The very briefly ominous intro and outro with the percussion aside, as soon as I heard the music for this one, I knew that this had to be a Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）composition.
And sure enough, I was right. "Hoshi no Deja Vu" (Star-Crossed Deja Vu) was the B-side to Tomoyo Harada's（原田知世）"Soushun Monogatari"（早春物語...Early Spring Story）, her 7th single from July 1985. The sweeping feeling of fantasy within those strings and piano was pretty much a dead giveaway to the magic of Kisugi under Masaaki Omura's（大村雅朗）arrangement. And it goes so well with Harada's floating vocals. Chinfa Kan（康珍化）was responsible for the lyrics of a woman's memory of romance being triggered by certain scenes.
Although it's been categorized as a single with just the two songs on each side, "Soushun Monogatari" was packaged in an EP format, according to J-Wiki, so I'm thinking that instead of the usual 45" donut-ban, it got the full LP treatment.
I find "Hoshi no Deja Vu" to have a very impactful arrangement. It is peppy and dreamy at the same time. Maybe this was a precursor to J-pop. This does not really fit into the stereotypical disco, city pop, 80's Aidoru music, or kayokyoku.
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. Side A also had its impact but I kinda wish that "Hoshi no Deja Vu" had gotten a little more love.
DeleteMe, too! But, maybe more will re-discover it, and it will go viral!
DeleteAnother "Plastic Love", perhaps?😊
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