Koh Suzuki -- Y [why?]

 

Happy Friday from a very frigid Toronto today. As I'm typing this, it's only -12 degrees Celsius or a shade above +10 degrees Fahrenheit outside, so it definitely feels like a Canadian winter again after getting accustomed to what had been a pretty warm start to 2021. I'm pretty sure that there are fellow Torontonians though who may be looking askance at the sky and yelling out "WHY?".

Well, it is winter after all for one thing. But speaking of that question word, I have another track from Koh Suzuki's（鈴木こう）1982 album "Sa-Ra-Vah Street", "Y [why?]". Armed with a relentlessly thumping bass synth beat, I think this one created by Suzuki straddles the line between pop and City Pop. I think that I've heard that particular bass beat in a number of American/Canadian/European pop tunes during that decade, but at the same time, there is something about the overlying music with the guitar and keyboards that hints at me that the events in the lyrics are taking some place in the concrete jungle of West Shinjuku. By the way, the jazzy guitar solo is fun plus I enjoy how Suzuki throws out those triplets of whys.

Not a lot of information on Suzuki anywhere and I'm not sure whether the singer-songwriter had created other albums in the past. But I did find out that "Y [why?]" was released as a single according to the image that I could find at Discogs as shown below.