Kingo Hamada -- Gipsy

 

Welcome to November 2021! The photo above is the picture that accompanied the months of September and October on my Seizo Watase（わたせせいぞう）calendar. I'll have to show off the one for November and December but the picture is more suited for Xmas so it'll have to wait a few more weeks at least.

Looks like I'm not the only Watase fan. Singer-songwriter Kingo Hamada（濱田金吾）was able to get a Watase on the cover of his 7th and final studio album to date "Fall In Love" which was released in October 1985 on vinyl and then CD a few months later in December.

One groovalicious track is "Gipsy". Not sure about the reason behind the spelling error in the title but perhaps there was some kind of method in the madness. However, what was lacking in proper letter arrangement has been more than compensated by the groovy bass synth propelling the rhythm forward. There's definitely that city beat living in there. Along with Hamada providing the basic nocturnal-friendly melody, it was Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）arranging all of the tracks in "Fall In Love" and Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）providing the lyrics.