Tetsuji Hayashi -- Saikai ~ After Five Years（再会）

 

First off, it's supremely cold out there with a wind chill of -32 degrees Celsius this morning, and indeed, I bundled myself up like a huge ball of twine to get the newspaper. Only going up to a relatively "balmy" -13 today. Secondly, I heard about that tsunami affecting a lot of places surrounding the Pacific Ocean and when I checked a few minutes ago, it appears that there was a three-metre surge in the Amami-Oshima vicinity so I'm hoping that the folks there have been able to evacuate to higher ground. But at this point, there is a tsunami watch along the Pacific coast of Japan.

Yesterday, I went on my usual City Pop tour this time with songwriter Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）as the guide for four songs including Yoshimi Iwasaki's（岩崎良美）"What's Love?" with my muse being that large commemorative compilation of his creations. Well, today I just have to include a song that I also listened to for the first time a few days ago on that compilation and this time, it's the man himself behind the mike.

With lyricist Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）helping out, he created "Saikai ~ After Five Years" (Reunion) as a track for his third studio album "Summer Wine"（サマー・ワイン）from 1980. And oooh, it does have that aroma of West Coast light and mellow from a season that a lot of us in the Northern Hemisphere are most likely begging for right now. In addition to those silky strings, the flute, the wailing electric guitar and the soft Fender Rhodes, there just has to be a bluesy sax solo in there. Enjoy this with a cocktail or a cup of coffee. Incidentally, "Saikai" also shares track space on the album with "Goodbye Tokyo"（グッドバイTOKYO）.