I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Showing posts with label Etsuko Yamakawa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Etsuko Yamakawa. Show all posts
Well, it's been over six years since I wrote about 80s aidoru Maiko Okamoto's（岡本舞子）sophomore and final album to date, "Fascination", from July 1986. As was the case back then, I only wrote about a few of the tracks there but was...well, fascinated by the fact that some bigwigs in the industry such as singer-songwriter Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）were behind the production, especially since City Pop was involved.
Happy to say that I've reopened the Okamoto file thanks to this track from "Fascination" that I hadn't covered. Titled "Aoi Summertime", this was written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）with the aforementioned Yamakawa behind composition and arrangement. It's quite the zippy aidoru tune with the sparkly synths and Okamoto's genki vocals singing about young love in the hot season. I'm just glad that I could find a song with "summer" in the title especially when things have been blazing both here and in Japan. As for the colour mentioned in the title, aoi（蒼い）, I had initially assumed that it was "Green Summertime" but apparently considering the lyrics, I think it might be better to say "Sky-Blue Summertime".
Doing the blog for as long as I have, I've been able to encounter a lot of singers and bands that I never would have, and that includes the mysterious Rie Murakami（村上リエ）who only put out that one album in 1984, "Sahara". At the time I made my first posting for the singer, it was for one of its tracks, "Say Cheese", which had me reminisce about Boz Scaggs and Bobby Caldwell from their 1970s days.
However, another track is the appropriately titled "TNT" which had the same lyricist, Linda Hennrick but this time, the composer was Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, and as dedicated KKP readers know, whenever I see her name, she has my undivided attention. And sure enough, this is one funky blaster. In fact, I think it so funky that it should have gotten a music video with plenty of choreography. The interesting thing about this one though is that it not only has some of that Dazz Band arrangement thanks to Masanori Sasaji（笹路正徳）but there are points where it approaches Manhattan Transfer-friendly fusion.
The above video was provided by Marty McFlies v2 (thank you for that, Marty) and I was struck by one comment he had in his explanation under the video. He mentioned that when he'd bought "Sahara", he hadn't been all that impressed with it and put it on the back burner for years. Years later, he gave it another shot and found it all so worthy. I could totally relate to that sentiment since I gave my first purchase of a Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）album the same initial short shrift and many years in my cabinet before giving it another shot for some reason and then finally seeing the light.
Finally, we have a proper spring day out there with seasonal temperatures and bright sunshine. And just in time for the Victoria Day long weekend, too. Plus, the other wonderful thing is that we've got another Urban Contemporary Friday on "Kayo Kyoku Plus".
Today, we start off with singer-songwriter Keiko Utsumi's（宇都美慶子）"Futari dake no Kyuujitsu"(Only Our Holiday) from her September 1992 4th album"Ren'ai Shosetsu"（恋愛小説...A Love Romance） as introduced by a radio DJ who apparently is only a sporadic student at Berlitz. Written by Utsumi and composed by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, the song strikes me as the prototypical 90s City Pop tune with those certain synths at play, and as soon as I learned that Yamakawa was behind the melody, I immediately pressed "play". Lots of good groove and soul in this one and I always appreciate a good sax solo (although for some reason, they had brought in a rather twee synth sax earlier in the song). As for Utsumi's lyrics, they don't completely describe a blissful relationship (the fact that her recipe for vegetable juice sounds more like a recipe for vegetable stew doesn't help) as the arguments start flying near the end with things finishing up on an uncertain note. Hey, love and life downtown!
It's been an interesting decade and a half since I got back from Japan for good since at about the same time, Japanese gastronomy as it applies to my hometown really started to evolve. During my childhood, it was all about the generalist Japanese restaurant which covered everything through courses such as the teriyaki course, the tempura one and the sushi one. But then from around 2011 or 2012, various ramen chains that started from Vancouver made their way across Canada to Toronto starting with Kinton and that made a huge splash. Then, it was the izakaya boom, Japanese cheesecake and then more specialized fare including udon and tonkatsu.
