PSY-S -- Collection

This was a pretty interesting album to pick up just on the cover alone which looked like something from one of my old science textbooks. And it was rather outside of the range of the usual PSY-S album covers so it was a done deal with my wallet. "Collection" or perhaps the proper title is "PSY-S Presents 'Collection'" was released in February 1987 as a collaborative effort between the technohappy duo of CHAKA and Masaya Matsuura（松浦雅也）and a whole number of other musicians based on an old NHK radio show called "Sound Street".

http://www.nicozon.net/watch/nm13368473

The song that starts things off is "Wake Up" which I already wrote about all the way back in 2012. I realized that I got my yen's worth just on hearing this OJ of a song. CHAKA and Matsuura concocted the tune with a whole melange of instruments including electric guitar, bombing drums and chirpy synths seemingly hell-bent on waking the listener up.

When I came across the video of Track 2 "Dream Soup"（ドリーム・スープ）, that was my impetus for getting this article together. As the title may imply, the song seems to be a combination of a cute kid's song and something more psychedelic. I especially enjoyed the weird synths employed throughout the song. Written by the lead vocalist of the all-girl rock band ZELDA, Sayoko Takahashi（高橋佐代子）, and composed by Matsuura and the Moonriders' keyboardist/vocalist Toru Okada（岡田徹）, Takahashi, CHAKA and cute little Natsumi Shimazaki performed this one.

Another reason that I purchased "Collection" was for the presence of one of my favourite songs by PSY-S, "Woman-S". Again like "Wake Up", I have already given my two cents about the song in the past. This is yet another version of "Woman-S", bossa nova, to be exact. At first, I was disappointed in this version since it didn't have all of that excitement from the very first take that I had heard on PSY-S' first BEST compilation, "Two Hearts", but since I have become somewhat of a convert to the Brazilian genre over the past couple of decades, I'm now much more accepting of it. The video above also has one more track from "Collection", "Silent Song" but I think it deserves its own article which I will do in the near future.

One track from the album that unfortunately couldn't be found anywhere online is "Honto no Uso"（本当の嘘...True Lies）. It's also another relaxing bossa nova number by acoustic guitar duo GonTiti（ゴンチチ）which is one of the highlights. Although Gonzalez Mikami and Titi Matsumura（ゴンザレス三上・チチ松村）wrote, composed and sang the number, Matsuura provided arrangement and keyboards while CHAKA was on backup chorus. (November 18 2018: Found it!)

http://tower.jp/item/2305779/Collection%EF%BC%9C%E7%B4%99%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A3%E3%82%B1%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E4%BB%95%E6%A7%98%E5%AE%8C%E5%85%A8%E7%94%9F%E7%94%A3%E9%99%90%E5%AE%9A%E7%9B%A4%EF%BC%9E

(excerpts from the album)