Cibo Matto -- Sugar Water

 

I remember watching Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" and concluding that the famed director should have spent more time planning things out with this one like he had with "Inception", although I realize that he had taken around a decade to figure things out with that one. Still, the idea was interesting and the effects were pretty trippy.

Why am I writing about "Tenet"? Well, for one thing, the music video for Cibo Matto's "Sugar Water" reminded me of the premise of the movie, although this video (and song) hailed all the way back in 1996, a couple of years before Nolan had his feature film debut with "Following". Still, I rather doubt that mere sugar water would get one in the state of mind to experience what Yuka Honda（本田ゆか）and Miho Hatori（羽鳥美保）had gone through in the video.

It's been a while since I've written about Cibo Matto. The last time I posted anything about the band was back in 2020 when I wrote about "10th Floor Ghost Girl" from 2014. From my admittedly brief impression of their career, they had a couple of phases of active duty: 1994-2002 and 2011-2017 according to their Wikipedia profile. "10th Floor Ghost Girl" was a song from that second phase and I was so overwhelmed by all those genres threatening to rip through the song that I basically chose the easy way out and categorized it as a pop tune. 

Well, "Sugar Water" is from their first phase; it is a track on their January 1996 debut album "Viva! La Woman", and the album has been given the genre labels of trip hop, avant-pop and alternative hip-hop. I also hear it in a couple of layers. One layer seems to contain some psychedelic 1960s lounge material while another deeper layer has a hip-hop rhythm. Meanwhile, the ladies are intoning their vocals like beatniks at a poetry reading. Time to burn the incense!

Akina Nakamori -- Ame no Requiem（雨のレクイエム）

 

Just to echo my friend, fellow KKP administrator/contributor and occasional lunch/dinner buddy, Larry Chan, Happy 61st Birthday to Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）. As I mentioned in my comments to him following his article on "Gomen to, Suki to"「ごめんと、好きと」, it used to be the tradition on the blog whenever we celebrated July 13th that we gave our greetings in the form of nervously hoping that Nakamori was doing OK wherever she was. Well, in the last couple of years, it looks like she is feeling fine and so I'm ready to retire the tradition and know that she's in pretty good spirits.✌

Reading the previous article, I was more than happy to have our annual July 13th Akina article written by Larry with my blessing since it's been another tradition to alternate our contributions, year by year. But then I thought why not have the two of us providing articles on this hot summery day? Mind you, both of us gave our Favourites lists a dozen years ago: "Larry's Akina Top 6 Picks (post-1991 era)" and "J-Canuck's Favourite Six Akina Songs"...man, time flies quickly!

Since a lot of us on the blog put up a lot of Akina tunes from early on in KKP's history, it's been a little difficult as of late to find something "new", but I was able to once again scour the early B-sides of the lass' singles. As a result, I was able to find this one titled "Ame no Requiem" (Rainy Requiem) which was the flip side to her September 1983 single "Kinku"（禁区）. That song, coincidentally enough, was the very first Akina song I heard and it was the song that she sang during her first appearance on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen at the end of that year. 

"Kinku" was that rather dramatic technopop hit composed by Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, and so I figured that knowing that, "Ame no Requiem" would most likely be a much softer ballad vocalized by Akina in that high and feathery love song style that she used to do in her earliest years to contrast with the deeper voice that powered songs like "Kinku", 

Well...yeah..."Ame no Requiem" was definitely a different kettle of fish. It came off as being so French that while I was listening to it, the taste of garlic and butter escargots popped into my mouth along with a glass of Bourgogne Aligoté. The surprising thing was that the composer was none other than Koji Tamaki（玉木浩二）, lead singer of Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）; never realized that he had that much of the City of Lights in him. He definitely brought in the Fashion Music for Akina! Rui Serizawa（芹沢類）was the lyricist while Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）took care of the arrangement (he probably helped out with the French flavourings, too).

If you have any B-sides of Akina that you've enjoyed, please let us know!

Happy 61st Birthday, Akina-san! (中森明菜)

Happy Birthday, Akina-san!

I'm glad that Akina is healthy again and has been active recently.  On July 1st, she just released her new single, "Gomen to, Suki to"「ごめんと、好きと」(Sorry, I love you).  This is her first single in 10 years.  She is also having a concert tour that started on the same day in Nagoya.  After a detour to Osaka, the tour will end in Tokyo with 2 shows on July 13th (her birthday) and July 14th respectively.  It's been 20 years since she did her last concert tour back in 2006!  Building on her success last year, I'm pretty hopeful that she'll do another dinner show this year during the Christmas holidays.

All in all, 2026 has been a pretty good year so far for Akina and her fans around the world.

The new song, "Gomen to, Suki to", is a ballad.  But unlike her past ones like Nanpasen (難破船) and Eki (駅), this one has a happy ending.  The song talks about two lovers who parted but eventually got back together.  The song was written by Jun Koami.  Although not 100%, I'm 99.9% sure that this is the same person.  Koami has apparently written quite a number of songs for idol groups such as AKB48 and SKE48.  Lyrics was written by HZ Village, which is the name of Akina's own management company.  I suspect it's Akina herself who penned the lyrics.

Her new single, according to this post on X.com, reached 7th place on the Oricon weekly chart upon its release.

It's good to see that Akina is healthy again.  Having said that, when I listened to her new song, I can't help but think that her voice has deteriorated.  I'm not sure if this is just how she interprets the song and sang it in a somewhat whispering voice, but I felt like her voice is not as stable as in the past.

Anyway, let's wish Akina-san good health for the years to come.

