Sara Hamamoto -- Itsumo Eyes to Me（いつも eyes to me）

 

It's been a couple of years since we last saw model-turned-singer Sara Hamamoto（浜本沙良）, so let's have her back onto the blog. I first started her file on KKP with her "Follow Me" from the July 1994 album "Puff" and immediately enjoyed it for its sophisticated pop feeling.

Well, another track from "Puff" is "Itsumo Eyes to Me" (Eyes to Me Always) which continues that particular vibe. Right from the get-go, there is that feeling of 1960s swinging British soul, something that Swingout Sister was famous for when they premiered back in the mid-1980s. There is some fine sinuous groove in this one and the impression that one doesn't have to move around at the speed of a Bullet Train to enjoy the city life. 

As was the case with "Follow Me", lyricist Seriko Natsuno（夏野芹子）and composer Hitoshi Haba（羽場仁志）were behind "Itsumo Eyes to Me" which was also a coupling song on Hamamoto's debut single "Sayonara wa Tenshi no Hajimari"（さよならは天使のはじまり...Goodbye Means the Start of an Angel）. The late Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）was the arranger here.

Reiko Kato -- Feel Me

 

It's been a happy 24 hours all around here for Canada. Not only did the Blue Jays sweep a series from the Boston Red Sox, but Team Canada managed to thump the Qatari team in the World Cup last night. Not a bad day for sports.

Let us begin Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP then with a song that perhaps straddles the line between regular pop and City Pop (and yes, I do consider City Pop going beyond the 1990s) in my estimation. I only discovered "Feel Me", Reiko Kato's（かとうれいこ）penultimate single from July 1997, just in the last few months and why I think that the song can have at least one foot in the urban contemporary of it all is that its underlying rhythm feels like something that I've heard within the sophisticated pop of bands such as Swingout Sister. Words and music were supplied by the late singer-songwriter Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）who seems to have a lock on some atmospheric arrangements when it comes to his creations including this tune and his own "Rain Dolphin" from a few years back. He was also the man behind the classic duet "Shibuya de Go-ji" (渋谷で5時）.

cinnamons x evening cinema -- Shibuya de Go-ji（渋谷で5時）

by Benh LIEU SONG via Wikimedia Commons

 

Well, it's been a few years but it looks like the pop group cinnamons and the AOR unit evening cinema have brought their energies together once more (one of their earlier examples is "Fuyu no Tokimeki"（冬のトキメキ）) and this time, it's a cover of a City Pop classic.

A few months ago, cinnamons x evening cinema recorded their own version of "Shibuya de Go-ji" (渋谷で5時...Shibuya at Five） which had been originally sung by Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）and Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）back in 1994. Can't believe it's been over thirty years but hey, we're a patient lot. Anyways, to also give credit where credit is due which is something that I didn't do when I wrote up the original article, Kanata Asamizu（朝水彼方）took care of the lyrics while Martin himself came up with the thrilling melody with the late Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）being the original arranger. 

"Shibuya de Go-ji" still retains some of that City Pop feeling although I think the arrangement this time around takes things into a slightly more pop direction. But that doesn't detract from the overall effect at all. It still gives off that fun invitation to one of the most exciting centres in Tokyo and I will always love that music video...it does look like the perfect date if the two can find each other by 5 o'clock in the huge masses of humanity around the statue of Hachiko on a Friday night.

Masayuki Suzuki -- Sayonara Itoshi no Baby Blues（さよならいとしのBaby Blues）

 

Yes, Martin. Do please contemplate about life...because you look so cool doing so!

Strangely enough, I did cover "Sayonara Itoshi no Baby Blues" (Farewell, My Beloved Baby Blues) when I wrote that 2019 article on Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）BEST compilation "MARTINI II" but I'm OK with another go-round of this slow-cooking banger. Along with its inclusion in his original 1992 album "Fair Affair" and "MARTINI II", it was also the coupling song to Martin's 14th single in May 1992, the splendid "Mou Namida wa Iranai"（もう涙はいらない）, and my opinion on B-sides on those old 45"s also applies to the coupling songs for those tiny CD singles. They should be checked out as well.

And certainly "Sayonara Itoshi no Baby Blues" is one soulful cool-down tune after "Mou Namida wa Iranai" which can sound good on the stereo at home or in the car while rumbling down those Tokyo highways. Written and composed by Hideki Andoh（安藤秀樹）and arranged by the late Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）, the song was also performed by Suzuki in its entirety sometime during the third season of the cop show "Deka Kizoku"（刑事貴族...The Detective Aristocrats） on NTV which used "Mou Namida wa Iranai" as the theme song.

