By this point, I would think that most of the Japanese City Pop catalog has been fully plumbed and purchased after Mariya's "Plastic Love" got its huge international revelation years ago. And yet, I still encounter the obscure even within this now very explored area of world music.
I had never heard of singer-songwriter Norimasa Yamanaka（山中のりまさ）until a few days ago, and there isn't anything about his biography online. As far as I know, he released a couple of studio albums and at least one single in the first half of the 1980s. The single is right here. "Sunrise Sunset" hit the shelves in 1981 and it's a nice slice of West Coast AOR with a bit of whimsical Beatles in the second half of the song. But close to the end, I wonder what producer (and legendary drummer) Ponta Murakami's（村上 "Ponta" 秀一）reason was for suddenly stripping the volume for one round of the chorus.
It's been a long time since I referred to kaz-shin's "Music Avenue" blog and when I noticed that he had written about "Sunrise Sunset", I took a look for some insight and usually I get some. But this time, he only reported on the fact that he had been on the recording process with Yamanaka, thanks to a lucky connection, but nothing on what he thought of the song itself except for the fact that he found it catchy. Ah, by the way, "Sunrise Sunset" is also available on Yamanaka's first album "Merry-Go-Round", also from 1981.
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