Double

Takako Hirasawa, performing solely under the name Double, ranks among the earliest figures to bring Western rhythm & blues to Japanese audiences and earned the local designation “R&B Queen.” The moniker, unusual for an individual artist, stems from a painful origin: the project began as a duo when she and her younger sister Sachiko Hirasawa formed the act, only for Sachiko to pass away prior to the first album’s appearance. Raised in Niigata, the Hirasawa sisters had received classical piano training in childhood; their introduction to American R&B arrived after an older sibling returned from time spent in the United States with a collection of CDs. The music of TLC and Mary J. Blige inspired the pair to launch their own group, and in 1997 they began performing in Niigata clubs under the name Double. Shortly afterward they signed with Tokyo-based For Life Records, which arranged a year-long residency at Yokota Air Base—the first booking of Japanese artists at the U.S. Air Force facility in twenty-seven years.

Their debut single, “For Me,” appeared in 1998 and featured in the television miniseries Tsumetai Tsuki; three additional singles preceded the album Crystal, which reached number two on the Oricon chart in 1999. That same year Sachiko Hirasawa died from a brain hemorrhage. Takako withdrew from recording and even ceased listening to music, yet she resumed activity a year later, keeping the Double name as a memorial. Her first post-hiatus single, “U,” arrived in 2000, the same year Double issued a self-titled album that was later released in an English-language edition in 2001. Vision followed in 2002 and Wonderful in 2003, each eventually appearing in remixed editions, as Crystal had done earlier. The jazz-oriented Life Is Beautiful project surfaced in 2004, after which Double entered an extended quiet period that yielded only two singles between 2005 and 2006.

A return came in 2007 with the album Reflex and the concurrent DJ venture Virgin Mix, issued under the alias DJ Lilly a.k.a. Double; a remixed version of Reflex also appeared that year. In 2008 the career-spanning sets 10 Years Best We R&B and The Best Collaborations—featuring guest appearances by DJ Kaori, Ai, Heartsdales, and Zeebra—both climbed to number two on the charts.