City Craft -- Higanzakura（彼岸桜）

 

A little over a couple of months ago, I wrote about a very obscure folk duo called City Craft（シティ・クラフト）and their song, "Niji wo Kakete Miseru"（虹を架けてみせる）, from 1981. It was a very pleasant ditty with a mix of bossa nova, AOR and folk. 

Still, no change in the dearth of information on City Craft, although I think since the songwriter for that first song, Shunichi Tomori（戸森俊一）, also handles the music for the song of this article, "Higanzakura" (Weeping Cherry), perhaps Tomori is indeed one of the duo. Judging from the above thumbnail, "Higanzakura" was a single by City Craft but it's also a track on their 1981 album,  "Kisetsufuu"（季節風...Seasonal Winds）.

Prolific Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）was the lyricist here and she weaves a sad story of a couple who had been engaged to be married, only for the fiancé to be taken away by another lover...the city itself. Bad city! Bad bad city! In any case, bad kayo joke aside, "Higanzakura" is more in the folk vein when compared with "Niji wo Kakete Miseru" but with a slightly more contemporary spin thanks to some of the instruments involved. The arrangement was handled by Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）. Once again, I'm left with the request for any more information about City Craft. For example, what is the name of the other member?

City Craft -- Niji wo Kakete Miseru（虹を架けてみせる）

 

With a name like City Craft, I had been expecting something like a City Pop band with all of the punchy bass and Fender Rhodes action.

However, I found out that City Craft（シティ・クラフト）was actually more of a folk duo and that's about all I could find, despite looking through a number of sites. However, most of those sites were auction places so it was just City Craft's records that were up there for sale and pretty much bupkiss in terms of information.

All I know is that they may have been around as early as 1978 and that the lyricist and composer for this particular song "Niji wo Kakete Miseru" (I'll Build You A Rainbow), Shunichi Tomori*（戸森俊一）, may be one of the two members of City Craft. Other than that, "Niji wo Kakete Miseru" was out as a single and also as a track on their album "Kisetsufuu"（季節風...Seasonal Winds）, both of which were released sometime in 1981. Just from the basic melody, I would have pegged this one as a folk song but there was that undulating bossa nova rhythm moving it along like waves under a toy sailboat. There were also those keyboards that had me wondering whether City Craft and whoever helped arranged the song were also trying to add in some of that extra AOR juice.

If anyone out there has some extra information on City Craft, please let us know. I'd be interested in exploring these two a bit further.

*The kanji for the first name for Mr. Tomori can be read many ways but I couldn't get a definitive solution to my problem.