Happy Monday! Earlier this morning, there was this video on singer-songwriter Kahoru Kohiruimaki's（小比類巻かほる）YouTube channel for one of the tracks on her scintillating 1989 hit album "Time The Motion", and it was there that I found out that a video featuring the entire album was up. Very good news for me and KKP because when I wrote up "Time The Motion" all the way back in 2014, it was much more difficult to find tracks from there and Kohhy's channel wouldn't be up for a few more years. So it's time for a follow-up!
Along with the article for "Time The Motion", I've already written about the most famous track, the hit "Dreamer" and the uptempo "Wild Generation" which starts things off.
As mentioned in the original article, most of the tracks (there are a few special exceptions) were created by Kohhy and the late Yoshiaki Ohuchi（大内義昭）but I failed to mention that the arrangement was handled by Canadian David Campbell and Junichi Kawaguchi（川口淳一）.
The above video from her channel has the whole album and beginning things here is Track 4 "In The Rain" at 14:33 with a great riff at the start and then some dramatic kickass horns. In fact, I think Kohiruimaki's work here seems to be weaving a contemporary film noir's final scene where the femme fatale and the anti-hero are in different cars going off in different directions. She's doing fine whereas the guy has a tiny permanent hole in his heart which she had once occupied.
At 24:38 is one of the special exceptions, namely "Bliss" which along with "Mind Bells" (that got its due in the original article for "Time The Motion") was created by the Prince and Levi Seacer Jr. "Bliss" is the aftermath of some rather heavy romancing, and it's so funky Prince (well, the guy is providing backup chorus) that it was a wonder that he hadn't included it with "Batdance" a month earlier. It is so out there that it took me a while to get used to it.
My opinion on "Everything's All Right" at 29:09 is also a bit out there since because of that synthesizer work in the song, I can't but feel that this could have been just at home on The Police's Stewart Copeland's soundtrack for the original CBS version of "The Equalizer" from the mid-1980s. But there is no need for an ex-CIA vigilante here since as the title says, everything is all right; heck, in fact the guy even took up a Cessna to do so some skywriting to emphasize this.
Remember at the very top where I mentioned that I saw this Kohhy video that started things off here today? Well, this is the video for the track "Asphalt no Kaeri Michi"（アスファルトの帰り道...The Asphalt Way Home） and it's one of my favourites on "Time The Motion". I just had to include this particular video although in the video for the entire album, it's located at 33:39. The music by Kohhy is more reminiscent of her earlier pop-rock material rather than the R&B that she was displaying on the rest of the album and that she would be singing more of in later albums. Lyrically, it's about remembering a childhood friendship that no longer exists due to the passage of time and circumstances.
The title track is at 38:24 and it sounds like Prince couldn't help but come back in at the intro, but "Time The Motion" is a purely Kohhy concoction. This was another song that I had always wanted to cover, and again "The Equalizer" pops up in my head. Wouldn't it be great to see Robert McCall dispense his special brand of justice while this song is playing? Keyboards are working overtime at time and a half here!
"Silent Blue" is the final track at 48:47 and it's a soulful and slightly jazzy mid-tempo finale bringing back those notions of film noir as someone stands on a nighttime pier realizing the good times and bad times of life. I guess that it would Kohhy's version of "Que Sera Sera".
It's been a while since I got to put up a Kohiruimaki song or album so I'm glad that I could find all of the songs from "Time The Motion" to provide some finality to one of the first CDs that I bought in Japan during my time on the JET Programme. I think that it did prove to be a turning point in the singer's career.
Great album. I came across it due to the Prince connection. Apparently, Kahoru's manager, Seijiro Udo, helped promote Prince's Lovesexy tour in Japan and in exchange, he asked him to provide some songs for her. My favorite of the two is "Bliss." While I'm glad the album is on Youtube in full, I hope it'll come to streaming services soon. Also, the live concert she did a year later is really good. She's such an electric live performer.
ReplyDeleteHello there. Yeah, it's hard to believe that it's been 33 years since "Time The Motion" was released, and Kohhy is still at it! It was definitely quite the thing for Prince to be helping her out.
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