WONK -- Promise

 

Back in July, I wrote up an article on another groovalicious tune by Tomita Lab（冨田ラボ）, "Let It Ride", for which the guest vocalist was a fellow by the name of Kento Nagatsuka（長塚健斗）. Nagatsuka also happens to be the vocalist for the band WONK, a group specializing in jazz, soul, hip-hop and beat music according to their J-Wiki profile.

I've found one song so far by WONK which hails from their September 2017 2nd album "Castor". "Promise" is quite the formal introduction to Nagatsuka and company since I get all these wonderful vibes of soulful Stevie Wonder back in the 1970s. It's all about the flute, the electric organ/Fender Rhodes, and Nagatsuka's vocals which sometimes get awfully close to the wonder of Stevie himself in the opening verses.

Since I didn't do so in the Tomita Lab article, allow me to introduce the band. Along with Nagatsuka, there is keyboardist Ayatake Ezaki（江﨑文武）, bassist/guitarist Kan Inoue（井上幹）and drummer/leader Hikaru Arata（荒田洸）. As of 2021, WONK has released 9 singles, 2 EPs and 5~6 albums. That last statistic is based on the fact that the 2nd album "Castor" has a twin release called "Pollux" which was put onto the shelves on the same day, so I guess the two can be considered to be a 2A and 2B.