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| | Japanese guitarist Goh Kurosawa, as well as being a solo instrumentalist, is a member of the group Sharp Three. Hitori is a mostly solo record (although the trio play together on the album’s closer, ‘Amai Koi’), and as an exhibition of Kurosawa’s talent it’s a complete success.
The guitarist strokes his way through the 11 tracks that make up this album with compassion, and even his re-working of ‘Like The First Day We Met’ (the theme from the Korean TV show ‘All In’) sounds like he’s put his heart and soul into it. If the album has a down side, it’s in its lack of dynamism, and Kurosawa’s apparent reluctance to display any versatility.
There’s very little fire, everything is downbeat, and as a result the album becomes very tired very quickly. Kurosawa obviously has bags of talent, but he also seems to know his strengths and he sticks to them. He himself claims that ‘Hitori (Part 2: Groove)’ and ‘Betsurui (Tremolo For Toshi)’ are the songs that represent him best, and he’s right. Both are played perfectly but neither do anything to really raise any emotion from the listener. Which, from an artist as talented as Kurosawa, is a shame.
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