Kanno. Her career started at the very beginning of 80's when she participated young singer's contest in Japan. Six months later she finished her first album. Until 1995 she had albums like The Day Before Yesterday (1984), Flying Elephants (1985), Embassy (1986), Woman Tone (1988) and 1958 (1989). She has also collaborated with many artists, e.g. in 1993 she worked on project Yamane Mai Kubota Haruo Unit with Haruo Kubota. In 1995 the started playing with New Archaic Smile formation. Up till now she's had 11 albums. The very last time she performed abroad was in 2002 in Paris.

[edit] New Archaic Smile

The band of New Archaic Smile (NAS) is a Japanese band, where Mai Yamane is a vocalist. The band's philosophy is to have a smile for the 21st Century world. Except Mai there are also two other members of the Yamane family: Mai's sister Eiko Yamane and brother Satoru Yamane. The rest of the band are Sano brothers Satoshi and Atsushi. In 1997 Futsuu no Uta project was 'born' in collaboration with June Chiki Chikuma. With New Archaic Smile formation she recorded 3 more albums: Kin no Himo in 2001, Yasashii kimochi in 2003 and Yakitori no uta in 2004.