Ritsuko Kazami -- Aventurier (album)

 

As I mentioned before, I made my first purchases of Japanese pop albums in several months through CD Japan and they arrived a few days ago. One was Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）"Magical ~ Ohashi Junko no Sekai III"（大橋純子の世界III）, one of her BEST compilations from 1984. I was very happy with that one, as am I with this regular album "Aventurier", the second of actress/singer Ritsuko Kazami's（風見律子）three albums released in August 1986.

A couple of tracks from "Aventurier" are already represented here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", the title track and the appealingly techno-quirky "Onna Tomodachi: Reira no Baai"（女友達－レイラの場合）composed by Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. The title track and single "Aventurier" is a pretty soaring piece giving me snippets of Henry Mancini and 60s international romance and adventure a la "Charade", but Kazami's soft and languid delivery also gives me those Fashion Music (Japan's form of baroque pop, I gather) vibes. In fact, I've seen so many examples of that sort of music over the years that I'm making this article the first one to get the Fashion Music label so I'm going to be doing some major back-labeling later on today.

In any case, why don't we go over the rest of the tracks then? I did read one of the YouTube comments thanking the uploader for putting up the entire album since the powers-that-be had just gone on a search-and-destroy mission for some of the individual songs. However as of this point, I was able to find a few of those left. One is Track 2 "Kanojo to Odotte"（彼女と踊って...Dance with Her）.

One thing that quickly made me a believer in "Aventurier" is how a mix of genres are in play for this album, and with "Kanojo to Odotte", there is the ennui-laden Fashion Music aspect along with some of the synthpop in the rhythm, and even City Pop, although the city here is more likely the City of Lights rather than Tokyo. Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）came up with the lyrics of a man tiredly encouraging a young would-be suitor to go dance with his girlfriend with the hint that the man wouldn't particularly mind if the younger fellow danced with her forever. He's pretty much tapped out of energy. Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋真梨子）, drummer of Yellow Magic Orchestra, was the one behind the double-layer of slower silky strings and the more urgent keyboards; perhaps they were representing the two incompatible speeds of the potentially soon-to-be former couple.

I am glad that the next two songs have been left intact (for now) on YouTube since they form a set. Track 6 is "Koneko no Jouji ~ Petit Chat 1"（仔猫の情事（プティ・シャ1）...A Kitten's Love Affair） which is so string-heavy Fashion Music that I felt that I was gonna be handed a peeled grape to eat by my butler. The story of a lady who might be that lass from "Kanojo to Odotte", she's taking that leisurely and luxurious shower before curling up with her guy in bed, perhaps in a clothing-optional manner. Kazami herself wrote the lyrics while prolific composer Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）came up with the melody. I'd say that Yamakawa could have easily sung this as one of her own tunes judging from what I have heard from her as half of City Pop duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）.

(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)

Ah, now we come to the second of the set. Track 9 is "French Beer wo Nomihoshite ~ Petit Chat 2"（French Beerを飲みほして（プティ・シャ2）...Drink Up That French Beer） which has the same Yamakawa melody but with a different arrangement (by Yamakawa as opposed to the original by Tachio Akano/あかのたちお). Moreover, the lyrics are different and supplied this time by the aforementioned Ryu, and this time, the lady is at a bar, newly separated and casually caustic toward her former paramour. Yamakawa's arrangement is more footloose and fancy-free as if to reflect the fact that the shackles of relationships have finally come off although I'm personally worried about the status of her liver.

(Sorry but the album video has been taken down but you can hear

excerpts of the tracks at Tower Records.)

For the last number of tracks, I'm going to go with the full album video since the above were the only standalone videos that I could find of individual tracks. Track 1 is "Maboroshi no Uma"（幻の馬...The Mysterious Horse） starts "Aventurier" jauntily with a feeling of Matt Bianco's techno jazz including that cool trumpet (or cornet?). Yamakawa was once again on music and arrangement while Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）wrote the lyrics about a romantically ignored woman thinking of some dangerous liaisons.

Placed as Track 3 at 8:11, "Tokiori Violin no Oto ga"（時おりヴァイオリンの音が...Sometimes the Sound of a Violin） kinda wavers between stately waltzes of Fashion Music and synthpop, and I couldn't help but feel that Taeko Ohnuki was involved here. Sure enough, going through the liner notes, it was her on melody with Keiko Aso（麻生圭子）on lyrics and Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）handling the arrangement. 

"Aru Hohoemi"（ある微笑み...A Certain Smile） at 11:18 is a classy pop tune invoking an old kayo trope of a woman, recently out of a relationship, traveling to a new city to refresh her outlook on life. It's quite the atmospheric track but out of the entire album, it's probably the most conventionally pop song. This time, it's Ryu and YMO's Takahashi handling the creation.

"Midareta Bed"（乱れたベッド...Messy Bed）, Track 8 at 30:28, is composed and arranged by Shohei Narabe（奈良部匠平）, a support keyboardist for Kome Kome Club（米米ＣＬＵＢ）, and written by Ryu. It begins rather dramatically with the sound of a burgeoning storm, and the setting is the bed for a newly attached, shall we say, couple as a woman comes out of her slumber woozily and wonders what she has gotten herself into. There is a frenetic blast of synthesizers midway which could represent her frantically trying to remember the night before. My take? It may have involved absinthe. In the same song's refrain, the melody and Kazami are trying for a certain chanson-like stance.

At 39:38 is "Kuro no Clair" (黒のクレール...Black Clair) which is a cover of Ohnuki's classic version from her 1982 album "Cliche". It's not only a more contemporary pop (for that time) take but it feels like a version that Ohnuki herself could have done if she had opted to go away from her favoured French arrangement of the early 1980s for the late 80s style that she went for. Kazuo Shiina（椎名和夫）arranged everything here.

The final track at 44:52, "Period"（終幕）, is a sad carnival-like waltz about a deteriorating romance, ironically in the spring when just the opposite should be happening. It's quite sensuous with images of frittering sakura petals, sounds of music boxes and Ferris wheels, fresh hot tears, and the painful slap on the face. Kazami was the lyricist with Narabe as composer/arranger. 

"Aventurier" is indeed quite the adventure, and the overall feeling is that Kazami and company had wanted to go for one of those spirited Hitchcockian suspense capers of the 1960s joined by some of that music technology of the 1980s. As you can see from the Labels, it is chock-filled with plenty of big songwriting names to give their own melody flavours to the overall dish. I will always be fascinated with that sort of collaboration because of what the mixture could yield to listeners.