Tomita Lab -- MAP for LOVE

 

A Happy Good Friday to you! Yup, it's a long weekend here in Canada so while things are still chilly outside, at least the sun is out brilliantly. 

Starting off Urban Contemporary Friday from a weird angle, I recollect that I saw Stanley Kubrick's classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" in its entirety only once. There were a number of noteworthy scenes including the title sequence with "Also sprach Zarathustra", the appearance of the massive spiral space station, HAL 9000, and that final mind-altering sequence featuring Dr. Bowman's evolution into the Starchild. The one chilling scene was seeing HAL murder Dr. Poole and throwing him into the celestial abyss (no worries, though...he gets better in the novel "3001: The Final Odyssey").

Watching the relaxing music video for Tomita Lab's（冨田ラボ）April 2021 digital single "MAP for LOVE", I couldn't help but feel that this could have been the perfect song and fate for good ol' Dr. Poole...he somehow gets thrown into an alternate universe over Tokyo in the year 2021 (mind you, he seems to have an even better future in the year 3001). As for the song itself, "MAP for LOVE" is basically a get-together of the Tomita Family in the recording booth. Written by Ryuta Tsunoda（角田隆太）of the band Mononkul（ものんくる）and Ryohu from KANDYTOWN, both of whom had a hand in Tomita Lab's 2018 album "M-P-C 'Mentality, Physicality, Computer'" and composed by the Lab himself, there are no fewer than nine singers behind the microphone: the aforementioned Ryohu, singer/seiyuu Maaya Sakamoto（坂本真綾）, guitarist Ryosuke Nagaoka（長岡亮介）of R&B band PETROLZ, Kento Nagatsuka（長塚健斗）of WONK, Naz, Bird, Sakura Fujiwara（藤原さくら）, Yasuyuki Horigome（堀込泰行）of Kirinji（キリンジ）, and Mononkul vocalist Sara Yoshida（吉田沙良）, all of whom have collaborated with the producer in the past.

All of the Arthur C. Clarke comparisons aside though, "MAP for LOVE" is a sweet and breezy romantic soul ballad about being connected by love no matter the distance whether it be in kilometres or light-years. My apologies but I'm going to have bring in another motion picture here. There's something about the story that reminds me of "Sleepless in Seattle" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan...and the crazy thing is that I read on Wikipedia that Hanks had once been interested in adapting "3001: The Final Odyssey" for the big screen. 

Tomita Lab -- M-P-C "Mentality, Physicality, Computer" (Part 3)

 

Finishing up last week on Part 2 of Tomita Lab's（冨田ラボ）2018 album "M-P-C 'Mentality, Physicality, Computer", we have here the third and final part covering the remainder of his concept of the above three features being indispensable for 21st-century society thus far. As mentioned, all of the melodies have been provided by Tomita himself.

Strings so tender that you can have them with Worcestershire sauce greet the ears in "Interlude 2" once again with KANDYTOWN 's Ryohu as your congenial host singing about the ever-present dream, you and me.

Singer-songwriter Tavito Nanao（七尾旅人）lends his lyrics and silky and chocolatey vocals to "rain on you". It's a gently undulating pop piano piece about the rain perhaps a triggering bittersweet memory of a past romance. I really do like the combination of strings and piano here along with the background chorus. If I ever decide to write out an article on a rain theme, "rain on you" is more than welcome to join the list.

The band Mononkul（モノンクル）comes in with "Yuruyakana Doku"（緩やかな毒...Slow Poison）. Bassist Ryuta Tsunoda（角田隆太）wrote the lyrics about the so-called slow poison of love as the protagonist seems to be "succumbing" to the charms of the other whose voice repeatedly plays out in the head, and probably vice versa as well. Meanwhile, vocalist Sara Yoshida（吉田沙良）gives a soft and haunting account of the affair. 

"Outroduction" with Ryohu finishes up "MPC" as a pretty lively funk-hop hinting melodically at some of the early 70s cop movie soundtracks such as "Shaft". It also references back to Track 2 (aka the title track) that was described in Part 1, but instead of the analog vs. the digital there, Ryohu gives a laidback warning about the choice between love and all of the other temptations out there in society including money. Being a realist in this century, I think a combination of everything would be fine. By the way, the album peaked at No. 72 on Oricon.

