Shozo Ise -- Sea Side Story

 

As I was telling my good friend and fellow KKP contributor, JTM, I don't buy a whole lot of City Pop albums nowadays since I've been able to buy what I had wanted and the ones that are still desirable out there have simply been discontinued. However, I was very grateful and happy to receive this compilation from JTM last Xmas called "City Pop Story" since I did notice a few songs that I had yet to encounter.

One of those tracks is "Sea Side Story" by singer-songwriter Shozo Ise（伊勢正三）. He belongs to that august group in Japanese music which jumped from folk in the early 1970s to City Pop in the latter part of the decade going into the 1980s. A truly cherished song by him in the urban contemporary field is his cool-as-ice "Moonlight" from 1981 which brings images of cigarette smoke, clinking glasses and leather furnishings in the grand city of Tokyo.

Getting back to "Sea Side Story" though, this is a truly calming and introspective City Pop/J-AOR ballad about admiring that ocean. Written and composed by Ise, right from the start, the arrangement is so hammock-friendly that you'll demand an Orange Mimosa to miraculously appear in your hand especially when the sounds of waves (along with that haunting keyboard and Ise's crooning vocals) actually enter your ears. It's quite the opposite from "Moonlight" in tone and environment, and the above video by uploader Moto Mas clinches the deal.

Kaz-shin of the Japanese music blog "Music Avenue" said it best, and I have the translation from his entry regarding "Sea Side Story": For me, it's the kind of song I want to listen to on lazy summer afternoons when I don't feel like doing anything.