Mai Yamane

Her career started in 1979 when she participated and won the prize in Yamaha Music Foundation's Cocky Pop, a contest for young singers in Japan. Leading from that she debuted in 1979 with the single Gozen Reiji (午前０時), written and composed by Yoko Shibata.[5] A year later she released her first album, Tasogare (1980). She followed with albums like The Day Before Yesterday (1984), Flying Elephants (1985), Embassy (1986), Woman Tone (1988) and 1958 (1989). She also collaborated with many artists, e.g. in 1993 she worked on project Yamane Mai Kubota Haruo Unit with Haruo Kubota. The same year she began working with Yoko Kanno on anime soundtracks. In 1997 she moved from Tokyo to near Mount Fuji and became an independent musician.[1]

In 1995 she started playing with New Archaic Smile (NAS), a Japanese band where Mai Yamane was a vocalist. The rest of the band was Mai's sister Eiko Yamane (who also was the vocalist in UGUISS[6][7][8]), brother Satoru Yamane[1] and the Sano brothers Satoshi and Atsushi. In 1997 the Futsuu no Uta single was born in collaboration with June Chiki Chikuma.[9] Yamane recorded 3 more albums with New Archaic Smile: Kin no Himo in 2001, Yasashii kimochi in 2003 and Yakitori no uta in 2004.

Yamane has continuously held concerts, such as in 2000 at the Inochi no Matsuri ("Festival of Life") in Nagano, a 2002 Paris concert,[2] at a Global Village event during Expo 2005 in Aichi,[2] and in 2007 at Seoul as a member of the Yoko Kanno team. In 2001 she changed her name from 山根 麻衣 (Yamane Mai) to 山根 麻以 (Yamane Mai).[10][1] In 2011 she adopted the artist name a-sha (アーシャ) and began hosting sessions for workshops and healing.[1]

In 2017, her song "Tasogare" gained attention as the city pop genre got renewed interest, even leading to sampling of it in genres like future funk. In 2019, producer Pierre Bourne and hip hop artists Young Nudy and Playboi Carti used a sample of the song on their unreleased track "Pissy Pamper". A leaked version of the song topped the Spotify US Viral 50 chart before being taken down.[3][11]

In 1996 she married Takao Yamada (山田孝男), a top author on meditation in Japan. They were married for seven years, until his death in 2003. She worked as an assistant in his seminars.

• Mai Yamane discography at Discogs