Tomita Lab feat. Haruomi Hosono -- Kemutagararete（煙たがられて）

 

Well, it's been a pretty good couple of weeks when it comes to new music coming out from Japan. Last month, Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and Kirinji（キリンジ）put out some of their fine latest material, and now I'm hearing that the mellow and groovy Tomita Lab（冨田ラボ）released his seventh album on June 29th, appropriately titled "7+". As has been the case throughout his career, he's collaborating with a number of other artists and the album includes one song that I have already written about, "Yogisha"（夜汽車）featuring rapper BASI & guitarist kojikoji.

Arguably, the biggest name among his collaborators in "7+" is the Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）for the track "Kemutagararete" which I will translate here as "Getting Smoked". When I checked out the root form（煙たがる）of the verb on Jisho.org, I found out that kemutagaru meant "to be sensitive to smoke" or "to consider (someone) a burden or nuisance". Assuming that the title is showing the passive voice of the verb, I did think that this was about someone being shooed away.

Sure enough, Takaki Horigome's（堀込高樹）(aka Kirinji) lyrics are a plaintive cry from an incorrigible smoker looking for someone...anyone...to just join him for small talk and maybe a puff or two in a Japan that is supposedly no longer all that friendly to Marlboro men or women. To be honest, I think that my old home-away-from-home is still more accepting of smokers than over here in Canada but I also realize that things have been changing over the past couple of decades in Tokyo at least with proper non-smoking sections being installed in the restaurants and cafés. 

I've heard from Come Along Radio's Rocket Brown that Hosono is a long-time smoker who has somehow managed to avoid cancer, so I'm wondering if his humourously forlorn delivery in "Kemutagararete" is showing his real feelings and experiences of not being able to light up in the office or the café anymore. Perhaps he's also feeling the true pain of not having anyone willing to sit beside him as he does his best impression of a chimney stack.

Yet, there is Tomita Lab himself in the music video gloriously savoring his ciggy at a classy coffee house, speaking of whom, he was indeed the composer for the song. It starts somewhat weirdly before things soon settle down into an old-style jazz-pop vocal piece (maybe not so much Steely Dan as it is more along the lines of Donald Fagen). Joining Hosono in his nicotine dream as backing vocals are Isono-kun（磯野くん）from YONA YONA WEEKENDERS, AAAMYYY from Tempalay, musician TENDRE and vocalist Sara Yoshida（吉田沙良）from Mononkul（モノンクル）.

Before I finish off, let me mention that Hosono will be celebrating his 75th birthday in a few days on July 9th. All my best wishes to him.

Mononkul -- Kūsō hikō（空想飛行）

For years and years since the late 1970s, it had been all about Narita Airport deep in Chiba Prefecture when it came to long-haul international flights out of the Tokyo area. But then, some years ago, Haneda Airport by Tokyo Bay, which had been long thrown figuratively into a dusty corner, underwent a major rejuvenation that has included a modern shopping complex and restaurant row done up as something from an Edo Era drama. As someone who first arrived in Japan in 1972 at Haneda, it was nice to see the old airport become the centre of attention again. Of course, Haneda is also more convenient to get into Tokyo than Narita although the latter does have those speedy Skyliners.

When the great re-introduction of Haneda Airport was being advertised on the various news broadcasts, one of the big advantages was that folks getting out of work on Friday can conceivably catch a flight there, fly over to a place like Guam or Saipan for a long weekend and arrive back at Haneda to get back to work the next day without too much fuss.

It was that point that I was reminded of when I first came upon "Kūsō hikō" (Flight of Fantasy) by the duo Mononkul（ものんくる）some months ago. As with the band BLU-SWING, which I had written about last night, Mononkul isn't restricted to just one genre in its performances with vocalist Sara Yoshida（吉田沙良）and songwriter/bassist Ryuta Tsunoda（角田隆太）going for a jazz and pop sound.

"Kūsō hikō" at least seems to go beyond jazz and pop to include that feeling of Latin and a hint of technopop. Tsunoda took care of both words and music for the song about taking off for that area outside of the city so fast that the young lady hasn't even had time to change from her high heels at work. And perhaps the flight is not just in terms of space but also of time, if that anime video is hitting me in the right spot, as an office worker remembers back to her high school days and maybe her very first romantic relationship. It's quite wistful.

The song made it onto Mononkul's 3rd album "Sekai wa Koko ni shika naitte Jouzu ni Itte"（世界はここにしかないって上手に言って..Say That the World is Only Here Skillfully）from July 2017. Their 4th album "RELOADING CITY" was released just a few days ago on September 5th.

I wish that it would be that easy for me to hop on a plane at Pearson and then be over in Tokyo within a few hours. Alas, nothing less than a hypersonic carrier would make that possible right now, but perhaps one might be ready by the time I become an octogenarian.