Sunsetz -- An Antenna

 

Hope all of you are doing OK this Sunday. Here in Toronto, we've been having over 4000 new daily cases of COVID for a number of days now but we're hanging in there with the restrictions and the like. 

I found a rather intriguing song by Sandii & The Sunsetz（サンディー&ザ・サンセッツ）although depending even on different pages of the same website, their 1981 album "Heat Scale" labeled the band as either Sandii & The Sunsetz or as just Sunsetz. Just for the heck of it, I will use the latter name.

"An Antenna" is one of the Side-B tracks on the LP, and one descriptor on Discogs labels the album as Leftfield, a category that points out that it's not easily categorizable, although New Wave and Synthpop have also been used to describe it. I think that Leftfield label could also be used when I listen to "An Antenna". It starts off with a patter of syn-drums and blippy bass before some twangy guitar enters the soundscape. Then, Sandii herself comes in with the rap surrounded by wisps of her own meowing background chorus.

Although it's obviously not the same song, I did get some atmospheric vibes of Blondie's "Rapture" which is why I did put up the New Wave tag although it doesn't come across to me as the usual New Wave that I remember from my youth (no mention of anyone eating cars). Despite the syn-drums, I don't think it quite comes under the category of Synthpop either. If I actually had the Label, maybe it would be a form of avant-pop. Sandii and Makoto Kubota（久保田麻琴）were the lyricists here and Kubota took care of the melody while Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）arranged everything.