spaghetti vabune! -- Favorite Song

By Paolo Piscolla from Wikimedia Commons

I do have a love for pasta, especially spaghetti. I grew up on Bolognese made by my mother but then in Japan, I realized that the Japanese absolutely adore pasta of all kinds and so that's how I discovered other types such as Pepperoncino, Carbonara and Napolitan (which actually doesn't come from Naples but is a purely Japanese type).

Of course, it's not as wonderful as actually eating the stuff itself, but I also indulge in watching the many pasta-making videos on YouTube such as this one by Preppy Kitchen for his take on Carbonara. His way of cooking actually makes the sauce look less intimidating to create...since I have some PTSD from making something that involved raw eggs from long ago. 

Once again, my preamble ramble leads us to a group called spaghetti vabune! which I discovered by happenstance a few weeks earlier. When I posted an article on the technopop unit Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, I found out that their "Kitchen Shock" hadn't come from their own discography but it actually belonged to a December 2004 compilation album titled "Contemode V.A. 2".

Well, I looked through the rest of the tracks and saw some other dynamic-sounding acts there and tried looking up the titles. And spaghetti vabune! was one of them. According to their website, the group began life in 2001 and perhaps currently consists of vocalist/guitarist Keiji Tokuda, vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Chihiro Yoshii, guitarist Takayoshi Umeno, drummer Naoya Shimai and bassist Shuhei Kinukawa. Their J-Wiki article has them categorized as a unit into indies pop, jangle pop, Shibuya-kei and alternative rock. 

spaghetti vabune!'s contribution to "Contemode V.A. 2" is "Favorite Song (contemode bossa mix)" which does have plenty of Brazilian swagger to the extent that I was wondering whether it should have been called "contemode samba mix" instead. But no complaints here. It makes for some fun and summery listening. I did wonder whether there was an original version of "Favorite Song" and the answer was Yes! The much shorter guitar pop original does appear on the band's April 2003 album "summer vacation, sunset vehicle". Incidentally, the bossa mix was created by Yasutaka Nakata（中田ヤスタカ）.