Chakra -- Free

 

It was much cooler this morning than the steamy weekend we had and in fact, there was even some rain coming down. Therefore, it was ironic that our building had gotten a sudden notice of water shutoff due to an emergency which involved a valve needing to be replaced immediately. Fortunately, the crisis only lasted a few hours and H2O is back flowing through the taps once more. Nothing like the lack of a vital substance to add further stress to a Monday.

Anyways, let's launch the work week with something a little unusual to match my once out-of-sorts mood this morning. I've written about the 80s eclectic band Chakra（チャクラ）a few times already with most of the articles that I've written about them having gone over some upbeat if bizarre songs such as the supremely catchy "Myun Myun" (ミュンミュン) and the epic 10-minute bouncy New Wave adventure of "Chotto Itai kedo Suteki"（ちょっと痛いけどステキ）from their sophomore 1981 album "Satekoso"（さてこそ...As Expected）. Fun stuff those!

Well, another track on "Satekoso" is "Free" which, given the aforementioned two tracks, is a more calming and relatively down-to-earth song about being encouraged to be free, even to the point of perhaps even jettisoning a relationship. Still, "Free" resembles its two trackmates in that it's not that easy to categorize in terms of genre although by the end, I decided to go with technopop. I think that the songs that I've heard from Chakra thus far are like aural Long Island Iced Teas...they've got some disparate ingredients in those but the total effect is still very sweet if potent.

Some other observations of "Free" is that Mishio Ogawa's（小川美潮）vocals sound slightly more relaxed here so that I even get some vibes of Dreams Come True's huskier-voiced Miwa Yoshida（吉田美和）. As well, "Free" is significantly shorter than "Myun Myun" and "Chotto Itai kedo Suteki" at a little over three-and-a-half minutes but Chakra guitarist/songwriter Bun Itakura（板倉文）manages to stuff in so much within that brief time. A "Doctor Who" fan (like me) might say that the song is a TARDIS of a tune.