Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Ramjet Pulley -- Overjoyed



Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't currently have a video of Ramjet Pulley's "Overjoyed" but apparently it's out on a number of sites, including this one.

Ramjet Pulley consisted of 3 members of a larger band by the name of rumania montevideo. Not sure how the trio came up with the name although they may have been hanging out at an airport hangar. In any case, I came across their 2nd single purely by accident one day while watching the Top 100 on one of the cable music channels one Sunday morning.

"Overjoyed" , released in April 2001, isn't a cover version of the famed song by Stevie Wonder. It was written by RP's bassist, Satomi Makoshi(麻越さとみ), and composed by guitarist Kazunobu Majima(間島和伸). The soft, breathy vocals were provided by Akiko Matsuda(松田明子) who also handled the keyboards for both RP and rumania montevideo. According to the writeup on the band, Ramjet Pulley did a lot of jazz and lounge until it ended its run in 2003, but "Overjoyed" comes off as a spacy-dreamy pop tune...unlike anything I had come across before....not mainstream pop, but not quite Shibuya-kei either.. Hearing it on Sunday just enhanced the experience enough that I went out some days later into Tokyo and grabbed the single. With a name like Ramjet Pulley, it was hard to forget. For the trio, this song was their most successful single, peaking at No. 90 on Oricon.


Ramjet Pulley -- Overjoyed

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