At least some of these restaurants have also been aware of the Japanese pop culture scene. Kingyo, when it was a full izakaya at the time, decorated its walls with pachinko machines and used to play anime on its back wall, and recently as a converted izakaya/food store, it's had a playlist of Japanese music coming through the speakers.
In the past year or so, there's even been a new place that's brought a bit of Japanese into the old-fashioned diner and even it has mentioned its own Spotify playlist. It's quite the bounty and Cafe Citypop has stuff including Junko Yagami's（八神純子）boppy "Jealous" and Kirinji's（キリンジ）snazzy "Hi Zero Wa Game" (非ゼロ和ゲーム...Non-Zero Sum Game). But it's not all City Pop and I was able to find one song in the list that I hadn't heard before.
Akiko Ikuina's（生稲晃子）"Omedetou"(Congratulations) is a track from her 2nd and final album to date, "Nihon "Ikuina" Kikou"（日本「生稲」紀行...Japan "Ikuina" Travelogue） which was released in August 1989 to a No. 33 ranking on Oricon. "Omedetou" may not be a City Pop tune per se, but it sure is catchy and refined. And as soon as I saw the arranging and composing credits belonging to Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）from Tohoku Shikansen（東北新幹線）fame, I knew that I was going to get something infectiously good. It's got the nice slow-to-medium-tempo groove and an effective combo of keyboards in play. Kazuko Sakata（さかたかずこ）took care of the lyrics.
Once again, I've come across another talented Japanese singer whom I've never heard about before despite having made her debut well more than thirty years ago. AKEMI doesn't even have a J-Wiki profile and it was through the good fortune of blogger kinuzure and his "Tamaranaku, AOR Kayo"（たまらなく、AOR歌謡） that I was able to find out anything about her. And this was an article that he had posted only a few months again in August.
First off, AKEMI hails from Fukuoka Prefecture and she got into the singing business thanks to being inspired by "We Are The World" in the mid-1980s. She made her debut in 1990 with an insert song in a drama. In the late 1990s, she went over to the United States to study performance and composing at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She's also taken up jazz and gospel as part of her repertoire. Currently working under the name AKEMI Lady-A, she is continuing to ply her trade in both Fukuoka and New York City.
According to kinuzure, the source album for this particular song is "Second Wind", her second album from 1991. "Keep On Dream" is a peppy pop song written by Kaoru Asagi（麻木かおる）, composed by Takashi Tsushimi（都志見隆）and arranged by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. It has a slight brush of R&B and hearing those percolating beats, I got that 1990s vibe immediately.
All I gotta say is that Naomi Kawashima's（川島なお美）March 1985 6th album"SCOOOP!" has got one of the great covers. It's done up like some sort of photography magazine right down to the different sizes and fonts as if each track looks like a featured article within the pages. Plus of course, the gorgeous Ms. Kawashima is right on the cover with her own camera. Also, one other observation is that those 1980s producers really liked to throw in the triple vowels into female City Pop singers' album titles. You can check out Anri（杏里）for that.
Regardless, I'd like to focus on the final track on "SCOOOP!", "Please Mr. Information". Written by the singer and composed/arranged by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, as soon as I read that Yamakawa was in the credits, I just had to listen to this. Once again, I wasn't disappointed. It's a pretty laidback and a-couple-of-fingers-of-Old-Parr-friendly City Pop tune thanks to Kawashima's whispery vocals and those Fender Rhodes tones. It's just the melodic tonic for a Friday after work and simply hitting the couch for some relaxation.
Last month, I was surprised and delighted to discover that microphone-reticent singer-songwriter Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, who had basically only made her lovely vocals known through her contribution to Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）in 1982, had released a digital single about a year ago in July called "Do Yah!". The song was a bouncy reflection of what Bubble Era City Pop was all about.
Well, about a month after that release, the lady released another single online called "UTOPIA". As provided by lyricist Yukako Niizuma and composer/arranger Yamakawa, it's more of a woozy midnight stroll along a park. Perhaps that late-night walk in Tokyo is perhaps a utopia indeed. There's a combination of Burt Bacharach-friendly bossa nova and Kirinji（キリンジ）enveloped in a Neo-City Pop film when I listen to this smooth-as-Baileys song. Of course, Yamakawa's kittenish vocals are still the chef's kiss.
