New Utada Hikaru Album Dropping September 28

Japanese Pop Goddess Utada Hikaru will be releasing her first new album in 8 years on September 28. The yet-to-be-titled album will be Utada’s 6th Japanese album, and 9th overall.

Utada’s hiatus began in 2010, where she cited exhaustion for needing to take an extended break. In the interim, she released three songs, including “Sakura Nagashi”, the theme song of Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo; she also got married and gave birth to baby boy in 2015. 

From the official press release:

Utada Hikaru’s first original full album in 8 years is finally taking shape! The tracklisting will include “Hanataba Wo Kimini” (title tune of NHK drama serial “Toto Nee-Chan: Fatherly Sister”, which achieved No. 1 on 107 different charts in and outside of Japan), “Manatsu No Tooriame” (theme song of Nippon Television “NEWS ZERO”) and “Sakura Nagashi” (the single that came out digitally in November 2012 as the theme song of “Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo”).  These three songs will be made available on CD for the first time, and all of the other on the album will be newly written works.