"Mirage" is Yoko Yamamoto's second solo album. Either it is out of a young woman's dreamy imagination or the workings of the spirits of animism, on a variety of songs contained on this album a woman's heart in love seems to be possessed by the whole creation. Yamamoto's silky-transparent voice sings of love from different points of view as if she's a mischievous, coquettish fairy who can change herself into anything at will, or miko (Japanese female shaman) who as a spiritualistic medium channels supernatural. A woman's love crosses over the sea as a bird, crawls on the ground as a turtle, talking about love as a storyteller of the forest, runs freely as a wind, kills herself as a tragic lover, stokes her beloved as a reaper, takes a song lesson as a ghost, sheds tears as the earth, and wakes up as a fairy. All the songs on "Mirage" are a bit strange stories full of wonders, but the producer Shigetoshi Yamada's fantastical electro sound makes these surreal narratives into a-bit-weird-but-beautiful love songs, while the entire album plays like a musical staging a woman's rich inner world. This woman in love is serious, humorous, cute, endearing, fragile, scary, sentimental, sexy, passionate, tenacious, philosophical, unfettered and free. The way Yamamoto's airy light sensitivity captures subtle, tricky, indefinable quality of women's heart in love fascinates the listener. On the other side of this world, spirits of love may be holding one of those dazzling banquets blindingly radiant and glitzy like this "Mirage" album.