NOVA/Saori Minami -- Ai Naki Sedai（愛なき世代）

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More than two years ago, I wrote about the duo NOVA who had appeared on the old local radio program "Sounds of Japan" on CHIN-FM and at the time I was ecstatic about finally able to find something about this 70s and 80s New Music group on YouTube which led to my posting of their 1981 "Aishuu"（哀秋）. On a couple of my dusty ancient Canadian Tire audiotapes, I had two mellow summery songs by them but unfortunately neither of those are up on the platform ("Aishuu" isn't either of them).

There has been precious little information on NOVA anywhere but at least I did get a few more tidbits since then. For one thing, I can finally confirm that Kazunari Kido（木戸一成）was indeed one of the two people in NOVA via J-Wiki and that the duo's history does extend back to 1978 at least. In fact, that information was found in the article regarding Saori Minami's（南沙織）May 1978 26th single "Ai Naki Sedai" (Loveless Generation). Minami's A-side here was actually a cover of NOVA's B-side for their second single "Tokimeki Kisetsufuu"（ときめき季節風...Thrilling Seasonal Winds） which had come out earlier that year in January.

"Ai Naki Sedai" is a bittersweet tune written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Kido which tells the tale of a woman forgiving her straying boyfriend although the feeling is that she's not wholly doing this out of love for the cad but simply because she's frankly too tired of tracking down his dalliances. Kido's melody really is lovely and Off-Course-ish（オフコース）but there's also that sense of resignation in the arrangement. The above YouTube video comments state that NOVA recorded three singles with "Aishuu" being their last one in 1981; there was apparently an album as well and maybe my two lost songs on the Canadian Tire tapes are in there.

For the lack of a better word, Minami's cover is bluesier and breezier and seems to possess that feeling of "Oh, you silly man!" regarding all of the cheating. Her "Ai Naki Sedai", which ranked in at No. 74, was included on her 18th album "I've been mellow" (June 1978) whose title track I posted over a decade ago.