Utada Hikaru announced through her website that she is moving to Sony Music Labels following the expiration of her contract with Universal Music Japan. Utada's final album with Universal Music Japan was her 6th Japanese studio album titled Fantôme, which released last year in September and continues to track on Oricon's album charts.
In conjunction with Utada's announcement, Sony Music Labels also announced that Utada's contract with the label begins March 1, 2017 and announcements for her projects will be made through Epic Records Japan sometime this year.
Late last year, Utada's father and manager Utada Teruzane had briefly mentioned on Twitter that Utada would be returning to work on the theme song for KINGDOM HEARTS III, but amended his statement a day later stating that while they are eager to do it, nothing had been made official as of that time.
Utada was originally signed with Toshiba EMI back in 1997 and made her debut with the release of "Automatic" and "Time Will Tell" in 1998, and the company was eventually bought and folded into Universal Music Japan in 2013. Utada went on hiatus from music in 2011, citing that she wanted to travel and discover the world, only making a brief return to record "Sakura Nagashi" for the 2012 film Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo. Following Utada's marriage and birth of her first child, Utada announced in 2015 that she would make a return to music.
After the release of Fantôme in September 2016, Utada released the "Hikari (Ray of Hope MIX)" EP in January 2017 which featured "Hikari" and "Simple and Clean" remixes by PUNPEE for KINGDOM HEARTS HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue.
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