SPY -- Taiyo to Mannequin（太陽とマヌカン）

 

Well, it was about a year ago when I first discovered that City Pop princess Nanako Sato（佐藤奈々子）had opted to go into another direction with her music. That's right...she formed a band SPY in 1980, a group which veered more toward the new New Wave and synthpop. So, last year, I could only find one song from their lone self-titled album represented on YouTube, "Hello Mr. SPY".

Since then though, I was told by one commenter that the remainder of the songs from "SPY" have apparently gotten onto YouTube. That includes the second track on Side B, "Taiyo to Mannequin" (The Sun and the Mannequin). Sato wrote and composed the tune which begins briefly with something approximating her old City Pop and there's even some fusion being filtered through some of those synthesizers. However, there is always that haze hovering overhead signaling that indeed, SPY is a different animal before some bouncy ska makes its presence known. Meanwhile, Sato's voice gets into a rather jumpy and slightly hiccoughy rhythm, almost approaching the style of future pop star Cyndi Lauper. 

SPY -- Hello Mr. SPY

 

A few months ago, Nick Luscombe interviewed another City Pop chanteuse for his "City Pop Stories" series, and this time it was Nanako Sato（佐藤奈々子）! He did point out that kittenish and whispery jazz-pop voice of hers from the 1970s which may have influenced some other singers such as Miharu Koshi（越美晴）and perhaps even Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）to some extent. It's interesting though that Koshi and Ohnuki did make that turn in their musical stylings to a technopop/New Wave adventure going into the 1980s.

And so did Sato, if perhaps for just one album. But before that, she had to form a band called SPY with Kenji Iwakura（岩倉健二）, Yoshinori Toda（戸田吉則）and Hiroshi/Yu Nagata（永田裕）in 1980. Yup, that is indeed Sato on the cover for that one-and-only LP "SPY". Gone are her long and luxurious auburn tresses to be replaced with something a bit more post-punk spiky.

From "SPY" is "Hello Mr. SPY" which is that New Wavy bounce-fest and the crazy thing is that Sato's voice works well with the melodic dancing, vocal strutting and chirps. Indeed, although the music by Sato and Iwakura grabs that new genre of 80s music and runs with it, I couldn't help but feel that the underlying rhythm especially in the intro was still a final tether to the singer's City Pop days. Sato was behind the lyrics, too. I also see that there is at least one more track from "SPY" on YouTube, so I'll have to give that a listen as well.