Anri -- Morning Squall/Evening Rain（モーニング スコール）

Decided to go for a twofer here, especially since it's been a short while since I've inserted an Anri（杏里）article. I'm going to cover both the A and B sides for her 18th single, "Morning Squall" released in June 1986. Yup, it's been over 33 years since this one came out, and considering how it's like right now weather-wise (steady precipitation), I'd say that this was a most appropriate choice.

First off, let's start with "Morning Squall". Launching with some distinct keyboards, I thought that there was a fair bit of foreshadowing in terms of what Anri's music was going to sound like later that decade. Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）, Anri's songwriting partner during that later dynamic R&B phase, actually took care of the lyrics for "Morning Squall" while Ichiro Hada（羽田一郎）brought about some of that light funk. I think there is still some of that Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）feeling in the overall arrangement (Kadomatsu having contributed to a lot of her music some years prior) although that role here was fulfilled by Jun Irie（入江純）.

The B-side, "Evening Rain" reminds me slightly of some of her early 80s AOR/City Pop style, and taking into account the rain outside my window as I type this, this was the reason that I decided to go with "Evening Rain" before I then settled on including the A-side as well. Lyricist Kazunori Sonobe（園部和範）provided the story of what sounds like the perfect ride in a convertible with all of the trimmings before the rain starts coming in, but even then, the couple stays quite happy. The late Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）certainly shares the same sentiments in his music; for a rain song, this is one very upbeat tune.

"Morning Squall/Evening Rain" peaked at No. 51 on Oricon. The former ended up on Anri's 9th original album "Mystique" which also came out at the same time as the single with it reaching No. 6 on the charts. The latter song hadn't been placed on any album for the longest time until a remastered version of "Mystique" was released in 2011 with it included as a bonus track.