Hiroshi Wada & Mahina Stars -- Koi no Monzen-Nakacho（恋の門前仲町）

 

Thanks to Slow Japan

Monzen-Nakacho Station happens to be one of the stops along my old Tozai Line. I used to pass by it all the time on my way to downtown Tokyo although there were a couple of times that I actually stopped by to meet with friends. One time, the inner city area was the place to have dinner at a restaurant along the monjayaki alley.

Thanks to This Japanese American Life

After all these years, I still can't say that I'm a huge monjayaki fan. I'll take okonomiyaki in a heartbeat, but monjayaki is indeed Tokyo soul food.

Admittedly, I never got the chance to fully explore Monzen-Nakacho but I was still a little surprised to find out that a Mood Kayo song was based on the area. I mean, there are areas in Tokyo that have gotten their due through kayo kyoku such as Ginza and Shinjuku but I never thought that Monzen-Nakacho was ever that big to get its own tune. Well, I was wrong since Hiroshi Wada & Mahina Stars（和田弘とマヒナスターズ）indeed paid tribute to the shitamachi neighbourhood by recording the 1963 single "Koi no Monzen-Nakacho" (Falling in Love in Monzen-Nakacho).

Composed by Masanobu Tokuchi（渡久地政信）and written by Minoru Shimizu（清水みのる）, it's all about the mournful singing of love gained and lost in the area...and probably drinking one's sorrows, and there are tons of watering holes in the area, I have to admit. The rhythm is appropriately laconic and wistful; plus there are elements of both enka and Mood Kayo along with that Hawaiian twang which was often part and parcel of the latter genre.

Isako Washio -- Onna Dooshi ~ Mes amis, mes copains（女どおし）

By Jorge Royan via Wikimedia Commons

Whenever the name of the actress Isako Washio（鷲尾いさ子）comes to mind, I always think of those vitamin drink commercials she did, complete with her own jingle. They were quite popular during my time in Japan on the JET Programme in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

What I hadn't been aware of though is that Washio had already been releasing music since before that big Tekkotsu Inryo（鉄骨飲料）commercial. Although "Tekkotsu Musume"（鉄骨娘）was her debut single in 1990, Washio had released her debut album all the way back in October 1987. Titled "Kanojo no Kaze ~ son vent a elle"（彼女の風...Her Own Wind）, there was definitely an effort on the producers' part to bring some Gallic flavour into the proceedings since a number of the tracks were covers of French songs by France Gall and Francoise Hardy.

One such cover was "Mes amis, mes copains", translated into Japanese as "Onna Dooshi" (Among Women). The original had been sung by pop singer Annie Philippe in 1966, with Jean Hebert Leccia and Andre Raymond Pascal as the songwriters. Translated by Youta Shichino or Nanano（七野洋太）or Masumi Kawamura（川村真澄）depending on whether you go with the JASRAC database or J-Wiki respectively, Washio's cover is a bit more synthy and haunting. It feels like dancing a slow waltz in one huge and foreboding castle in France. Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）was responsible for arranging all of the tracks on the album.

Miyoko Tashiro -- Blue Night in Sapporo（ブルー・ナイト・イン札幌）

From Nryate at Wikimedia Commons

 

I only had that one two-night stay in Sapporo way back when and that was back in the late spring. If I have a chance to visit the city again, I wouldn't mind doing so during the winter. Even better, I'd like to check out the Snow Festival with its huge ice statues. However, I have to point out that the above photo is of the main entertainment quarter there, Susukino. I did walk along its main street when I visited.

Susukino in the dead of winter is what I think of when I listen to "Blue Night in Sapporo" by Miyoko Tashiro（田代美代子）from 1969. Written and composed by Domei Suzuki（鈴木道明）, it's very much a love-done-me-wrong Mood Kayo thanks to Tashiro's mournful vocals, the just-as-melancholy backing chorus, the sad and shuffling rhythm and of course, the title itself (and don't forget the crying sax). It's probably not the greatest feeling plodding through sub-zero cold after a romantic breakup.

Crazily enough, I discovered that Shinichiro Hakozaki（箱崎晋一朗）would sing this very song a decade later in 1979!

Etsuko Sai -- Mujaki na Hito（無邪気なひと）

from Amazon.jp

I swear that the more I see the cover of Etsuko Sai's（彩恵津子）July 1984 debut album "Reach Out", the more I think that the stylish house behind Sai is the same one that got illustrated on Tohoku Shinkansen's（東北新幹線）album cover of their 1982 "Thru Traffic". And I'm still going to say that the good folks at paint companies such as DuPont and Glidden must be salivating in joy at the lovely exterior.

Regardless, I have another track from "Reach Out" to join other tracks such as the title track and "Heart wo Knock Shite"（ハートをノックして）that have gotten their due on the blog. This time, it's Track 5, "Mujaki na Hito" (Innocent Man) which was written by Tetsuya Chiaki（ちあき哲也）and composed by Hiroyuki Iso*（磯広行）. Incidentally, I've seen online that Iso is a percussionist who's also acted as backup chorus on songs such as "Kanashimi ga Tomaranai" (悲しみがとまらない）by Anri（杏里）.

It was a tad difficult to categorize "Mujaki na Hito" although I have nothing against the song itself; it's a lovely tune with an old-school Hollywood jazziness and sophisticated pop feeling. Kinda feel like mixing a couple of martinis for me and the missus whenever I hear that sax-y intro (nice strings, by the way). But by the time I reach the chorus, that boppy bass and the keyboards take me into City Pop land or something appropriate for Resort Pop. 

*I'm not totally sure on the correct pronunciation of the composer's family name. As usual, if anyone can confirm or correct it, that would be greatly appreciated.