Tomoko Aran -- Slow Nights

Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子） is a lyricist who has been tied closely to Summer band TUBE since she penned hits for them such as "Season In The Sun" and "Summer Dream". However, she also had a singing career which lasted during the 1980s, and in fact, she and the members of TUBE along with a few other singers created a supergroup project called Nagisa All-Stars which lasted from 1987-1989.

"Slow Nights" is a song I came across via YouTube and the "Japanese City Pop" book. Originally a track on her 4th album, "More Relax", released in June 1984 (which, unfortunately, I think is probably out of circulation now....or so I thought), it's also available on a BEST compilation which was released in 2011. Written by Aran and composed by Issei Noro（野呂一生）, the guitarist for Japanese fusion group, Casiopeia, "Slow Nights" stands out since, while a lot of her other songs on that BEST album have that summery daytime sheen, this song is definitely urban contemporary music at night. As Aran points out in the liner notes in the BEST album, "Slow Nights" was written to highlight a night in a cafe bar in Tokyo....such establishments were apparently all the rage in the early 80s, and frankly, they still had a strong attraction for the young and trendy when I was there.

Noro's melody strangely reminds me a bit of the arrangement for Al Jarreau's "Moonlighting", the theme song for the Cybill Shepherd/Bruce Willis detective-comedy show, and that show came out a year later. Since I loved "Moonlighting"(both theme and show[at least the first couple of seasons of the latter]), I guess it was inevitable that I would like "Slow Nights"as well.

Yonge-Dundas in the heart of Toronto