Crystal Pop Attraction -- COFFEE and BROWNIE

 

A little over a year ago, I found out about Crystal Pop Attraction, a project by songwriter, producer and arranger Shinichiro Murayama（村山晋一郎）and singer-songwriters Eri Yamashita（山下絵里）and HI-D . They came up with some urban contemporary goodies which they then put into a self-titled album in 2022. Coming out with this during a time when Japan and the rest of the world were slowly coming out of the COVID cocoon, the music must have been quite enticing to enjoy those old nights in downtown Tokyo or any city centre in the nation.

The track from "Crystal Pop Attraction" that I wrote about back then was "Kagayaku Hoshi no Melody"（輝く星のメロディー）. For non-Japanese-speaking J-R&B or City Pop fans, that title was probably a mouthful, but its fellow track mate is a very sweet and easy-to-understand mouthful. "COFFEE and BROWNIE" is one delectably soulful tune thanks to the groovy arrangement and Yamashita's creamy vocals. And as someone who had his fair share of coffee and brownies at places like Hard Rock Café and Tony Roma's in Tokyo, "COFFEE and BROWNIE" hits me just so.

Mind you, after having all that coffee and brownie (topped up with ice cream or whipped cream), it was awfully hard to get to sleep. In any case, I leave you with a video of how to make brownies with coffee as one of the ingredients. Happy weekend!

Crystal Pop Attraction -- Kagayaku Hoshi no Melody（輝く星のメロディー）

 

The name Shinichiro Murayama（村山晋一郎）may not hit too many ears with recognition but as I've been able to learn, he's been a songwriter, producer and arranger who's been around since the end of the century. Although he was born in 1968 in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, he spent some of his childhood growing up in the United States where he fell for the R&B music of the time, and as such, his works have revolved around J-R&B singers and songs such as Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル）"Movin' On Without You" and a 2000 remix of Sing Like Talking's "Together" (1994).

In 2022, Murayama collaborated with singer-songwriters Eri Yamashita（山下絵里）and HI-D to form the group Crystal Pop Attraction and the result was a self-titled album. One blurb on a website described the music as a love letter to the J-R&B that was coming out in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and with this track "Kagayaku Hoshi no Melody" (Starlight Melody), I do get that era's feeling of night soul reverberating across Tokyo. Indeed, it does feel rather nostalgic listening to this one when I think of the music coming out of Japan at that time a couple of decades ago, thanks to folks like the aforementioned Utada.