City Pop revivalist aidoru group Especia may not be around anymore, but their legacy of groovy aidoru pop tunes remains with us. Aside their great “GUSTO” album, my favourite ‘Especia moment’, if I can call it that way, is their major debut with the single “Aviator / Boogie Aroma”, which was released in July 2015.
“Aviator” is easily the song I listen to the most from these girls nowadays. While “Boogie Aroma” sounds cool and slick, “Aviator” is just cheesy and straight in your face with the bouncy and relentless synth bass line, which, by the way, is very reminiscent of some of Rick Astley's hits created by Stock, Aitken and Waterman circa 1987 and 1988 (and the origin of this particular bass line seems to be Colonel Abram’s club hit “Trapped”, but that’s another story), and some loud flourishes here and there. Also, the vocals, while still not great or pleasant most of the times, are full of personality, which is always a given in the group’s songs. Personally, I prefer the cheesy and bubbly “Aviator”, obviously, since I like dated and “wrong” music a lot more, but “Boogie Aroma” has plenty of charms itself, starting with what sounds like an organic bass line, the groovy chorus and some funky synth flute interludes. Both songs are great, in my opinion, and I was sad when the album that came after this single was nowhere near as fun and colorful.
To finish, here’s a video uploaded by their old label featuring a mashup of the two songs. The video is very pretty, but, unfortunately, we can only listen to bits of both “Aviator” and “Boogie Aroma”. It was surely done in a creative way to resemble 80s VHS tapes, but I’d still prefer to listen to the songs in their full versions, accompanied of their videos, since they are so good.
Lyrics
for “Aviator” were written by mirco and Paul Moriya (ポウル守谷),
while music and arrangement were composed by Schtein&Longer. As for “Boogie
Aroma”, lyrics were written by UKO, while music and arrangement were composed
by PellyColo.
"Aviator / Boogie Aroma"
Hi, Marcos.
ReplyDeleteCan't believe it's been almost 6 years since you introduced Especia on the blog! Haven't regretted it. That's quite the debut the old group came out with...try to imagine something that Toshiki Kadomatsu created back in the 1980s with 2010s aidoru singing the lyrics.
I realized that synths such as a Synclavier were emulating all instruments even back then, but I wonder how "Aviator" would have sounded with a real brass section. It's a pity that Especia is no more but hope that there are still musicians and singers out there who want to go for the urban contemporary in Japan.
Hello again, J-Canuck.
DeleteAbout Especia, I agree with you. It seemed like yesterday that the group was still very active surprising us with those quirky City Pop stuff. They played "Aviator" and many other of their songs with real brass section, and it was always great to hear. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I last saw one of their concerts on YouTube.