Friday, November 8, 2019

Tomoko Aran -- Busy City



The way she looks on the cover of her 5th album "Imitation Lonely ~ Tokai wa, Sabishigariya no Omocha Bako"(IMITATION LONELY ―都会は、淋しがりやのオモチャ箱―...The City is the Toy Box for the Lonely)from April 1985, Tomoko Aran(亜蘭知子)reminds me of an old classmate from the 1980s. Go figure!

Anyways the opening track is "Busy City" which actually sounds pretty busy (inclusion of traffic noise helps) especially with that clickety-clackety synth sounding like a teletype printing out some breaking news. However, going into the vocals, Aran seems to create a calm pocket of urban contentedness around her as she sloughs off an errant suitor like dead skin at a spa. With Aran behind the lyrics, Etsuko Yamakawa's(山川恵津子)melody has that feeling of what I've always associated with late 1980s City Pop: champagne synths and even more groove to the bass.

Incidentally, "Imitation Lonely" is the follow-up album to "More Relax" from 1984.

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