microstar -- Koi wa Isoide（恋は急いで）

 

I haven't written about the longtime duo microstar in quite a while. With the group consisting of composer and arranger Seiki Sato（佐藤清喜）and vocalist and bassist Yuko Iizumi（飯泉裕子）having been around since 1996, I only joined the party quite late. However, it was still a fun time to be had as I listened to their jazzy "Yuugure Girl"（夕暮れガール）and the disco "Tiny Spark" from the 2010s.

So, this is a first. I not only hear one of their earliest songs but I actually get to see a music video which shows Sato and Iizumi in the flesh. "Koi wa Isoide" (Love in a Hurry) comes from microstar's August 1997 2nd mini-album "micro freaks" and it was written by Iizumi and composed by Sato. This particular song is something that is rather deliciously difficult to categorize since there seems to be a few influences coming in here. I get some technopop in the instrumentation along with some jangly indies guitar pop. At the same time, thanks to Iizumi's somewhat breathy and almost adolescent take on the Divine Miss Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴）from Pizzicato Five and the swingy/breezy arrangement, I also feel there is some Shibuya-kei in there, too. With my adjectives of breathy, swingy and breezy, it's no surprise that Iizumi's lyrics describe a woman running away from someone in the big city...perhaps because she has just confessed her love to him and couldn't take the emotions swirling everywhere around and within her.

All in all, "Koi wa Isoide" sounds like the 90s indies pop that it was made out to be. It's also interesting to compare this one with the later microstar entries that I mentioned off the top.