Lamp -- 1998

Back in February this year, I wrote about the pop band Lamp that had been recommended to me by a commenter and enjoyed my first experience with them, the City Pop-py "A Toshi no Aki"（A都市の秋）sung by member Kaori Sakakibara（榊原香保里）.

Well, I've found out "1998" which is a track from their latest album "Kanojo no Tokei"（彼女の時計...Her Clock）which came out in April 2018. The music video for this song was directed and edited by Sakakibara according to the YouTube description, but I think it's band composer/lyricist Yusuke Nagai（永井祐介）taking care of the vocals here.

The title may be "1998", but the music by the band definitely hearkens back to an even earlier decade. I'm thinking more along the way of late 1970s/early 1980s AOR filtered through the song stylings of Kingo Hamada（濱田金吾）or Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）. It's so dreamy and comfortable that I probably would be hard pressed to even reach across the table for that bottle of Perrier. Plus, the video has got that really old-fashioned look of something filmed through a Kodak movie camera; heck, those ancient devices known as public telephones make cameos.

I was going to remark that they don't come up with that sort of music anymore, but in fact, they are!