Japanese Dido (Michiaki Kato and Shizuru Ohtaka) in Pagina (1989) and Ksana (1994) [limited time only]

So I don't know (how could I?) if these guys became successful in their home country of Japan with the simple and expressive beauty of the 1994 album Ksana, but it sure would be a shame if they didn't. It's just full of great songs and composition and almost nothing simplistic, a lot of influences from the alternative music that was prevalent at the time, the kind of breathy female vocalizing of Stina Nordenstam for ex, for those who are familiar with her (and back then almost 30 years ago, I really loved her music, she became big when 'Little Star' was used in the Leonardo di Caprio movie Romeo and Juliet if you recall.

The style is all over the place as you can tell from the descriptor on discogs:

Electronic, Jazz, Rock, PopArt, Rock, Ethereal, Jazz-Rock, Ambient, Dance-pop

But it's really mostly ambient jazzy alternative songs with a lot of emotion.

First album called Pagina is not as good as the later one, from the first, Fu-Mi:

From Ksana, the title track

The album closes out with Are You Ready for Love which absolutely blows me away with its tender and exquisite craftsmanship and beauty done in a waltz tempo with the intro of course reminiscent or perhaps a nod to Satie's Gymnopedies:

It could so easily have been a 'by the numbers' series of generic chord progressions on top of diatonic chords, but notice how the key keeps travelling or modulating from the beginning of I guess F major or thereabouts then moving into flat keys every few measures. Then the bridge which is instrumental presents us again with a totally different key change.  Also highly appreciated by myself is the fact the strings arrangement is not overdone in the least, it's a very light touch.  Not clear who is the arranger, on the first album there are too many credits to really get an idea of what's going on.