Jazztronik feat. Taeko Ohnuki -- Ameoto（雨音）

Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons

Happy Sunday to you all! Although we had some dire warnings about heavy rain throughout yesterday, things have settled down in the Toronto area. It's still overcast but it looks like the worst-case scenario luckily hasn't come to pass.

Over the past several weeks, we here at KKP found the collaboration between Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）and STUTS so nice that Rocket Brown and I wrote about it twice. When I was digging a bit more into "Ohayou"（おはよう）, I found a few more collaborations that Ohnuki had done with other artists in the past.

Jazztronik, aka Tokyo DJ/pianist/producer Ryota Nozaki（野崎良太）, is also one for working with other singers such as Miki Imai（今井美樹）. In 2007, when he released his album "Grand Blue", he included his own collaboration with Ohnuki for the track "Ameoto" (The Sound of Rain) which is this exquisitely contemplative song sung by Taeko in this lovely jazz waltz style. This is the type of song that can be heard in a sparsely populated and stylish Tokyo cafe whose windows and walls are holding back the raindrops while a customer is slowly savoring her cuppa. The rhythm does quicken toward the end (caffeine kicking in?) but then it abruptly goes back to its simmering tempo before ending with a sloshing of water.

Nozaki was responsible for the composition while the lyricists were BEBE and Shoko Fujibayashi（藤林聖子）.