Kenichi Hagiwara -- Shinkirou（蜃気楼）

For my recent article on the Group Sounds band The Tempters, I added some information at the bottom, noting that Tempters vocalist and actor Kenichi Hagiwara（萩原健一）had passed away on March 26th 2019 at the age of 68.

If I'd had known about this song at the time of his death, I would have put it up onto the blog as soon as I could. "Shinkirou" (Mirage) was the opening track on Hagiwara's 3rd solo album "Nadja II ~ Otoko to Onna"（男と女...Men & Women）, the middle album of his "Nadja" series" from June 1978.

This is one cool song to me. After listening to it the first couple of times earlier this afternoon, I ended up humming a little bit of it over dinner tonight. There was no hesitation in deciding that I would put up a third article for tonight because of "Shinkirou". I love the 70s City Pop feel, thanks to the bluesy sax and that characteristic dreamy stardust-y keyboard which winds in and out of the song at points. Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat" has come to mind.

Composing it is Katsuo Ono（大野克夫）, the same fellow who came up with a couple of iconic themes for the cop show and anime genres. Along with Ryo Shoji's（東海林良）lyrics which seem to depict a lone wolf of sorts  whistling a tune while looking down at the pedestrians below, I can imagine that "Shinkirou" would have made a fine theme tune itself for a done-it-all, seen-it-all private detective. There's even a part of me that thinks the detective has finally gone up to that run-down office in the sky and his ghost is now amiably viewing at all of the little mortals from a cloud somewhere, now released from all of his earthly concerns.

Whatever my analysis of "Shinkirou", this is still one good tune that I would be happy to lift up in tribute to Hagiwara like a tumbler of scotch on the rocks.