The Molice -- Active Imagination

Wikimedia Commons

 

I was looking through Twitter some days ago when the account for the formerly Buffalo-based rock band The Molice had posted a question which could be paraphrased this way: Do you know a music hall which has had international acts perform there? Well, I responded directly and answered: You can try the El Mocambo in Toronto. The Rolling Stones and Margaret Trudeau (wife of one Canadian prime minister and the mother of one more) were there at the same time and place in 1977. Didn't hear back from them so perhaps their question was perhaps more rhetorical than I'd thought.

Anyways, it's been a while since I've posted about The Molice so I came across this video for their song "Active Imagination" (which is also a psychological process). A track on their 2023 digital album "Pre/Post Re-SING", it's got quite the engine chugging away like one on a locomotive. In fact, it's so catchy and psychedelic that vocalist Rinko herself is doing her own choreographical boogie in both versions of the music video. All hail chromakey!

I also managed to find Rinko's poignant commentary on what has become of the band since 2020 when COVID slammed into the world. It was something that I had been curious about.

Ayumi Amano -- Suki na Mono wa Suki（好きなものは好き）

Pink Sherbet Photography via Wikimedia Commons

Well, just in time for the weekend, I'm feeling rather buoyant today. The inability to provide comments has been fixed, we're coming out from under the shadow of that crazy storm from Wednesday, and I've gotten my preparations done for my student. 

I was browsing through kinuzure's blog "Tamaranaku, AOR Kayo"（たまらなく、AOR歌謡...Irresistible, AOR Kayo） just now when I happened upon one of his entries regarding a singer that I had never heard of before. Ayumi Amano（天野歩美）was once known as Nagisa Amano（天野なぎさ）, one-half of the aidoru duo Kilala & Ulala (キララとウララ) back in the 1980s. Both nikala and I had contributed articles to them years ago. One big bombshell from "Tamaranaku" was that Amano's partner Kanako Ohtani (大谷香奈子) had once been married to Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）!

But getting the train back on the line here, once the act split up, years passed and Amano went solo and she released her first album in January 1992, "Okurimono ga Aru no"（贈り物があるの...I've Got a Present For You）. Kinuzure has described it as an unknown City Pop release (as well as a great girl pop product of its time), but one track "Suki na Mono wa Suki" (I Love What I Love) strikes me as being more of the latter genre. Written by Yoshiko Oga（雄鹿美子）and composed by Katsuki Maeda（前田克樹）, it's a very pleasant mid-tempo number that sounds like something that the aforementioned Komuro or the late KAN would weave, and Amano herself comes across as a more high-pitched and breathy version of Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）. I'd be interested in checking out some of the tracks on the album, especially because kinuzure has highlighted some of them in his article.

Hatsumi Shibata -- Mou Ichido Kikasete（もう一度聞かせて）

 

Finishing off this Friday's take on Urban Contemporary songs on KKP, I've decided to go with something mellow and older...maybe the aural equivalent of good scotch. And I found this one not from the City Pop guides above as you might think, but from a YouTube City Pop compilation video.

However, I was happy to find the song all by itself in a separate video, so I will go with that. This is "Mou Ichido Kikasete" (Please Play it Again) by the late singer-songwriter Hatsumi Shibata（しばたはつみ）. Written by Shibata and composed by Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）, it's got that wonderful flute, the bluesy guitar and the splendid harmonies provided by the singer and others. 

It's been around three years since I've had Shibata up on the blog, so I'm glad to have found this lovely example of 70s City Pop which was recorded onto Shibata's November 1975 2nd album "Singer Lady"（シンガー・レディ）. There's also a goodly amount of soul in "Mou Ichido Kikasete" which reminds me a bit of Minnie Ripperton's music. 

Natsu Summer -- Pretty in Summer

夏-red by Muke Dever 

From what I've read, Autumn 2026 officially arrives on September 22nd, so we've got about another 18 days left to enjoy the hot season. Hopefully, a lot of that can be done over the Labour Day long weekend here in North America.

