Satellite Lovers -- Best Friend

 

Hopefully, everyone is having a nice time out this weekend. Mind you, in our province over the past couple of weeks, folks ranging from restauranteurs to patio-loving customers have been on tenterhooks because of a strike that was going on with employees of the provincial liquor board stores. This meant that stocks of alcohol were slowly going dry and if it hadn't been for the resolution of the dispute earlier this morning, drinkers would have had a hard time getting their scotch-on-the-rocks and margaritas, but it looks like the taps will be running again as of Tuesday...if everything is ratified.

Anyways, getting away from local labour disputes, I think this song can make for a pleasant accompaniment to any outside patio for a drinking establishment in Shibuya or the Tokyo Bay area. As one YouTube commenter put it, the band Satellite Lovers slipped through the cracks of recognition for that person as they did for me. I only discovered them within the last few weeks. Their J-Wiki article has them categorized as two men and one woman starting out in 1994 as a folksier Shibuya-kei soul unit but later going into hip-hop.

Vocalist Mika Ikeuchi（池内美加）, guitarist Hiroyuki Suzuki（鈴木洋之）and guitarist/bassist Yutaka Nakano（中野豊）put out two singles and four albums and mini-albums in those 1990s, and to begin the Satellite Lovers file on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", we have "Best Friend", the first track on their July 1996 mini-album "Sons of 1973". The first few seconds of an organ that sounded like the opening for an old-fashioned radio-based soap opera worried me for a bit but then came the horns including the lovely flugelhorn and I was set at ease. "Best Friend" really is a summery and pleasant mid-tempo tune to join one for a Heineken or a Sapporo Super Dry.