frasco -- Kaze ni Notte ~breeze~ （風に乗って）

A bit more seasonal than some of the torrid weather we had gotten over the last couple of days but still sunny and pleasant out there today. Besides, I like the cooler air.

Therefore to commemorate this weather, I've decided to devote this article to this lovely song by not-so-well-known pop band frasco. I never heard of these guys until I bought my very first CD from the "Light Mellow" series a few years ago, "Breeze". But I knew I was on the right step when I heard a lot of wonderful tracks on this disc including frasco's "Kaze ni Notte" (Catch The Wind).

frasco consisted of the late guitarist Hiroshi Narumi（鳴海寛）, session drummer Makio Tada（多田牧男）and singer-songwriter Sakiko Masano（政野早希子）on vocals. Narumi's name has been bandied about before on this blog due to his contribution to the City Pop duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）with songwriter Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）back in the 1980s. Well, it looks like he brought together another unit in the following decade with frasco in 1994.

This particularly breezy tune "Kaze ni Notte" was included in their 1996 2nd album "film". The band has been solidly classified as a pop group but listening to this summery outing, I couldn't help but feel that there was also some Shibuya-kei in there somewhere so I've also included that genre in the Labels. Either way, it's a good song to listen to. Not too frenetic, not too laid back, it's the equivalent of a walk on the sandy beach. Narumi composed the melody while Masano took care of the lyrics with Narumi and Tada arranging the whole thing.

Considering the obscurity of frasco, all of my information on the group was from the liner notes of that "Breeze" disc for "Light Mellow".

Now it's possible that depending on where you live, you may not be able to see the video at the very top, but perhaps you can access this compilation at around 4:10 when "Kaze ni Notte" begins.