Yes, I do remember back in the early 2000s when I was living in Japan that there was a major odyssey regarding Tama-chan the bearded seal, so named because it had been first discovered in the Tama River in Tokyo. It was first spotted there in the summer of 2002 and apparently its final confirmed sighting was nearly two years later in the Arakawa River. Between those two time periods, Tama-chan managed to capture the hearts and minds of an entire nation including a weird cult. I'm not sure where Tama-chan is now although I hear that the bearded seal can live up to 31 years, so it may actually be still around somewhere in its old age muttering to its grandpups, "Don't ever get too close to humans! They are nuts!".😬
Tama-chan and this anime reminded me of each other. And I've mentioned the 1995-1996"Bonobono"（ぼのぼの）before when I wrote about its second ending theme "LOVE, TWO LOVE" by Kyoko Suga（須賀響子）back in 2020.
Well, its first ending theme is even more adorable. Also recorded by Suga as her 4th single from June 1995, "Chikamichi Shitai" (I Wanna Take the Short Cut), this was written by the singer with Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）as the composer, and as I've mentioned before, my SOP here is that anything by Yamakawa will usually grab my attention immediately. Indeed, this is another winner which should have had both kids and grownups enjoying the song whenever the end credits popped up. Wouldn't it have been the thing if "Chikamichi Shitai" had been used as the unofficial theme for the Tama-chan saga? But JASRAC would have brought down the copyright hammer.
Never thought I would see the day that a song about an old handbag would get such the funky City Pop treatment, but as commenter Brian Mitchell has told me, the Japanese will write a song on virtually anything. I can certainly believe it.
Case in point is indeed "Furui Handbag" (Old Handbag) which was a track on singer and seiyuu Mami Koyama's（小山茉美）1985 album"Vivid". Sharing space with "Distance no Manatsu"（ディスタンスの真夏）, the two songs also share the same composer Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, and my personal SOP has been that whenever I notice a new song that has Yamakawa's fingerprints on it, I investigate it! Sure enough, "Furui Handbag" has the urban funk and stylings of what would become the Bubble Era City Pop a year or so early. Goro Matsui（松井五郎）took care of the lyrics here and I can imagine that a young woman has had plenty of adventures with that handbag all throughout the town.
The last time I wrote about singer Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）was in late 2022, so I figured it was time to get her back up onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus". And when I discovered that it was Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）taking care of the composition and arrangement for this particular song, it suddenly demanded my attention.
"Birthday Eve" is a track on Yoshino's one-and-only album under the Toshiba EMI label, "Crescent Moon" which was released back in October 1994. Arisu Sato（佐藤ありす）is the lyricist for this pleasant song that kinda hovers between pop and 1990s City Pop. Perhaps it alights on the sophisticated pop leaf of this specific plant. In any case, I love Yoshino's vocals here and some of those cool key changes.
Back on Wednesday, I wrote up an article based on the late Hiroshi Narumi's （鳴海寛）"Ame Agari"（雨あがり）and since I will always think of him and singer-songwriter (almost always the latter) Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）as the City Pop duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）, I decided to whimsically throw her name into the YouTube search engine to see if she might have popped up with anything on her own. After all, in Part 4 of that translation that I did of the liner notes for Tohoku Shinkansen's one-and-only "Thru Traffic" (1982) last year, it was noted that Yamakawa hadn't been too fond of being front and centre behind the mike.
Well, I actually hit an unexpected Bingo when I put her name into the search engine. In July 2024, she released a digital single called "Do Yah!" with her behind the melody with veteran Goro Matsui（松井五郎）behind the lyrics. Perhaps time and circumstances mellowed her out on the old unwillingness to sing out on her own. In any case, she sounds great in a cute and kittenish way while handling her own tune which is reminiscent of late 80s-early 90s Bubble Era City Pop with some of that funk intertwined in there. Plus, there are some nice subtle harmonies in the background. For me, "Do Yah!" is Oh Yeah! Nice to hear her behind the mike again after 42 years.
