Tomita Lab feat. Ringo Shiina -- Yasashii Tetsugaku（やさしい哲学）

 

It's been standard operating procedure for me to listen to any song that has any connection with songwriter-producer Keiichi Tomita（冨田恵一）, aka Tomita Lab（冨田ラボ）, basically since I found out about him years ago. He's provided truly mellow and classic café-friendly pop fare through numbers such as "Nemuri no Mori"（眠りの森）, groovy soul via tunes like "Shiawase no Blue"（しあわせのBlue）and even earlier PSY-S-reminiscent synthpop fare, thanks to his time as part of KEDGE in the late 1980s.

Now there is another delectable dimple to add to his face of music genres. This time, Tomita Lab was joined by force-of-nature rocker and jazz muse Ringo Shiina（椎名林檎）to create "Yasashii Tetsugaku" (A Gentle Philosophy). A track on his October 2013 album "Joyous", the first several seconds of the song contain a relentless rainstorm of synth, and so I'd been expecting something quite new right from the get-go, but then a TOTO-like melody suddenly comes crashing down like stuff from a late 1970s/early 1980s album.

"Yasashii Tetsugaku", though it has that underlying Tomita sound once more, also contains that sensation of AOR and even some progressive rock. Plus, although I've heard Shiina for years performing her blasting rock and then big band swing, this is the first time to hear her sing to something of this nature. But somehow, everything fits quite nicely here. Maybe there is indeed a gentle philosophy at work. In any case, Shiina was responsible for lyrics while Tomita took care of the melody.