Yuko Sugita -- Senritsu（旋律）

 

When KKP contributor nikala first introduced singer-songwriter Yuko Sugita（杉田優子）all the way back in October 2014 through her article on "Shuu Densha" (終電車), she made it abundantly clear that there wasn't a whole lot of information about her. That hasn't really changed but I was able to find out from "Idol.ne.jp" that Sugita did release a total of three singles and two albums between 1978 and 1979.

Since nikala's first article, I've added some more to the Sugita file with a couple of more songs: "Maryoku"（魔力）and "Surfing Musume"（サーフィン娘）because, as my fellow contributor has mentioned, she's pretty darn interesting. And that holds true for this entry "Senritsu" (Melody) which was actually the second of Sugita's three singles. It was released in July 1978, and I was able to find out through Discogs that the singer had some good help in the recording of the song for which she provided words and music.

First off, Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）arranged "Senritsu" which begins with this distinctive combination of regular strings and synth-strings with the latter provided by Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）. My first thought was that "Senritsu" was a certain type of New Music tune whose setting was somewhere out in Paris but listening to it a few more times, I realized that there was also some bossa nova mixed in there just like with Keiko Maruyama's（丸山圭子）classic "Douzo Kono Mama" (どうぞこのまま）, and then I picked up on the underlying rhythm which felt like typical 1970s City Pop. Indeed, it is quite the fascinating senritsu, and overall, I found it cool and cooling.

In addition to Suzuki, who was on electric guitar, and Matsutoya, Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）was on bass, Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）was on drums, Hidetoshi Yamada（山田秀俊）was on electric piano and synthesizer, and the rest of the percussion was provided by Nobu Saito（斉藤ノブ）. "Senritsu" was also a track on Sugita's first album "Monsoon", just like "Shuu Densha".