"I search for answers a lot in life when I feel like I don't know which way to go or what's right or wrong," says singer-songwriter Angela Aki. "So I turn to the piano and search for the answers through songs, and I figured in the end that the searching process has all the answers you are truly looking for."

Born in Itano, a town of 14,600 in rural Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku Island, to a Japanese father (Kiyoshi Aki, cofounder of the AEON English-school chain) and an Italian-American mother, 31-year-old Aki's turbulent life story — which took her to the United States and back again — has handed her more questions than most. The raw candidness of her music over three albums exemplifies her keen desire for reflection, and her loquacious tongue discloses just how much Aki wears her heart on her sleeve — no more so than on her new album, appropriately titled "Answer."

Likened to the music of American artists Tori Amos and Fiona Apple, Aki's plaintive odes to love lost and found saw her 2006 Japanese debut album, "Home," sell over half a million copies, peaking at No. 2 on the Oricon chart. Its 2007 followup, "Today," went to No. 1, but it was her eighth single at the end of 2008, titled "Tegami" ("Letter"), that seemed to resonate the most with audience and artist alike.