Michiru Hoshino -- Koi no Funfair（恋のファンフェアー）

Fellow collaborator JTM just came back from a trip to Japan last week, so he was kind enough to allow me to show some photos of Tokyo. Here's one from the bayside Odaiba district with the famous Ferris wheel next to VenusFort.

So I assumed that this would be the ideal time and place to show off Michiru Hoshino's（星野みちる）"Koi no Funfair" (Funfair of Love) which was released as her 6th single from June 2014. At first, I had thought that it was "Koi no Fanfare" but the word fanfare is actually written in katakana as 「ファンファーレ」and not 「ファンフェアー」as in the title. Scuttlebutt says that a funfair is the British equivalent of a circus or carnival over here.

In any case, don't expect any of that organ carnival music here. "Koi no Fun Fair" seems to be a melodically loving tribute to good ol' disco. It would make for some fine background music while traipsing through the aforementioned Odaiba or even the famous amusement park Fuji-Q Highland in Yamanashi Prefecture. The music gets even more epic as "Koi no Fun Fair" goes along when the "Whoo~" backup vocals come sliding in. They give the song a further spacier feeling that makes me fantasize whether this could have been an ideal addition to a "Guardians of the Galaxy" soundtrack.

Speaking of the music, I've been associating the former AKB48 member with the groovy AOR duo of Blue Peppers（ブルー・ペパーズ）because of her contribution to their album "Retroactive". However, with "Koi no Fun Fair", the music was provided by Seiki Sato（佐藤清喜）who is one-half of microstar (lyrics provided by Hajimu Hase/はせはじむ), and if you've heard his "Tiny Spark", he knows a thing or two of the dance music of the 1970s. So I'm happy to say that Hoshino has connections with a couple of fine bands that I was able to first discover last year.

"Koi no Funfair" was also placed on Hoshino's 2nd album from July of that year, "E・I・E・N VOYAGE" (Eternal Voyage). It didn't rank too highly, only getting up to No. 240 on the Oricon weeklies but just from listening to this one particular song, I'd be interested enough to give the album a listen.