Ego-Wrappin' -- Cassavetes （カサヴェテス）

Ego-Wrappin's "Cassavetes" is definitely one unique bird just for the title alone. I don't know whether Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori（中納良恵・森雅樹） were fans of one of the pioneers of American indie films, the late John Cassavetes, but I think the song has a style all its own perhaps in the way that the film maker followed his own path.

I remember "Cassavetes" getting all of the hoopla on the music stations with its avant-gardish video starring lyricist and composer Nakano (Mori also worked on the melody) as a Japanese actress who just seemed to end up in some 60s European film. The song launches with a dramatic thump-thump and some urgent mysterious jazz as if it were part of a score for some film noir before Nakano starts singing these rather beatnik words with a delivery as jumpy as the flight of the Millennium Falcon through the asteroid field in "The Empire Strikes Back". Then, somewhere in the middle, there is a brief musical interlude for a bit of café and a waltz in some countryside coffeehouse. As I said, it is one unique bird. I think the one thing missing in "Cassavetes" is the finger-snapping, but I believe the bongo drums are in there. It fits the Ego-Wrappin' bohemian style to a proverbial 'T'.

And strangely enough, it wasn't released as an official single. In fact, there would be a gap of 6 years (2002-2008) between their 2nd and 3rd singles. "Cassavetes" was kept on as a track on Ego-Wrappin's 4th album, "merry merry" which came out in September 2004. It peaked at No. 4 on the Oricon album charts.

Ego-Wrappin' -- merry merry