Akira Terao -- Suna no Meirou（砂の迷路）

Ooooh! Listening to Akira Terao's（寺尾聰）"Suna no Meirou" (Sand Maze) has provided the hook, line and sinker to get me interested in trying to purchase his December 1983 album "Atmosphere". A follow-up release from his landmark "Reflections" album from 1981, it's not surprising that it has been subtitled "Reflections 2".

As I said, "Suna no Meirou" is a long beauty (at about 7 minutes) of a ballad. Terao's composition here has taken on a more sweeping and romantic feeling, at least with this track, and the keyboards are rich. Although the album was released in late 1983, "Suna no Meirou" feels like something from later in the decade. It's got a certain mellowness that could equate it with a glass of fine scotch.

However, according to the lyrics by Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）, who provided the words for many of the tracks on "Reflections", the setting is perhaps some sort of high-rise luxury apartment in the morning as Terao takes a good amount of time to wake up and smell the roses. So, perhaps not so much scotch and maybe more a robust cup of coffee (although scotch would always be welcome instead of cream). In any case, I was intrigued by the lyric "Time is just like a maze of sand". I was wondering if he meant that a person shouldn't feel like time is a restricted path that can only be followed. Perhaps instead, it can provide guidance but the walls of the maze can be easily broken down to provide new ways.

Kaz-shin at "Music Avenue" mentions that "Suna no Meirou" has an old-fashioned melody line that brings to mind the peak of the Group Sounds era which is when Terao got his start as a bassist for The Savage. I'm gonna have to listen to "Suna no Meirou" a few more times (which is something that I'm more than willing to do) to try to see where kaz-shin gets that opinion, but I do agree with him that Akira Inoue（井上鑑）, who also contributed to "Reflections", provided a very refined arrangement. Anyways, this is a ballad that I would say goes well with sunrise or sunset.