Sara Hamamoto -- Cool Water

 

The description of Sara Hamamoto's（浜本沙良）2nd album "Truth of Lies" goes as follows:

Everything from the goddess of uptown...Sara Hamamoto's second album, full of mild comfort and solid groove.

The YouTube video pegs the album as a 1996 release but three other sources including the "Truth of Lies" article on J-Wiki has this being released in March 1995, so I will go with the earlier year. In any case, the promotional catch copy mentioned above for "Truth of Lies" is nicely encapsulated in the second track "Cool Water". 

It's been over a couple of years since I posted a Hamamoto song and "Cool Water" is a nice way to make a reunion. It is indeed comfortable and quite groovy...bringing in some of that 1970s soul through the guitar and keyboards. Strangely enough, it does feel like a sunset swim in the pool. Give thanks to lyricist Seriko Natsuno（夏野芹子）, composer Mioko Yamaguchi（山口未央子）and arranger Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）. I've also read in J-Wiki that Natsuno tends to provide lyrics for aidoru tunes, but "Cool Water" is definitely not one of those, and it's nice to realize that Yamaguchi has also created really groovy stuff in comparison to the early technopop and somewhat avant-garde material that she was singing around fifteen years prior to her contribution to Hamamoto. I always love a laidback Fender Rhodes.

Yasuyuki Okamura -- Bible（聖書）

 

I've been so accustomed to seeing Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸） as he is now: Japan's funkiest corporate section chief, thanks to his performance of "Viva Namida", I've had to remind myself that he was once a young buck of the 1980s.

Case in point: his 7th single all the way back in September 1988, "Bible". Written and composed by the singer with help in arrangement by the late Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）, I can readily see and hear that Okamura was all about the funk right from the beginning. And man, would you get a load of the music video with the neon designs and Okamura making like a Michael Jackson wannabe?

She was only responsible for one line in the song, but I am wondering who the lady behind that delivery was. Alas, I have yet to find out. Plus, if there were one criticism about the video, it would be that Okamura's band was turned to stone a little too early. Even for a four-minute song, "Bible" did speed by like a bullet, and you bass addicts should be able to revel in it.

Nobuo Ariga -- Pocket ni Tsumete Jingle Bell（ポケットにつめてジングルベル）

 

The AI art generator was back at work for me. This time, I asked it to create "Japanese City Pop Christmas Anime Style", and I got four different photos of which the above is one. Not too bad...somewhat reminiscent of West Shinjuku, if I say so myself.

As has been made painfully and especially evident over the past several weeks, a number of notable figures in the Japanese music industry have sadly died this year. We can even go back to the early part of 2023 on hearing that singer-songwriter Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）passed away at the relatively young age of 58.

I did find a tune of his that could satisfy both the Xmas, City Pop and maybe even technopop realms. This is "Pocket ni Tsumete Jingle Bell" (Jingle Bells in My Pocket) which was the penultimate track on his first album "Sherbet" released in 1987. Admittedly, I had to raise my eyebrow rather Spock-like on seeing that translation of the title, but Ariga's tribute to the Yuletide is a smokily-delivered and cool-as-menthol song that doesn't go all traditionally bouncily upbeat in the Christmas department. Instead, it's kinda like the feelings between a couple walking hand-in-hand on a snowy December 24th in the metropolis.

Keizo Nakanishi -- Snowy Sun

 

My Keizo Nakanishi（中西圭三）phase focused on his early years between the early and mid-1990s so my knowledge on his work from then on is extremely sparse unfortunately.

Therefore, coming across this song for the first time not too long ago was a pretty good find. "Snowy Sun" is on his December 1999 album "Sunshine Groove". The groovy beats are there along with that amazing Keizo voice although I thought at the start of the song that his vocals and the rhythm didn't quite match up solidly. With that title, I thought that "Snowy Sun" must have been used as a commercial tune for ski wear or even a ski resort. However, it was actually used for Attenir Cosmetics.

Nakanishi composed the groovy and funky melody while Kanata Asamizu（朝水彼方）provided the lyrics. Meanwhile, Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）was responsible for the overall arrangement. I'm not sure what Nakanishi has been up to over the past few years, but according to J-Wiki, it appears that he's still active performing at concerts.

