Mariko Ide -- Taiyo ni Dakarete（太陽に抱かれて）

 

It was a little over a decade ago when I posted Mariko Ide's（井手麻理子）final single from April 2001, "Ao no Tsuzuki" （蒼のつづき）which was a heartfelt pop ballad. Well, it's time to add onto her KKP file.

I discovered this earlier song by Ide not too long ago and it's quite the upbeat urban contemporary song. "Taiyo ni Dakarete" (Embraced by the Sun) was a coupling song with her March 1999 4th single "Seek~Sore ga Ai kamoshirenai kara"（〜Seek〜それが愛かもしれないから...Because That May be Love）, and along with the 70s funk feeling thanks to the addition of that cool flute, there's a nice dollop of jazz in there, too. Written by KINOPP and composed by Takahiro Watanabe（渡辺貴浩）, it's a smart and tight number and I especially like Ide's vocals. As I mentioned in "Ao no Tsuzuki", they remind me of the voices of UA and bird, and the way she enunciates those last lyrics in the last minute of "Taiyo ni Dakarete" really resonates.

Mariko Ide -- Ao no Tsuzuki （蒼のつづき）

I was looking at the Top 100 one Sunday on one of the cable music channels when I encountered the video for Mariko Ide's（井手麻理子） "Ao no Tsuzuki" (The Blue Goes On). It was rather striking since the Fukuoka-born singer was performing in a filled bathtub, thereby predating Rihanna and Erykah Badu by several years. But it was also her soulful delivery of her 9th and final single of April 2001 that held my attention. Her vocals reminded me of those of UA and bird as she sang with some anguish about trying to reach for that patch of sky and escaping the darkness that threatened to consume her underneath. I soon bought that single. The lyrics and melody were by Kyoko Okita and Satsuki Kato （置田恭子・加藤五月）with Makito Hoshi（星牧人） also helping out on the music.

Ide debuted in 1997 with "Crawl" via avex tune and also did a cover of Eurythmics' "There Must Be An Angel" which is probably the go-to song to cover for a lot of Japanese artists for some reason. Although her single releases were brief, she has been releasing albums up to this year, including a 2013 album, "Mariko Sings Karen Carpenter".

Mariko Ide -- Ao no Tsuzuki