The Riho Makise（牧瀬里穂）file on KKP isn't a huge one up to this point and it won't ever be as such because her singing career didn't last too long. I had thought that she was being treated as an aidoru but there has been no such designation given to her on her J-Wiki article and considering the relative brevity of her time behind the mike (1991-1995) and the mere five singles, one original album and one BEST compilation, I've taken off the aidoru tag.
Strangely enough, I came across this coupling song to Makise's May 1992 2nd single,"Sasagetai, Anata ni..."（ささげたい、あなたに…）purely by accident in the concert video below which was the only thing that I could play on YouTube for several minutes due to some Internet trouble several days ago. While I was grumpily handling the situation and getting things back working, I was listening to "Kokoro ga Nemuru Umi"(The Sea Where the Heart Sleeps) being performed by Makise on stage and found it rather comforting.
Well, let's chalk this one up to turning a negative into a positive then. The official English title for "Kokoro ga Nemuru Umi" is "Heart in Blue" which I have to admit is a more concise and romantic moniker for the song than my direct translation, and Yumi Yoshimoto's（吉本由美）lyrics relate the story (I believe) of a woman trying to get the man she loves to reveal more of his true feelings for her way down inside of him. I have to say that I enjoy this one better than even the main song of "Sasagetai, Anata ni..." because of the inclusion of some of that urbane sophisticated pop arrangement via Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, who we know was one-half of Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）. The original melody was provided by keyboardist and songwriter Taisuke Sawachika（澤近泰輔）who was once part of the group NSP in its final year before it finally broke up in 1987.
My friend and fellow contributor to KKP, Marcos V., and his own buddy were kind enough to allow me to use some of his photographs after visiting Rio in their native Brazil some days ago, so many thanks to them both. Regrettably, I've yet to travel anyplace south of the Equator but maybe someday, I'll be able to see places like Brazil or Australia or Singapore.
Although I haven't been to Brazil yet, I've been well acquainted with their samba and bossa nova for literally decades, and it seems as if folks in the Japanese music industry have also been very admiring of the genres for that long as well. In fact, I see that Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）provided some of her own songs infused with those particular two. I came across these jewels not too long ago and I couldn't decide which one to go with first, so I've opted to cover both of them together.
The first one is "Ai Suru Ashita"(Loving Tomorrow). A B-side to her 42nd single, the June 1969"Aishite, Aishite"（愛して愛して...Love Me, Love Me）, "Ai Suru Ashita" was apparently used as the theme song for a movie of the same name, and it certainly sounds quite majestically bossa nova. Written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composed by Osamu Shouji（東海林修）, the orchestra gives the song a sweepingly romantic heft and there's no doubt what the movie is about from the title and the arrangement of this song. In its own way, I kinda feel like it's the Japanese take on "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing".
The second song was recorded by Ito many years later in September 1984 for her album "Fado"（ふぁど）. "Aki no Jasmine Tea" (Autumn Jasmine Tea) is a more mid-tempo bossa song with a bit more of a City Pop feeling and fueled by the sweet and husky tones of the singer. Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）was the lyricist while Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）took care of the brisk melody. Enjoy the drink.☕
Man, when Arale-chan（アラレちゃん）wants to funk it up, she really funks it up!
Well, actually I am talking more about Arale-chan's seiyuu Mami Koyama（小山茉美）. Strangely, her J-Wiki profile only lists her anime character songs in her discography and nothing of her records and singles as a pop singer. One album she did put out in 1985 is her "Vivid".
The opening track is "Distance no Manatsu" (Midsummer Distance) which has been described by one commenter as being similar to a Phil Collins song although they didn't identify it. However, I think I know which one it is..."Sussudio", thanks to the keyboard riffs. However, JASRAC lists it as being written by Keiko Aso（麻生圭子）and composed by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, and it's a pretty decent boogying City Pop song of its time. Not sure whether I could ever see Arale-chan, Senbei or the rest of the Penguin Village characters bop to it, but I would be interested in hearing more of this "Vivid".