SANISAI -- Live to sing

 

With the untimely passing of singer-songwriter Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）earlier this year, I discovered that he had also been helping out a vocal group since the late 2000s.

SANISAI began their time together in 1999 when Wakako Yamada（山田和嘉子）first met Shingo Murai（村井伸吾）at university, later to be joined by Yamada's younger brother Ryuhei Yamada（山田隆平）. Putting their voices together, they found out that there was something special there so they began singing together and releasing several singles as an indies act from 2002. Up until the end of May 2005, the trio had been known as Sunny Side Up but then made the change in their name to the current SANISAI. 

In October 2007, the group released their debut single as a major act, "Live to sing" with sound production provided by Ariga who would officially enter SANISAI as the bassist and extra voice in 2020. For "Live to sing", the three of them proved their title right especially Wakako, and I enjoy the lighthearted nature of the song with the country folk arrangement. The music video is also just right.

Klang Ruler & Atarashii Gakko no Leaders -- Dounimo Tomaranai（どうにもとまらない）/ Klang Ruler -- Shibuya de Go-ji (渋谷で5時）

 

Commenter Bon tipped me off on another Atarashii Gakko no Leaders（新しい学校のリーダーズ）collaboration with another artist some days ago in the article for L'Arc-en-Ciel's "Driver's High". Since I'm not only a fan of the cool-and-crazy school uniform-wearing song-and-dance group but enjoyed their work with former SMAP member, Shingo Katori（香取慎吾）, in last year's "Tokyo Tower", I figured that I was going to have to give another one of their joint projects a try.

The thing is though that Bon's recommendation goes quite a ways back to 2019, at least according to when this YouTube video was first uploaded. Atarashii Gakko no Leaders cooperated with the 5-piece band Klang Ruler. To be honest, when I first heard that name, I kinda wondered whether there was something Klingon about these guys, but nothing could be further from the truth. This is a group that has been around since 2014 and has dabbled in pop and alternative music.

Another impression that I have about Klang Ruler is that they also like to do their dance beat covers of the old Showa and Heisei Era music, and that includes Linda Yamamoto's（山本リンダ）"Dounimo Tomaranai" from 1972. Working together under the banner of "Midnight Session Chapter 3", I can't seem to find any sign of this cover coming out in the discographies of either the Leaders or Klang so maybe the midnight sessions were just one-offs on YouTube (correct me if I'm wrong). But getting back to the song, Wild Child Suzuka does sound like a fresh-faced Linda before any cigarettes and alcohol. And she passes the mike off to Klang Ruler while her group does a bit of their choreography. Some nice bass action, too.

The current lineup for Klang Ruler is yonkey and Chihiro Yasuda（やすだ ちひろ）as the co-vocalists with SimiSho on drums, Takumi Kato（かと たくみ）on bass, and Gyoshi on guitar. I was looking through their discography thus far and I was intrigued when I saw that the band had covered the 90s City Pop duet "Shibuya de Go-ji" by Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）and Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）. It was released as an October 2022 digital single and it has the sophisticated pop tune transform into a Trance ParaPara number. 

Yutaka Kimura Speaks ~ Japanese City Pop Masterpieces 100: Nobuo Ariga -- Ameiro no Boku to Kimi（雨色の僕と君）

 

So that I don't end up confusing folks who have been reading the Yutaka Kimura Speaks file over the past number of weeks now, last week's edition with Marina Watanabe（渡辺満里奈）and her "Anata kara Tooku e"（あなたから遠くへ）is indeed No. 4 in "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020). Logically then, we would have No. 5 tonight but I have yet to cover that song (which I will do soon) and so I'm going to jump ahead to No. 6.

Number: 006

Lyricist/Composer/Arranger: Nobuo Ariga

From his 1987 album: "Sherbet"

Through his unpretentious vocals, Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）expresses a romantic rainy world that has been passed down from Eiichi Ohtaki's（大滝詠一）"Long Vacation", especially "Ame no Wednesday" (Rainy Wednesday). Just how many people must have noticed the quality within the refined pop music so delicate that it would crumble at a touch during the Bubble Era of the late 1980s? Thirty years later, I think songs like "Ameiro no Boku to Kimi" are truly being accepted now.

