The three piece band The Brilliant Green from Kyoto is one of the few japanese artists who are already recognized outside of Japan. A couple of years ago the website of the american magazine »Time« included the band in a - »highly opinionated, probably inflammatory« as the article stated - list of the ten best contemporary bands outside the USA - together with bands like U2, Radiohead or Portishead. The best description of the music of The Brilliant Green is alternative rock. On most of their albums about half of the tracks are in Japanese and about half of the tracks in English. Their third album »Los Angeles«, which is probably their best album so far, was the first one with entirely japanese lyrics.
The Brilliant Green are guitarist Ryu Matsui, bassist Shunsaku Okuda and singer Tomoko »Tommy« Kawase who under the name TommyFebruary6 (referring to her date of birth) also has a solo career and in the late 90s also worked as a VJ at MTV Japan. The band was formed in February 1995 when former High School classmates Matsui and Okuda met Tommy following her live performance at a local club in Kyoto. The Brilliant Green released their first single in 1997. Their breakthrough came in 1998 with their third single »There will be love there«, their first song in Japanese that reached the top of the japanese charts and made the The Brilliant Green the most succesful newcomer band of 1998 in Japan.

More about The Brilliant Green at:

The Brilliant Green at Sony Music Japan (English)