Reiko Kato -- Feel Me

 

It's been a happy 24 hours all around here for Canada. Not only did the Blue Jays sweep a series from the Boston Red Sox, but Team Canada managed to thump the Qatari team in the World Cup last night. Not a bad day for sports.

Let us begin Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP then with a song that perhaps straddles the line between regular pop and City Pop (and yes, I do consider City Pop going beyond the 1990s) in my estimation. I only discovered "Feel Me", Reiko Kato's（かとうれいこ）penultimate single from July 1997, just in the last few months and why I think that the song can have at least one foot in the urban contemporary of it all is that its underlying rhythm feels like something that I've heard within the sophisticated pop of bands such as Swingout Sister. Words and music were supplied by the late singer-songwriter Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）who seems to have a lock on some atmospheric arrangements when it comes to his creations including this tune and his own "Rain Dolphin" from a few years back. He was also the man behind the classic duet "Shibuya de Go-ji" (渋谷で5時）.