Atsuko Hiyajo/Ryusenkei -- Orange Iro no Gogo ni（オレンジ色の午後に）

 

There's nothing like a song that I can really sink my teeth into like a particularly juicy and tasty roast beef sandwich with plenty of au jus. I think that I've found one here.

Throughout the six minutes of singer-songwriter Atsuko Hiyajo's（比屋定篤子）splendid July 1999 7th single "Orange Iro no Gogo ni" (On an Orange Afternoon), I've managed to get a number of musical influences and feelings ranging from Miki Imai（今井美樹）to the Righteous Brothers. It's a wistful ballad of lost opportunities and hopeful reconnections that seems to pay tribute to an epic conclusion to an old 1950s or 1960s Technicolor romance thanks to those shimmering strings and a rich piano. Therefore, I've also been getting vibes of sophisticated pop through the balladry of Swingout Sister and Joe Jackson, and the romanticism of Original Love. Maybe there's even some Shibuya-kei in there, I don't know (I won't mention it officially since Original Love would want to kill me).

The single was written by Hiyajo and composed by Jiro (or Haruo) Kobayashi（小林治郎）, and the duo was also behind the first song that I ever heard by Hiyajo, "Maware Maware" （まわれまわれ）. Its arrangement was handled by Tatsuya Nishiwaki（西脇辰弥）who was once a part of the late 1980s urban contemporary band PAZZ.

(17:55)

"Maware Maware" had its own original version and then a collaborative new take thanks to Hiyajo working with Neo-City Pop band Ryusenkei（流線型）about a decade later in 2009 with their album "Natural Woman". That same album did the same thing with "Orange Iro no Gogo ni", and the results have been breathtaking. I love the original version of "Orange Iro no Gogo ni", but this jauntier redressing in "Natural Woman" had it sound just like if it had been time-lifted as a so-called "lost track" from Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）1970s City Pop/New Music masterpieces "Grey Skies" and "Sunshower" right down to the rhythms and the instruments used.

In fact, what I realized was that Hiyajo in the late 1990s and 2000s sounds just like Ohnuki in the 1970s! That high-pitched, feathery and spot-on singing is unmistakable. Just imagine it...going from the style of a mid-20th-century romantic flick ending ballad to a breezy and swinging 1970s Japanese City Pop song. And they both sound great.