Amaiwana -- Chocolate Lemonade（チョコレートレモネード）

From the Great Canadian Superstore

Chocolate and peanut butter? Yeah, I've liked them separately and I've liked them together. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are the ultimate collaboration in sinful calories. Come to think of it, I've enjoyed a cool tall glass of lemonade during the summer as a splendid thirst-quencher. Chocolate and lemonade together, though? My jury is still out on that one.😨

"Chocolate Lemonade" the song? Well, that's a whole different animal. It's a track from singer-songwriter Amaiwana's（アマイワナ）latest mini-album from October 2023, "Sweet Sweet Sweet" which is alongside "Shanghai Rendezvous"（上海逢引）, the song that I posted last month.

Written and composed by the Kyoto-born Amaiwana, it's got that fine bloopy technopop sheen that I heard in "Shanghai Rendezvous" but I think there is also some of that Shibuya-kei from the 1990s imbued in the arrangement. KKP viewers might think that's a stretch but if you look at the video of a day in the life of the singer, Amaiwana is leafing through a a book on 60s French pop and she's donning a lot of fashion that speaks to that decade in question which are cultural ingredients in that particular genre. At the same time, I can't help but feel that there is still some of that Ginger Root influence, although apparently his involvement this time was restricted to the music video.

Speaking of that video, I enjoyed it a lot for its time travel into the nostalgic. I had wondered whether Amaiwana was taking a walk in Shimo-Kitazawa or Nakano in Tokyo but the explanation underneath the video stated that she was in a number of establishments including the Koenji branch of Village Vanguard, a store famous for its stock of the old-fashioned and eclectic. I'm so glad that it's still around especially after the Odaiba branch got closed down a few years ago.