Sara Hamamoto -- Distance

 

Back in January this year, I introduced a model-turned-singer who had her time behind the microphone for the bulk of the 1990s named Sara Hamamoto（浜本沙良）. The song of hers that I first gravitated to was "Follow Me", a track from her July 1994 debut album "Puff".

Well, what I liked about "Follow Me" was some of that sophisticated pop that grafted upon Japanese City Pop from the late 1980s. It certainly stuck around to become characteristic of the 1990s version of the genre. I think that the same holds true for the opening track from "Puff", "Distance".  Written by Kinshi Natsuno（夏野芹子）, the same lyricist behind "Follow Me", and composed by Achilles Damigos, one-half of the production duo Face 2 fAKE, "Distance" has that driving force behind the night out on the town with some of that feeling of champagne synths. However, I also love some of that lush piano in the instrumental bridge.

Interestingly enough, Hamamoto's music reminds me a bit of the works of another singer who was also just making her way through the industry at around the same time, Toko Furuuchi（古内東子）, and she had her own uptempo song with the same title of "Distance".