VIZION -- Gogo no Kokuhaku（午后の告白）

 

Having listened to some of the tracks on VIZION's one and only album "Psychotic Cube" from 1983, I'm now kinda wondering whether this band which included keyboardist Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）, vocalist Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）and the late bassist Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）were somewhat like Yellow Magic Orchestra but with the synthpop aspect turned way down but not totally off. Discuss.😐

To join the tracks "Dancing Generation" and "Obscure Dance Party", we have here "Gogo no Kokuhaku" (Afternoon Confession) in which the protagonist is really itching to express his love and maybe more to a lady. Written by Rinko Yuuki（有己林子）and composed by Sakiya, instead of the funk with synthesizers for the first two, "Gogo no Kokuhaku" hits me as a bright and happy-go-lucky pop tune with a 50s or maybe even an early Beatles sheen...but still with those synths. It can make for a nice accompaniment to a drive down the highway, especially with that electric guitar solo that pops up near the end.

Nobuo Ariga -- Kimi no Kanashimi wo Kikasete yo（君の悲しみを聞かせてよ）

 

Unfortunately, today's round of KKP will begin with the announcement of another passing in the Japanese music industry. I found out through the Mixi news feed last night stating that singer-songwriter and bassist Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）had died on February 27th this year from prostate cancer at the age of 58. Ariga had been involved with a number of bands including VIZION and SANISAI as well as providing support for many other artists ranging from Kome Kome Club（米米ＣＬＵＢ）to Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）to Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）.

Ariga was someone that I would never have heard about if it hadn't been for KKP contributor nikala's January 2014 article on his heady "Rain Dolphin". And although I had put up Masayuki Suzuki & Momoko Kikuchi's（鈴木雅之・菊池桃子）"Shibuya de Go-ji"  (渋谷で5時）many months earlier, I eventually realized that the bassist had arranged one remix version of the 90s City Pop classic. He belongs to that 90% of the iceberg that's underwater when it comes to the unsung folks in the music industry, people that I have been grateful in encountering over the years of this blog.

I have here Ariga's own 6th out of 7 singles, "Kimi no Kanashimi no Kikasete yo" (Let Me Know Your Sadness) which was released in February 1993. Written and composed by him, it's a bouncy and upbeat tune with no small amount of Burt Bacharach influence although I wouldn't consider it Shibuya-kei. I've come to realize that there is something quite interesting about Ariga's relatively high and nasal vocals.

My condolences to Ariga's family, friends and fans.

Sara Hamamoto -- Follow Me

 

I've never heard of Yokohama-born Sara Hamamoto（浜本沙良）before, but according to her J-Wiki profile, she started out as a model but being a great admirer of Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）and Seri Ishikawa（石川セリ）, she decided that she would also become a singer. I believe that Miki Imai（今井美樹）had those same thoughts of wanting to be behind the recording mike although she was also acting, too.

Hamamoto would make her debut in June 1994 with the single "Sayonara wa Tenshi no Hajimari"（さよならは天使のはじまり...Goodbye Means the Start of an Angel） while Takao Yamazaki（山崎貴生）, a member of the band Aido（愛奴）which included Shogo Hamada（浜田省吾）, would become her mentor. Her first album "Puff" was released a little over a month later in July, and I found this really nifty track there titled "Follow Me".

From the popularity of the genre at the time and that design of the album cover with those frames, the French language and some tasteful black-and-white photos of Hamamoto, I was thinking that "Puff" might contain nothing but Shibuya-kei. But listening to "Follow Me", which was created by lyricist Seriko Natsuno（夏野芹子）and composer Hitoshi Haba（羽場仁志）, I think that it's closer to City Pop via late 80s sophisti-pop. It's got some nice groove and a combination of sharp and mellow horns in there. And not to leave anyone out, Hamamoto herself has got some pleasant vocals.

Although it isn't featured for this particular commercial above for Renaissance Nagasaki Iwo Jima（ルネサンス長崎「伊王島」）, "Follow Me" was used in a previous ad for what I believe is this amusement park or resort area. As for Hamamoto, up to 2000, she released 11 singles and 4 albums before leaving show business.

VIZION -- Obscure Dance Party

 

Ahhh...so that's what the disco scene was like in Tokyo back in the 1980s (this is from YouTuber 80stoa, by the way)! When I visited the city in 1981, I was far too young and shy to enter a Japanese dance emporium but during my days studying in high school and university about the nation, I learned about places like The Lexington Queen in Roppongi. Never managed to get inside there but when I did return to Tokyo in 1989 in those JET orientation days before being shipped out to Gunma Prefecture, some of us did get to a dance place within one of those Western Shinjuku hotels. It was one of the tiniest places to have my feet repeatedly stepped on, perhaps even smaller than Toronto's Sparkles up on the observation deck of the CN Tower.