Although I can hardly say that this past hot season was a frozen summer, I didn't get the impression that it was one of our more torrid summers either. That's fine with me since after having gone through the volcanic stuff in Japan for all of those years, warm-and-not-stifling summers are more my thing. However, I'm sure that there are sun worshippers who are lamenting another lost opportunity of temperature and are now dreading another several months of cold and ice.
Several weeks ago in September, I noted this singer that I hadn't heard of before by the name of Hiroshi Murai（村井博）. I did like the cut of his jib when it came to his 1990 "Hikigane"（鉄爪）as some turn-of-the-decade City Pop which was actually created by different people: lyricist Mami Takubo（田久保真見）and composer Ichiro Hada（羽田一郎）.
Well, this time around, I found another Murai melody and I may like this one even better than "Hikigane". Murai did write and compose this opening track on his debut album"Mirror of Hearts" from October 1988, "Frozen Summer". As soon as I discovered that Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）had been behind the arrangement, I had an inkling that I was going to be in for a good time, and sure enough, I was right. "Frozen Summer" is a truly an urban strut down the paved streets and Murai's voice really resonates in this one. The underlying rhythm really gets the blood going.
Yes, I realize that it's been a little over two months since we had our last exposure to April, but frankly, I felt that this tune is plenty genki enough that I wasn't willing to wait until 2024 to put this one out.
(13:39)
There isn't a lot of past information on Manaho Mori（森真帆）(except that she hails from Tokyo), although she's very active now with a Twitter account and a YouTube channel, but she's a singer-songwriter as well as a vocal producer who has still been releasing music. But she did release a single back in 1980 called "April Morning Love" which has a lot of sumptuous soul and funk thanks to composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）and arranger Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）provided the lyrics to this song, and one commenter below the video mentioned that this is a tune that could have been covered by Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）, probably because there is some similarity between the two voices and the fact that Iwasaki had been doing a fair bit of disco-inflected tunes at around the same time.
Nice to bring back Michiru Kojima（児島未散）onto KKP. The last time I wrote about her was back in August 2021, so it's been a while.
Her 5th single is "Kanashiku Nante"(Me, Sad?) which was released in December 1989 and it's got quite the powerhouse lineup in its creation with City Pop-friendly composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, Anri（杏里）-associated lyricist Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）and former Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）member, arranger Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. With the music feeling of life in the big city circa late 1980s-early 1990s, though it's not a Xmas tune per se despite the release date, it might fit the bill in one way in that a lady has to deal with being dumped; J-Xmas tunes can often have the lyrical theme of heartbreak to the point of being masochistic. In any case, the woman is trying to convince herself that the jerk never deserved her in the first place and will not allow one bad encounter to stop the good times from continuing to roll.
Meanwhile, the music by Hayashi and Yamakawa is urban snazzy with the light and airy vocals, synthesizers and snappy percussion. All still seems to be right in the impending face of the post-Bubble Era.
Over half a decade ago, I put my thoughts down on a few Yukiko Okada（岡田有希子）songs via a BEST article titled "All Songs Request". One of those songs which was covered was her 4th single from January 1985, "Futari Dake no Ceremony"（二人だけのセレモニー）. Starting out rather ceremoniously, it quickly turned into a happy-go-lucky bouncy aidoru tune of love.
The B-side, "PRIVATE RED", is also quite bouncy but it has a more sinister turn by my impression. Written by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）, the song was also composed by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, someone who will always get my attention on anything she's whipped up. Meanwhile, Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）handled the arrangement which has a touch of West Coast rock-side AOR; I'd say that this fits Urino's story of a young lady possibly involved in some dangerous love affair, and the vehicle of convenience can range from a sports car to a gritty motorcycle...something that has quite the speed for a getaway perhaps. From what I could also figure out from the lyrics is that the title refers to the lady leading a double life with the sub rosa one having her slap on quite a bit more red on the face for her bad beau.
Yeah, maybe I've gone on a little florid on the description, but "PRIVATE RED" is sure a flip side to the sweet and innocent "Futari Dake no Ceremony". However, it's never a bad thing to have two different sides on a single.
