Christmas has come and gone for another year, and so I am left with another round of purchased Japanese CDs to peruse for the next several days, including the above one. Yep, I bought another couple from the "Light and Mellow" series of Japanese pop music with oodles of City Pop and J-AOR tunes over the last few decades.
One of the tracks that stood out from the compilation was Tomita Lab's（冨田ラボ）"Zutto Yomikake no Natsu" (which I will translate as That One Summer) featuring the R&B duo of CHEMISTRY. I thought it rather fateful to have two musical acts named CHEMISTRY and Lab get together to concoct one lovely smooth ballad which turned out to become the latter's 4th single from September 2005.
Considering how much I really liked a number of the tracks from Tomita Lab's debut album, "Shipbuilding" in 2003, I'm slightly smacking myself upside my head for not having been aware of "Zutto Yomikake no Natsu" in the 10 years since its release. Composed by Tomita Lab and written by veteran lyricist Shigesato Itoi（糸井重里）, the song has that particular summery laid-back vibe which I've characterized as being Lab's sound. And the accompanying music video of a young teenager knowing love and heartbreak in a span of a day goes very well with the song.
"Zutto Yomikake no Natsu" is a track on Tomita Lab's 2nd album from 2006, "Shiplaunching" and also CHEMISTRY's "the CHEMISTRY Joint Album" from 2009. The single itself got up to No. 37. It's almost a shame to read that since I think it deserved even better but perhaps it just wasn't the era for that sort of song.
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