Pizzicato V -- Summertime, Summertime (サマータイム・サマータイム)

https://music.apple.com/jp/album/カップルズ/1142050168

(30-second excerpt)

Came across this one recently for the first time, and seeing this was vintage 1980s Pizzicato V (as opposed to the more well-known Pizzicato Five), I was automatically intrigued because this was the time before the divine Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴）joined the band.

The album "Couples" was P5's very first album from April 1987 and it didn't include their first single, the weird yet wonderful yet non-Shibuya-kei  "The Audrey Hepburn Complex", so I had no idea what the album was about and therefore wondered if there were any of that familiar Shibuya-kei that we've all come to associate the band with.

I picked out the second track, "Summertime, Summertime", and at first, it started out with a rolling piano that I thought was rather similar to the intro to Vince Guaraldi's famous "Linus & Lucy" (the most famous tune for "Peanuts"). Then in came the bass to add a bit more heft followed by the soft-sung vocals by Mamiko Sasaki（佐々木麻美子）. Now, when I wrote up "The Audrey Hepburn Complex" all the way back in 2012, I had compared Sasaki's voice to that of fellow Shibuya-kei artist Kahimi Karie（カヒミカリエ）, but for this particular song, I thought her delivery more along the lines of pop singer Takako Okamura（岡村孝子）.

Any doubts about the song not being a Shibuya-kei tune were quickly put to rest as the sax and strings entered the fray, and then during the instrumental, the glory of the full swinging 60s horns flew in for a bombing run before Sasaki's return. Going back to her delivery, I also thought her singing was reminiscent of a nervous young ingenue performing her first part in an operetta. "Summertime, Summertime" is one unsung sunny tune written and composed by Yasuharu Konishi（小西康陽）that would go great with a sunset at around this time of year. It is a fine way to signal the end of the season.