Kaori Kuno -- Love in the Mist

 

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm a sucker for certain instruments from certain periods of time when it comes to Japanese popular music. There's the wailing electric guitar for City Pop in the early 1980s and the Fender Rhodes for all seasons.

Another instrument and time combination that I appreciate is the electric piano of the late 80s and early 90s as I've often heard it in songs by Akiko Kobayashi（小林明子）and Miki Imai（今井美樹）. It also pops up in singer-saxophonist-songwriter Kaori Kuno's（久野かおり）"Love in the Mist" from her 4th album "Rose" of 1991. From this underrated artist, by my opinion anyways, I've been further appreciating the fact that I did invest my yen into "Rose" and the 1989 "Breath" back in my Gunma days as you can see in the article thumbnail above. It's just very relaxing straightforward pop.

Garnering my feelings about that electric piano from that part of the 20th century, I guess my amity toward the instrument is that it does show off that feeling of the sophisti-pop side of City Pop from the late 1980s but at the same time, it wasn't just stuck in downtown. There is also that bright and breezy openness which that piano brings as if we listeners were suddenly transported to some lovely resort in Guam or Mykonos.

Incidentally, "Love in the Mist" was composed by Kuno and written by Yu Fukuoka（福岡有）. I'm hoping that I got the first name right for the lyricist there. As well, the video for "Love in the Mist" comes from the YouTube channel Island Fantasia whose proprietor, HRLE92, was generous enough to provide an article for the blog on Xmas Day.