Come to think of it, I have encountered a few strange places to dance during both of my stints in Japan. There was that one place in Numata within Gunma where they had 40 minutes of karaoke and then 20 minutes of dancing with added dry ice fog pumped in during that final one-third in the hour. In the following decade, my friends and I visited a Brazilian churrasco restaurant in Ginza which had all-you-can-eat meat and then enforced dancing during which the wait staff would gently hoist all of the patrons onto the dance floor for several minutes of boogying. Not sure if that was considered to be a crime against humanity considering all of the meat inside us and that couldn't have been good for the staff when they had to clean out the washrooms. I guess that can be called paying one's due-dues.😎

Well, at least they weren't obscure dance parties. But I do have "Obscure Dance Party" by the obscure band VIZION. I mentioned about these funkadelic guys back in the spring with their "Dancing Generation" because of some of the members who are already well represented on their own on the blog: Kenjiro Sakiya （崎谷健次郎）, Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）and Nobuo Ariga  (有賀啓雄) . 

Both those songs that I've cited are on VIZION's sole 1983 album "Psychotic Cube". Now in that last article on Sakiya and the band, I also wondered if there were some synthpop influences in "Dancing Generation". Well, I don't think that there is any doubt about it in "Obscure Dance Party"; in fact, next to the funk and boogie, I swear that I hear something that's almost akin to a "Super Mario Kart" soundtrack anchoring things down. Try racing down the track with Mario while listening to this one. Sakiya was responsible for both words and music for this first song on the album.

Kome Kome Club -- KOME KOME WAR

 

Hump Day getting you down or tired? I think that I may have just the tonic for you. And if you thought that "FUNK FUJIYAMA" was zany, then please get a load of this one!

Contributor nikala provided her take on one of Kome Kome Club's（米米ＣＬＵＢ）signature tunes over seven years ago with its own singular music video. Well, this time I'm providing an earlier just-as-wackadoodle tune by the always entertaining band led by Carl Smokey Ishii（カールスモーキー石井）, "KOME KOME WAR".

Their 7th single from August 1988, "KOME KOME WAR", written and composed by the entire band with arrangement by singer-songwriter Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）, has lyrics that are as gibberish-y as the music is catchy and funky. I'm not even going to go anywhere into analysis mode with these words; I will merely look at them, nod and smile. The main words, aside from the title, are "semete, semete, semete" (attack, attack, attack) and "yamete, yamete, yamete" (stop, stop, stop), and that's all you need to know since the music is the thing here and the music video, directed by Ishii himself, provides tons of distractions. Everybody gets involved in a K2C video!😎 All that hard work led to it earning the band a Grand Prize in the international version of the MTV Music Video Awards that year, according to J-Wiki.

Of course, if you had the opportunity back then, the ultimate way to enjoy a K2C song was actually going to one of their concerts. Not sure how much it cost to attend one of their events but considering the showmanship, the lavish settings and the over-the-top arrangements, I'm sure that it was well worth it. In any case, "KOME KOME WAR" reached No. 5 on Oricon and first made its presence on an album via the band's 4th album "GO FUNK" which came out in September 1988. It hit No. 1 and quickly became the 25th-ranked album of the year.

VIZION -- Dancing Generation

 

Yeah, har-de-har-har! I'm going to be profiling a band called VIZION so of course I'm going to add a video featuring The Vision from Marvel. Well, I figure that it's a bit more exciting than putting up the usual 1983 thumbnail photo.

Still, this is a fascinating band not just because of "Dancing Generation", one of the tracks from the band's one-and-only album "Psychotic Cube" which was released in that year of 1983. The intriguing part is that VIZION consisted of at least a few members whose solo work has already been shown on the blog from long ago. For one thing, there is the vocalist, singer-songwriter Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）, bassist Nobuo Ariga  (有賀啓雄) who KKP writer nikala first introduced all the way back in 2014 through his "Rain Dolphin", and keyboardist Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）who would come up with the snazzy soundtracks for the cop show franchise "Odoru Dai Sosasen" (踊る大捜査線）from the late 1990s onwards. The other members were drummer Hisanori Ikuno（生乃久法）, guitarist Jin Ishiyama（石山仁）, and keyboardist Tetsuo Otake（大竹徹夫）.

