Keitarou Takanami -- 1DK no Nagisa（1DKの渚）

From the site OHEYAGO

In Japan, apartments are described through a shorthand of numbers and letters so my old place in Ichikawa was known as a 2K, i.e. two rooms and a kitchen. For whatever reason, the bathroom was never included in the coding and it was just as well since it could have made things a bit more unwieldy. For the purposes of this article, the above floor plan is of a 1DK apartment somewhere in Tokyo: one room and a dining/kitchen space.

Of course, just having a floor plan won't give you a full picture of what a 1DK would be, so I've also included this video of YouTuber serori's own 1DK apartment. It's a whole lot more tastefully planned than my old place.

Anyways, I provided all that to introduce the song "1DK no Nagisa" (The Beach by the 1DK Apartment) that was written, composed and sung by Keitarou Takanami（高浪慶太郎）. He was a part of Pizzicato Five in its early years back in the 1980s and I first introduced his solo works via his 2021 synth-fully delicious reggae "Citypop Lullaby". 

Just judging from that song, I had assumed that "1DK no Nagisa", which comes from his July 1994 album "Everybody's Out Of Town", was going to be something as eclectic or perhaps something Shibuya-kei because of his association with Pizzicato Five. However, I was surprised to discover that "1DK no Nagisa" is actually a very old-fashioned mellow AOR piece with a touch of soul. And it's quite the pleasant song that could accompany serori's video tour or any footage of a 1DK apartment right by the beach. Mind you, I can't even imagine how much a unit like that would go for in terms of rent.

Pizzicato V -- Chotto Deyou yo（ちょっと出ようよ）

 

Man, it's been a scorcher on Day 4 of our Toronto heat wave as we've passed the terminator into official Summer 2024. After three days of managing to endure the heat in my room, I finally decided to turn on the fan which is giving some limited relief.

Perhaps it would be a good idea for friends and couples to head out from the steamy apartment or house for a little while, preferably some cool café in the neighbourhood for some frozen cappuccinos or the like. And that is the point of "Chotto Deyou yo" (Let's Go Away for A While), a song by the early incarnation of Pizzicato Five（ピチカート・ファイヴ）, when it was known as Pizzicato V.

Buoyed by the "Citypop Lullaby -- Keitarou Takanami mad FPU Lovers Rock Remix" article I did yesterday which features the former member of Pizzicato V and then the fact that I had made reference to the band's debut single "The Audrey Hepburn Complex" all the way back in 1985, I went into that original single EP to see what else I could find. Well, as it turns out, I was able to discover the track "Chotto Deyou yo" which was written and composed by Takanami（高浪慶太郎）. An instrumental that starts out with a happy-go-lucky ukulele, it sounds like a cosmic 22nd-century tribute to a hybridized French pop and City Pop number. This observation isn't intended as an insult but there is also something about the arrangement as if it had been meant to accompany couples while they were window shopping in a mall anywhere. 

There's an extended version of "Chotto Deyou yo" on P5's first BEST compilation, "Pizzicatomania!"（ピチカートマニア!）from July 1987 which finishes up with a weird music box ditty.

Citypop Lullaby -- Keitarou Takanami mad FPU Lovers Rock Remix

 

This song was also a track on "City Music Tokyo: Junction", the 2022 compilation album curated by Cunimondo Takiguchi（クニモンド瀧口）that I had covered in part back at the beginning of this month. I did say that I would check out some of the other tracks that I hadn't noted in the original article, so here is one right now. Usually the byline for a post would start with the name of the band or singer followed by the title. However, this time around, I really didn't want to "break up the band", so to speak, and therefore I put up the title in the way that the song has been introduced to the masses: "Citypop Lullaby -- Keitarou Takanami mad FPU Lovers Rock Remix". 

Now, if Keitarou Takanami（高浪慶太郎）is a name that rings a bell, well, you may be a Pizzicato Five going all the way back. Yep, he was one of the founding members of that band in the mid-1980s when they came out as Pizzicato V with "The Audrey Hepburn Complex", years before they became known as Shibuya-kei darlings. He left the band in 1994 but kept busy throughout the 1990s and 2000s by providing songs for other artists and starting up a new band called playtime rock with singer Mina Ichiba（市場美奈）in 2013.

In this case, though, Takanami collaborated with electronic pop group am8, which started up in 2020, and arranger mad FPU, to create "Citypop Lullaby". It was originally part of the June 2021 am8 single "am8 killed by mad FPU" with the group handling words and lyrics. Despite the title, I'd say that the gently jaunty number was less City Pop and more light technopop with a reggae beat. It's something nice to hear while nursing a drink...probably something with a lot of rum in it. Just to be a little more detailed, I also like how Takanami purrs out "city popssss" with the dreamy crystalline synth and the background chorus. As well, that cover of the single is pretty darn cool, too.