EPO -- Harmony (Album)

Another year, another EPO album. It seems that for my Xmas CD shopping spree, I always gotta include an EPO album; that was the case last year when I bought her 1987 "Go Go EPO". Well, this time around, I've gone for a slightly earlier release: her March 1985 "Harmony".

(full album)

Released as her 7th album, I've already covered a couple of the tracks in "Harmony", namely the title track and "Watashi ni Tsuite"（私について）, and both songs reflect the typical EPO approach: happy and jaunty pop along with some heartfelt balladry.

Virtually all of the songs except for one were written and composed by EPO herself. The first track "Performance (Overture)"（パフォーマンス）is an example of that first part in the approach. It's right to business as the singer-songwriter gives the musical equivalent of that opening night excitement on stage. Plus, I gotta say that the opening sweep of strings sounds so EPO-esque in that she just doesn't just welcome you at the door; even before you knock, she simply pulls you through the doorway and into the living room.

Track 2 at 2:54 is "Yuyake no Strut"（夕闇のストラット...Sunset Strut）, another number so fast-paced and catchy that it should have gotten its own music video with choreography on a city set, and it's something that sounds like a descendant of a World War II-era boogie by the Andrews Sisters. Just as the title says, it's some good music to some stylized walking down a metropolitan street.

I'm not sure if Track 5 "Tibetan Dance" comes anywhere near authentic Tibetan music but it combines the quirky melody of Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and the vocal acrobatics of EPO including her penchant for scatting. City Pop prince Yasuhiro Abe（安部恭弘）assists in backing vocals along with the singer herself in this track that brings in a bit of that Professorial synthpop but not enough to get it categorized as a YMO-like song.

Still, "Shanghai Etranger"（上海エトランゼ）, written and composed by EPO, does actually hit my ears as a cute technopop take on an old-fashioned song with that Asian exotic sound. Perhaps she got a bit of uncredited assistance from Sakamoto or her fellow backup singer, Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. There is something quite Ohnuki-esque about the arrangement.

My final track is "Just one little kiss", an adorable mid-tempo number about young love that kinda straddles the line between EPO's usual happy-go-lucky fun and more romantic ballads. It rather mixes some of that Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）old-fashioned 50s/60s love tune with the contemporary stuff.

I have got to listen to the album a couple of more times to really get the overall feel of "Harmony" the album, but so far, it sounds like a road trip album of sorts for EPO, trying out some different guises for her music. I think that there is still some of that City Pop that she started out with back in 1980, but it's no longer restricted to Tokyo.