Iriomote is the westernmost of the Okinawan islands, but is generally not as known for its music as Ishigaki, or even Miyako. Suguru Ikeda is a young singer and sanshin player with a fairly deep and raspy voice. He is accompanied by piano player Chigusa Ishikawa on renditions of mainly Iriomote island songs. While the piano is fine on a couple of tunes, having it throughout takes the album too far into new age territory, and makes this a one dimensional album. Suffering from lack of variety, nevertheless, the album has some beautiful moments, mostly because of some great songs and singing.
