Tomita Lab -- MAP for LOVE

 

A Happy Good Friday to you! Yup, it's a long weekend here in Canada so while things are still chilly outside, at least the sun is out brilliantly. 

Starting off Urban Contemporary Friday from a weird angle, I recollect that I saw Stanley Kubrick's classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" in its entirety only once. There were a number of noteworthy scenes including the title sequence with "Also sprach Zarathustra", the appearance of the massive spiral space station, HAL 9000, and that final mind-altering sequence featuring Dr. Bowman's evolution into the Starchild. The one chilling scene was seeing HAL murder Dr. Poole and throwing him into the celestial abyss (no worries, though...he gets better in the novel "3001: The Final Odyssey").

Watching the relaxing music video for Tomita Lab's（冨田ラボ）April 2021 digital single "MAP for LOVE", I couldn't help but feel that this could have been the perfect song and fate for good ol' Dr. Poole...he somehow gets thrown into an alternate universe over Tokyo in the year 2021 (mind you, he seems to have an even better future in the year 3001). As for the song itself, "MAP for LOVE" is basically a get-together of the Tomita Family in the recording booth. Written by Ryuta Tsunoda（角田隆太）of the band Mononkul（ものんくる）and Ryohu from KANDYTOWN, both of whom had a hand in Tomita Lab's 2018 album "M-P-C 'Mentality, Physicality, Computer'" and composed by the Lab himself, there are no fewer than nine singers behind the microphone: the aforementioned Ryohu, singer/seiyuu Maaya Sakamoto（坂本真綾）, guitarist Ryosuke Nagaoka（長岡亮介）of R&B band PETROLZ, Kento Nagatsuka（長塚健斗）of WONK, Naz, Bird, Sakura Fujiwara（藤原さくら）, Yasuyuki Horigome（堀込泰行）of Kirinji（キリンジ）, and Mononkul vocalist Sara Yoshida（吉田沙良）, all of whom have collaborated with the producer in the past.

All of the Arthur C. Clarke comparisons aside though, "MAP for LOVE" is a sweet and breezy romantic soul ballad about being connected by love no matter the distance whether it be in kilometres or light-years. My apologies but I'm going to have bring in another motion picture here. There's something about the story that reminds me of "Sleepless in Seattle" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan...and the crazy thing is that I read on Wikipedia that Hanks had once been interested in adapting "3001: The Final Odyssey" for the big screen.