Kenji Omura -- Dance Your Way to God

 

Maybe you ought not to look at the above photo too long; might ruin your eyesight. I concede that I may have been a little ambitious with the Sparkle feature on my old Casio or with some alcohol that night. Incidentally, that is a shot of the Mori Building at Roppongi Hills.

Yes, you did read that title right. It's "Dance Your Way to God" by guitarist/composer Kenji Omura（大村憲司）and it belongs to his 4th and last original studio album, "Gaijin Heaven"（外人天国）, which was released in 1983. Not quite sure how one would dance to God but I guess in Omura's mind, it may have involved a lot of disco balls and strobe lights.

"Dance Your Way to God" has got a lot of stuff tightly crammed into its five minutes and change beginning with its AOR intro. Then Omura's buzzy guitar takes us onto the dance floor for some danceable fusion and City Pop; heck we even get a bit of rock guitar solo in there, too. From the Discogs page, I discovered that Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）was responsible for that bouncy bass while Motoya Hamaguchi（浜口茂外也）was having fun with his percussion. Y'know...in a way, I think that "Dance Your Way to God" would be an ideal addition to the "Space Dandy" soundtrack since there's also something rather cosmic about this one.

"Gaijin Heaven" also has a cover of Steely Dan's "Rikki, Don't Lose That Number" which has got me rather interested, but you can take a listen to the whole album right here.