Well, call me gobsmacked! Here we are...over a decade into this wonderful world known as "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and I have found out that the only mention of 80s aidoru Tomomi Nishimura（西村知美）up to tonight was via Marcos V.'s list of Eurobeat kayo...all the way back in December 2013! Considering that I've known Nishimura not only for her aidoru tunes but also for her frequent presence on television over the years as a tarento, I feel like that I have to Gibbs slap myself upside the head for this shocking neglect.
Fortunately, I can add Nishimura's 2nd entry to "Kayo Kyoku Plus" in October 2022 with a pretty slick aidoru number called "Mizutama no Gorilla" (Polka-Dot Gorilla). At first blush, I had assumed that a song with that title would be a B-side on one of her singles, but actually, it's a track on her July 1989 album"Mezzo Piano". It's a cheerful song about a zoo gorilla, a bunch of young folks and a polka-dot handkerchief which would make for a nice anime or really silly but heartful comedy on Japanese TV. Give thanks to lyricist and Onyanko Club/AKB48 maestroYasushi Akimoto（秋元康）.
As I said the melody and arrangement are pretty cool. It's almost like an aidoru tune overlaid on top of some City Pop beats, and that is due to Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, someone that I've known for providing darn kakkoii music to aidoru and singers of the City Pop persuasion such as Junko Yagami（八神純子）. When I read who it was behind the melody, I went "Ah, naruhodo".
Between 1986 and 1994, Nishimura released 22 singles and 8 albums. For some reason, I had thought that Nishimura was part of the aforementioned Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）, but such was not the case. I do know that the lass had married a famous chef Takumi Nishio（西尾拓美）in the late 1990s. He had been an actor and a singer but once he left the entertainment business behind, he went fully into cooking and has opened up a number of his own restaurants.
As I mentioned before, I made my first purchases of Japanese pop albums in several months through CD Japan and they arrived a few days ago. One was Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）"Magical ~ Ohashi Junko no Sekai III"（大橋純子の世界III）, one of her BEST compilations from 1984. I was very happy with that one, as am I with this regular album "Aventurier", the second of actress/singer Ritsuko Kazami's（風見律子）three albums released in August 1986.
A couple of tracks from "Aventurier" are already represented here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", the title track and the appealingly techno-quirky"Onna Tomodachi: Reira no Baai"（女友達－レイラの場合）composed by Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. The title track and single "Aventurier" is a pretty soaring piece giving me snippets of Henry Mancini and 60s international romance and adventure a la "Charade", but Kazami's soft and languid delivery also gives me those Fashion Music (Japan's form of baroque pop, I gather) vibes. In fact, I've seen so many examples of that sort of music over the years that I'm making this article the first one to get the Fashion Music label so I'm going to be doing some major back-labeling later on today.
In any case, why don't we go over the rest of the tracks then? I did read one of the YouTube comments thanking the uploader for putting up the entire album since the powers-that-be had just gone on a search-and-destroy mission for some of the individual songs. However as of this point, I was able to find a few of those left. One is Track 2"Kanojo to Odotte"（彼女と踊って...Dance with Her）.
One thing that quickly made me a believer in "Aventurier" is how a mix of genres are in play for this album, and with "Kanojo to Odotte", there is the ennui-laden Fashion Music aspect along with some of the synthpop in the rhythm, and even City Pop, although the city here is more likely the City of Lights rather than Tokyo. Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）came up with the lyrics of a man tiredly encouraging a young would-be suitor to go dance with his girlfriend with the hint that the man wouldn't particularly mind if the younger fellow danced with her forever. He's pretty much tapped out of energy. Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋真梨子）, drummer of Yellow Magic Orchestra, was the one behind the double-layer of slower silky strings and the more urgent keyboards; perhaps they were representing the two incompatible speeds of the potentially soon-to-be former couple.