Something to have with your cocktail is singer Natsu Summer's "Pretty in Summer" which was a 2024 release. Written and composed by Ryusenkei's（流線形）Cunimondo Takiguchi（クニモンド瀧口）, the song follows the singer's style of mixing Neo-City Pop and reggae for a most relaxing number. Enjoy this with a really potent rum punch. 🍹If you would like to listen to another collaboration by the two, there is always "Twilight Shadow" from 2022.

Fruitcake -- I Like the Way

By the Mighty Grog via Wikimedia Commons

A couple of years ago, I introduced a Dutch jazz-fusion band called Fruitcake through their song "A Little Place in My Heart". Now, this is a Japanese music blog as we all have known for almost a decade and a half, but bass player Jan-Paul Driessen and guitarist Rob Taekema and the rest of his band have become so popular in Japan that perhaps talks on permanent residency probably did come up sometime over the past forty years or so.

Well, "A Little Place in My Heart" was the second track on their 1983 debut album "Fruitcake". The first track was "I Like the Way" and the way it rolls off the player, it is as one commenter put it, "This is perfect music for a television weather forecast". I would also add "...in Japan". However, I can also analogize this first track as being fine accompaniment for a shopping trip through Tokyo or a sit-down at a stylish cafe somewhere in the megalopolis. There's just something about the tripping on those keys that has me thinking Japan in the Economic Bubble...although that wouldn't start officially for another couple of years.

Tomita Lab feat. Kirinji -- Kaori to Kage（香りと影）

 

I used to get a kick (no pun intended) out of watching those ancient Hai Karate commercials where the "poor" wearer of the cologne has to revert to his sudden martial arts abilities to fend off Valerie Leon. The above ad is the one that I do remember seeing as a child. As an addendum, I've never bought the stuff (if it even still exists today) so I don't really know how potent it is.

Hai Karate was what I remembered when I heard this track from Tomita Lab's（富田ラボ）2003 "Shipbuilding" album. "Kaori to Kage" (Scent and Shadows) was another songwriting collaboration between Tomita Lab and Kirinji（キリンジ）as a man seems to go crazy with obsession (again, no pun intended) when he picks up on the scent of a woman in an elevator. Hopefully, he didn't go too far in his pursuit, olfactory or otherwise, of the lass. Still, the song has this fun and cheerful mild funk arrangement that could span the 1970s into the 1980s. It could even fit as a theme song for a rollicking rom-com in Japan. Hey, nice little piano jazz in the middle, too.

Back in the old days, I was rather miserly when I posted KKP articles regarding albums and that was true with the original article on "Shipbuilding" although I have tried to make amends by providing articles based on specific tracks from the album in the years since such as Yuming's（ユーミン）contribution to "Shipbuilding", "God Bless You!". By the way, I don't think I've ever seen the commercial below.

Saki Kubota -- Ku-gatsu no Iro（九月の色）

 

In this currently uncommentable environment as I mentioned in the last announcement, again I apologize for the inconvenience and hope things improve shortly. However, I also have to mention that some time over the last 48 hours, "Kayo Kyoku Plus" has been able to garner 25 million views in the nearly fifteen years that it's been up and running, so I along with Kayo Grace and Mr. Calico would like to thank you for all of the viewings, comments and discussions since 2012.

And what more appropriate article is there than Saki Kubota's（久保田早紀）"Ku-gatsu no Iro" (The Colour of September) considering where and when we are in the calendar year? A track on the singer-songwriter's third album November 1980 "Saudade" (the one that starts off with Kubota's big hit "Ihojin"（異邦人）from 1979), it's quite the spirited City Pop tune spritzed with a generous amount of Latin disco thanks to the singer's words and music along with Mitsuo Hagita's（萩田光雄）arrangement. I also think the song also has that feeling of early 1970s American drama soundtrack dealing with the footloose-and-fancy-free jet set.