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10/14/2012 - Merry Christmas from Bearforest Records~Bearforest no Christmas~
7/11/2012 - News Bits
1/16/2012 - Bearforest Handmade Vol. 3 Announced
1/15/2012 - New single: "Sentimental Loveletter"

Shoko Suzuki (鈴木祥子) is a singer-songwriter from Japan. Since releasing her first record in 1988, Shoko has put out a large number of truly excellent albums, and has also written many hit songs for other artists in her native Japan.

Very few artists have the sheer versatility that Shoko displays. In addition to being an excellent singer and songwriter, she is a gifted multi-instrumentalist: piano, guitar and drums are her usual instruments of choice, but she can play much more than that if needed. Indeed, her 1999 album Love, painful love features Shoko playing every single instrument, very much in the vein of Todd Rundgren, one of her musical heroes.

Shoko's versatility extends to her musical styles, as well -- your average album by Shoko Suzuki will cross many musical boundaries: from rock to country to piano ballads and all points in-between. She is very much like Paul McCartney or Todd Rundgren in her ability to tackle so many different genres of music convincingly.

The aim of this site is to, hopefully, bring some awareness to Shoko's music to others, specifically to those in the West. Her music is uniformly excellent and can transcend any language barrier -- but even if you're still leery, she will occasionally write and sing songs in near-perfect English that are as good as any Western artist out there today.

Feel free to use the menu located above to poke around the site. If you'd like to check out any live dates or Shoko's own thoughts, hit up her Official Site.

If you are a Shoko Suzuki fan and want to contact me, or if you see errors that need correcting, feel free to contact me at:

The Latest From Shoko Suzuki at CDJapan