Salyu

Much of Salyu's personal information and history has not been revealed publicly. Her official website's profile, for example, only lists her musical releases and commercial tie-ups, as opposed to her background.[3] However, she has revealed two personal facts about herself in her blog: her first name is Ayako (綾子)[1] and that she has four siblings.[4] Her older brother, Daisuke Mori (森大輔) is a former professional rugby union player, for the Toshiba Brave Lupus team.[5][6]

Salyu learnt piano from a young age, however abruptly stopped these lessons in junior high school.[7][8] Salyu began singing in elementary school after contracting pneumonia. On advice by her doctor to regain her lung strength, she was enrolled into a choir.[9]

In 1998, while attending high school in outer Tokyo, Salyu was inspired to become a singer after watching a friend performing at a live house.[10] Salyu auditioned in high school for a Sony musician audition and was accepted, later attending a Sony music training facility.[11][12] Music producer Takeshi Kobayashi happened by chance to see a talking/singing audition video of Salyu, and 30 seconds into the tape, he was so impressed that he decided to meet her the next day.[10][12][13] Kobayashi decided to work with her, and the pair soon began making demo tapes together.[10] He gave her the stage name Salyu, which he chose as it was similar to the French greeting salut.[12][14] Kobayashi was at the time preparing a soundtrack to Shunji Iwai's online novel and later film, All About Lily Chou-Chou. The novel and film centred around a fictional singer, Lily Chou-Chou, who began releasing actual music in 2000.[3][15][16] The project was a collaboration between Iwai, Kobayashi and Salyu, as the vocalist for the project.[16] This project allowed Salyu to perform on prominent music shows Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ and Music Station in June 2000.[17][18]

After the release of the film in 2001, the group ceased to release music.[19] Salyu began to perform concerts as a solo artist, performing on average once every two months due to her lack in self-confidence in her live performance skills.[13] Kobayashi continued to work with her during this period, giving her music, and was the one who allowed her to debut as a singer in 2004.[13] Her debut single was a collaboration with Ilmari from the hip-hop group Rip Slyme, called "Valon."[3] Salyu later released a solo version of this song, "Valon-1," several months later.[3] Salyu's second solo single "Dialogue" was awarded the Space Shower Best New Artist Video for 2004.[20] After four singles, Salyu released her debut album Landmark in June 2005, which reached No. 22 on Oricon's weekly albums charts.[21] Two days later, Salyu performed her first one-man live, at the Shibuya Club Quattro.[22]

In 2006, Salyu reached a much greater audience through the Bank Band charity single "To U," in which she was a featured vocalist.[23] The single was extremely successful, reaching number 2 on Oricon's single charts and being certified platinum.[24][25] Her next singles "Name" and "Platform" (the film Metro ni Notte's theme song)[3] were her first solo singles to chart in the top 20.[26] Salyu's second studio album Terminal was her first top 10 release, charting at number 2.[27]

Her 2007 singles "Liberty" and "Iris (Shiawase no Hako)" were her first works not to feature Kobayashi, instead were self-produced and co-written with Zentaro Watanabe.[1][28] In late 2008, Salyu released her first greatest hits album, Merkmal, that marked 10 years since meeting Kobayashi.[29] This was followed by her first performance at Budokan, during her tour for Merkmal.[3] In 2009, Salyu's single "Corteo (Gyōretsu)/Halfway" became her first top 10 single.[30] In 2010, Salyu released her third studio album, Maiden Voyage, which was her first self-produced album.[3]

Salyu's fourth album, although the first as salyu × salyu, S(o)un(d)beams, was released in 2011. It is a special collaborative concept album with Cornelius, exploring to what extent Salyu's voice can be used as an instrument.[31][32]

A fifth studio album, Photogenic, was released in 2012.

Salyu originally considered herself more of a vocalist as opposed to a musician,[12] and early on in her career held a stance that she would be a singer who did not write her own material.[33] She did not believe her compositions would be the best quality.[33] In her first album, Landmark, all of the songs were written and produced by Takeshi Kobayashi.[34] Her lyric contributions on the album were mostly suggestions for lyrics that could be better phrased.[12] Salyu was encouraged through much of her career by other musicians to try to write her own music, however she mostly ignored the suggestions, until a musician told her it would let her understand her fellow musicians better.[33]

She began branching into musicians other than Kobayashi in 2006, when musicians Yo Hitoto and Sarasa Ifu wrote lyrics to the songs on her "Tower" single.[3][35] Her first song with her billed as the lyricist was "I Believe," from her 2007 album Terminal.[36] Her 2007 singles "Liberty" and "Iris (Shiawase no Hako)" were her first works to be self-produced and her first singles to feature her own lyrics,[1][28][37] though Salyu wrote the songs in collaboration with musicians Tatsuya Kokufu and Zentaro Watanabe.[38][39] This was also the first time Salyu has not worked together with Kobayashi on a music release.

2010's Maiden Voyage was the first album of Salyu's to be self-produced.[3] It featured predominately writing by Kobayashi, however six songs featured lyrics by Salyu, two music by Salyu, and one, "L.A.F.S.," was arranged by Salyu.[40]

• Salyu.jp　 　(in Japanese) – Official Website
• Official Toy's Factory Profile (in Japanese)
• Salyu on Twitter (in Japanese)