Sara Hamamoto -- Cool Water

 

The description of Sara Hamamoto's（浜本沙良）2nd album "Truth of Lies" goes as follows:

Everything from the goddess of uptown...Sara Hamamoto's second album, full of mild comfort and solid groove.

The YouTube video pegs the album as a 1996 release but three other sources including the "Truth of Lies" article on J-Wiki has this being released in March 1995, so I will go with the earlier year. In any case, the promotional catch copy mentioned above for "Truth of Lies" is nicely encapsulated in the second track "Cool Water". 

It's been over a couple of years since I posted a Hamamoto song and "Cool Water" is a nice way to make a reunion. It is indeed comfortable and quite groovy...bringing in some of that 1970s soul through the guitar and keyboards. Strangely enough, it does feel like a sunset swim in the pool. Give thanks to lyricist Seriko Natsuno（夏野芹子）, composer Mioko Yamaguchi（山口未央子）and arranger Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）. I've also read in J-Wiki that Natsuno tends to provide lyrics for aidoru tunes, but "Cool Water" is definitely not one of those, and it's nice to realize that Yamaguchi has also created really groovy stuff in comparison to the early technopop and somewhat avant-garde material that she was singing around fifteen years prior to her contribution to Hamamoto. I always love a laidback Fender Rhodes.