I am glad that the next two songs have been left intact (for now) on YouTube since they form a set. Track 6 is "Koneko no Jouji ~ Petit Chat 1"（仔猫の情事（プティ・シャ1）...A Kitten's Love Affair） which is so string-heavy Fashion Music that I felt that I was gonna be handed a peeled grape to eat by my butler. The story of a lady who might be that lass from "Kanojo to Odotte", she's taking that leisurely and luxurious shower before curling up with her guy in bed, perhaps in a clothing-optional manner. Kazami herself wrote the lyrics while prolific composer Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）came up with the melody. I'd say that Yamakawa could have easily sung this as one of her own tunes judging from what I have heard from her as half of City Popduo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
Ah, now we come to the second of the set. Track 9 is "French Beer wo Nomihoshite ~ Petit Chat 2"（French Beerを飲みほして（プティ・シャ2）...Drink Up That French Beer） (at 35:09 of the video of the entire album below)which has the same Yamakawa melody but with a different arrangement (by Yamakawa as opposed to the original by Tachio Akano/あかのたちお). Moreover, the lyrics are different and supplied this time by the aforementioned Ryu, and this time, the lady is at a bar, newly separated and casually caustic toward her former paramour. Yamakawa's arrangement is more footloose and fancy-free as if to reflect the fact that the shackles of relationships have finally come off although I'm personally worried about the status of her liver.
For the last number of tracks, I'm going to go with the full album video since the above were the only standalone videos that I could find of individual tracks. Track 1 is "Maboroshi no Uma"（幻の馬...The Mysterious Horse） starts "Aventurier" jauntily with a feeling of Matt Bianco's techno jazz including that cool trumpet (or cornet?). Yamakawa was once again on music and arrangement while Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）wrote the lyrics about a romantically ignored woman thinking of some dangerous liaisons.
Placed as Track 3 at 8:15, "Tokiori Violin no Oto ga"（時おりヴァイオリンの音が...Sometimes the Sound of a Violin） kinda wavers between stately waltzes of Fashion Music and synthpop, and I couldn't help but feel that Taeko Ohnuki was involved here. Sure enough, going through the liner notes, it was her on melody with Keiko Aso（麻生圭子）on lyrics and Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）handling the arrangement.
"Aru Hohoemi"（ある微笑み...A Certain Smile） at 11:22 is a classy pop tune invoking an old kayo trope of a woman, recently out of a relationship, traveling to a new city to refresh her outlook on life. It's quite the atmospheric track but out of the entire album, it's probably the most conventionally pop song. This time, it's Ryu and YMO's Takahashi handling the creation.
"Midareta Bed"（乱れたベッド...Messy Bed）, Track 8 at 30:33, is composed and arranged by Shohei Narabe（奈良部匠平）, a support keyboardist for Kome Kome Club（米米ＣＬＵＢ）, and written by Ryu. It begins rather dramatically with the sound of a burgeoning storm, and the setting is the bed for a newly attached, shall we say, couple as a woman comes out of her slumber woozily and wonders what she has gotten herself into. There is a frenetic blast of synthesizers midway which could represent her frantically trying to remember the night before. My take? It may have involved absinthe. In the same song's refrain, the melody and Kazami are trying for a certain chanson-like stance.
At 39:44 is "Kuro no Clair" (黒のクレール...Black Clair) which is a cover of Ohnuki's classic version from her 1982 album"Cliche". It's not only a more contemporary pop (for that time) take but it feels like a version that Ohnuki herself could have done if she had opted to go away from her favoured French arrangement of the early 1980s for the late 80s style that she went for. Kazuo Shiina（椎名和夫）arranged everything here.
The final track at 44:57, "Period"（終幕）, is a sad carnival-like waltz about a deteriorating romance, ironically in the spring when just the opposite should be happening. It's quite sensuous with images of frittering sakura petals, sounds of music boxes and Ferris wheels, fresh hot tears, and the painful slap on the face. Kazami was the lyricist with Narabe as composer/arranger.
"Aventurier" is indeed quite the adventure, and the overall feeling is that Kazami and company had wanted to go for one of those spirited Hitchcockian suspense capers of the 1960s joined by some of that music technology of the 1980s. As you can see from the Labels, it is chock-filled with plenty of big songwriting names to give their own melody flavours to the overall dish. I will always be fascinated with that sort of collaboration because of what the mixture could yield to listeners.
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