Naomi Miyanaga -- Summer Rain

It's one of those nights where, although I usually keep things to two articles, I find a song so catchy and/or interesting that I just have to include it NOW.

Link to an excerpt

Have never heard of Naomi Miyanaga（宮永尚美）and have never seen her name in the pages of "Japanese City Pop". However, I caught her about half an hour ago on the New J Channel radio singing some funk so I checked the rest of YouTube on the off chance that she may have a presence there.

Well, the Force is with me tonight. Miyanaga is somewhat represented with tracks from her 1984 album "Moment". There's very little information about her origins and discography but apparently she released at least one more album, "Che~!"（チェッ!...Tsk!）in 1986. Anyways, going back to "Moment", Miyanaga seems to have embraced City Pop including this track called "Summer Rain". According to Takechas Records, this funky number was created by Mika Silfver, and then from the JASRAC database, the lyricist was Juha Vainio (although my gut tells me that perhaps that might not be the case but I will go with it for now). But the arranger for most of the album was guitarist Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）, and perhaps some of his influence can be felt by that really boss bass in the intro and the soaring instrumental bridge midway.

From the looks of it, "Moment" might be one of those rarest of the rare albums. From the sites I've checked so far, it's sold out and may be discontinued. Then again, I've said that for a number of albums in the past, only to be happily proven wrong.