VIZION, which lasted only between 1981 and 1983, styled itself as a pop unit with some R&B funkiness. And I think with the catchy if mysterious "Dancing Generation", there is plenty of that in there although that intro had me thinking initially of synthpop. Sakiya, who composed the song alongside Rinko Yuuki's（有己林子）lyrics, plays a bit with those vocal effects, too, and come to think of it, the vocalist also reminds me a little of Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）who was still a few years away from his own debut.

Nobuo Ariga -- Ameiro no Boku to Kimi（雨色の僕と君）

There are plenty of well-used tropes in the Japanese drama whether it be the sage hat-wearing detective who finally brings a criminal in for justice or that colleague at the company who lives to snark or bully the protagonist. Another trope: the fateful scene of two "will they or won't they" characters meeting at night in the middle of a cloudburst as a cliffhanger until the next week's episode. It would probably take a week to dry out all that clothing, in any event.

Up to now, there has only been that one article devoted to singer-songwriter Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）which was written up by nikala for the atmospheric "Rain Dolphin". Well, I finally see her article and raise her "Ameiro no Boku to Kimi" which was Ariga's debut single from 1987.

The direct translation of the title would be "Rain-Coloured Me and You" but of course that sounds somewhat Google Translate-ish, so I will go with "You and Me in the Rain". The song starts off sounding rather folksy but then with a crisp rat-a-tat of the drums, it goes into a fairly brisk run as a mid-tempo pop tune about a man being called up by a woman to meet her all of a sudden while the rain is pouring down. According to Ariga's lyrics, the impression is that the woman is already in another relationship so the man could be a former flame or a good friend (who really wanted something more with the woman). In any case, he's pretty annoyed at the request but still heads on out. That rather does sound like a scene from a drama.

"Ameiro no Boku to Kimi" was also a track on Ariga's debut album "Sherbet" also from 1987. It's perhaps coincidental that nikala and I would pick two songs in his discography that sound pretty atmospheric with rain in the title. I rather wonder if this would be a theme with Ariga.

Kome Kome Club -- Easter Bell North

"This Kome Kome Club article brought to you by Arm & Hammer Baking Soda...for the sweet smell of success in your fridge, buy Arm & Hammer!!"

Yup, that's the image I get whenever I hear "Easter Bell North" by Kome Kome Club（米米クラブ）. This was not a single and I don't think it was ever meant to be one, but it was a track on the band's 13th album, "H2O -- HUMANITY HEARTY ODYSSEY" which came out in March 1996. It's just one of those little but catchy tunes that would have sounded perfect on one of those old radio shows or a variety program on American TV in the 50s. Written and composed by K2C, I don't know where or how Carl Smokey Ishii got the title, but it has that mix of jazz and doo-wop and even a bit of that adorkable corn. Perhaps if Bobby Darin had been born Japanese, he could have tackled this one.

"Easter Bell North" is one of the reasons for me to not just be satisfied with a BEST compilation of a certain singer or band. Jewels can be found deep in the original albums as well.

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/h2o/1047643847

Nobuo Ariga -- Rain Dolphin

So while the folks in Toronto are getting slammed with heavy snowfalls and Siberia-worthy temperatures, January in most parts in Japan just means: cold-ish but OK, as long as you buy a few extra things to insulate your home. This year's winter has been warmer than usual with quite a few rainfalls, which reminds me of November back home. Today is another one of those days, so I put on this mellow track by Nobuo Ariga (有賀啓雄) to get me in the mood for a long walk in the rain to work. Whether it's the circular bass line or the triangle instrument effects, it brings up vivid images of raindrops forming puddles and cars passing by and making splashes. Ariga's voice also has a certain cloudy effect that contributes to the mood. Whatever your impression is, it's a nice soundtrack to rainy weather, especially when it hits big cities like Tokyo and covers tall buildings in a mysterious grey veil, like that beautiful misty saxophone that appears at the end of the song. So relaxing.

There isn't much information available on Ariga himself, but here are a few tidbits I found. He first started performing music as a bassist for Shinji Harada's band Crisis and Kenjiro Sakiya's band Vizion. Between 1987 and 1993 he had a brief and obscure solo career, releasing seven singles and three albums, and then withdrew to background status once more. The only other time I saw his name after that besides songwriting credits is as a member of ACRI, a collaborative band project between Tatsuya Ishii (of Kome Kome Club fame) and Char in the mid-90's. Hearing a few of Ariga's well-crafted songs on Youtube did intrigue me enough to purchase his second album "umbrella" where "Rain Dolphin" comes from. He wrote, composed and arranged the whole track, by the way.

Source: jessieleong from flickr