Yuki Nakayamate -- Ijiwaru Shiokaze（いぢわる潮風）

 

A little over a year ago, I wrote about singer Yuki Nakayamate（なかやまて由希）and a track from her second of two albums "Octopussy ~ Koi Suru Onna-tachi"（OCTOPUSSY～恋する女たち～...Women In Love） from 1983. "Ange Blanc"（アンジェ・ブラン）is quite a moody European-sounding synthpop song slightly reminiscent of what I've heard from Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）at around the same time.

Well, I recently came across a representative track from her first album "Hold Me Tender" which was released in 1981, and "Ijiwaru Shiokaze" (Mean Ol' Sea Breeze) couldn't sound more different. Written and composed by Nakayamate herself, this song is much more in the City Pop/J-AOR vein. In fact, I'd say that there is some Yumi Arai（荒井由実）here and some Doobie Brothers there, and it rides fairly smoothly over the seaside expressway. The author on Hip Tank Records has even compared the arrangement with the classic "Peg" by Steely Dan.