Kahimi Karie -- My First Karie

 

I have a few of Shibuya-kei queen Kahimi Karie's（カヒミ・カリィ）singles but not a full album, unfortunately. I'd been thinking of taking care of a couple of her songs today but figuring that if I add one more track, I can say, according to my own rules, that I've tackled part of an album, I've decided to go for talking about at least part of "My First Karie" which is indeed the singer-songwriter's first mini-album, released in January 1995.

To be honest, I've already posted on the first track from "My First Karie" which is "Elastic Girl". I noted for that one that it was atypical of Karie's material in that it sounds more like country pop. Also, I gave my little own story there about having a ramen lunch with my translator buddies that day back in 2019. Coincidentally enough, I had the same thing yesterday but happily, I didn't undergo any major gastrointestinal distress afterwards.

The second track is "Dis-moi Quelque Chose Avant de Dormir" (Tell Me Something Before You Go To Sleep) which is a relaxing Shibuya-kei moment...maybe a bit of pillow talk concocted by songwriter Catherine（カトリーヌ）. A nice little Sunday night thing punctuated by some relatively soft Bacharach-friendly horns.

The following track is "Zoom Up!" by lyricist Karie and composer Keigo Oyamada（小山田圭吾）. Its intro is something that I've heard often as background music for segments on the morning wide shows...usually regarding a garden or a café in Tokyo or somewhere out there in the outer regions of Japan. Once again, Karie's kittenish vocals stand out...almost felt like licking my hand.

One of my old bosses at one of my English schools used to razz me whenever I finished a lesson with a particularly attractive woman by spitting out "Well, heh, heh...did you do her?". Of course, I adhered to the Prime Directive. But in any case, the salty and sultry "Do Me Do Me" reminded me of my supervisor's teasing, and Karie's purring doesn't help in the reminiscings. The words and spacy music by Gregory Czerkinsky leave no doubt about Karie's intentions.

There is something very innocently Beatles about "When You Close Your Eyes" which was written by Karie and composed by Tomoki Kanda（神田朋樹）, not least by the fact that the intro is straight out of the Fab Four's famous "All You Need is Love". It's almost as if there was an alternate universe tangent with Paul and George deciding to take their increasingly epic "All You Need is Love" and go into a different and calmer direction.

The final track "Dans Mon Nombril" (In My Navel) had me thinking about whether Karie had been party inspired by Ionesco's "Rhinoceros" and his brand of surrealist humour. However, the song by Valerie Lemercier and Bertrand Burgulat finishes "My First Karie" with a touch of swinging 60s class and an upbeat sense that could accompany a nice drive to a beachside picnic.

Well, how about that? I ended up doing the entire album.