Ryusenkei -- San-go Sen（3号線）

 

I gather that Yumi Arai's（荒井由実）classic "Chuo Freeway"（中央フリーウェイ）has had a buddy route in terms of music for the past couple of decades in the form of "San-go Sen" (Route No. 3 Shibuya). By the way, this is a real part of an expressway in Tokyo, so for all of your City Pop driving tour needs, try Route No. 3 as offered by YouTuber wataken777 Part 2.

Continuing on, it's nice to hear from Ryusenkei's（流線形）"City Music" debut album from 2003 again. It's been a while. I recall posting an article about "Tokyo Coaster" from that release back in 2017 and well, I've got another one which is indeed titled "San-go Sen" that was written and composed by the leader Cunimondo Takiguchi（クニモンド瀧口）and has the sweet vocals of Tomomi Sano（サノトモミ） waxing romantically about the drive. And just like "Chuo Freeway", there is that feeling of 70s City Pop or New Music filtering through my brain.

Then in 2022, Ryusenkei decided to release a small album in August 2022 called "Incomplete" with former Kirinji（キリンジ）member Yasuyuki Horigome（堀込泰行）helping out. The band and Horigome worked on a cover version of "San-go Sen" as the first track with the latter taking over for Sano on vocals. The mellow funk of the original has been given a facelift into something jazzier and more refined. It's as if a young couple just driving in their sports car simply for the heck of it are now in a more expensive Toyota Cressida heading to that hard-to-reserve Italian restaurant in Aoyama. But they're still using Route No. 3.

Tomomi Sano -- six

 

Happy Monday! Well, not quite sure as of yet, but it feels as if we are at a certain corner that we have not yet turned when it comes to this 3rd wave of COVID. Some of those mass vaccination campaigns have borne fruit over the weekend while the vaccines themselves have been pouring into the country and the daily infection rates are slowly coming down. I can only hope that things will further improve as we approach the end of the month.

It's been a while since I've written about Tomomi Sano（サノトモミ）, who seems to specialize in the current form of urban contemporary music in Japan. Back in 2016, I covered her "Myojo"（明星）from her 2005 album "Silent Flight", and that particular track starts off with a bluesy and fairly dramatic intro before segueing into a contemporary downtown beat with wacka-wacka guitar. It's got the groove and I do love my groove!

The first track from "Silent Flight" is "six", a song written by Midori Kanai（金井緑）and composed by Yuzo Hayashi（林有三）. From what I could understand of the translation of Kanai's lyrics in the comment section for the above YouTube video, it all comes across as an atmospheric description of a night in the life of a film noir detective. It's a tad lighter in tone than "Myojo" though, and so I gather that it fits the role of a first track in an album which I guess is all about the coolness of night and situation. The bluesiness is still there and the keyboards are at the fore along with Sano's soft vocals. Not sure what the title is referring to, however.

It looks like that including "Silent Flight", Sano has released at least three albums according to Tower Records, and her Twitter account is still active.

Ryusenkei -- Tokyo Coaster （東京コースター）

Well, I got my summer package of discs the other day so I've been listening to them for the past few days. Last night was the time for Ryusenkei's（流線形）"City Music". This was the band's debut album from 2003 and I've already talked about a couple of tracks from the album, "Airport '80" and "Koi no Cider"（恋のサイダー）.

I can say that "City Music" is a "Kayo Kyoku Plus" purchase because it was through working on this blog that I was even able to find out about Ryusenkei. The band has yet to be recognized on J-Wiki and Wikipedia and started its career some years after the inaugural issue of "Japanese City Pop", my bible on the genre. I simply found out through YouTube.

"Tokyo Coaster" rather sums up on what Japanese City Pop of the 21st century has been to me. The original City Pop of the 1970s and 1980s had that big capital 'C' for city with the big bass and saxophone pushing the melody along with a really funky strut as if it were a very confident dandy demanding a lot of space while he hulked his way over to the nearest disco from JR Shinjuku Station.

The next generation (and I realize that other folks [perhaps even the artists themselves] do not like to use the City Pop tag for this 21st-century music) which includes Ryusenkei, Hitomitoi（一十三十一）and others, comes off a whole lot more mellower group. Perhaps it's more of a lower-case 'c' for the city with a bit more smooth jazz and Latin entering the keyboards. I don't really see a disco either...perhaps a tastefully appointed cafe.

Cunimondo Takiguchi（クニモンド瀧口）wrote and composed "Tokyo Coaster" with Tomomi Sano（サノトモミ）handling the tender vocals, and in addition to hearing it in that café in Harajuku, this could be just the song to hear while driving down the megalopolitan highways on a Saturday night and having that congenial conversation with friends inside a sporty Toyota or Nissan (not on the cellphone, that would be bad). It doesn't demand your undivided attention. Instead, it acts like a very tip-worthy concierge by discreetly providing some fine service.

Ryusenkei -- Koi no Cider （恋のサイダー）

Gotta say that I'm getting pretty tempted to get an album...any album...by groovy band Ryusenkei（流線形）.

I mean, it may be the early 21st century but these guys are disco-ing as if it were the late 1970s or early 1980s. "Koi no Cider" (Love Cider) is straight from Ryusenkei's debut album "City Music" from 2003. The arrangement is a love letter to City Pop and I just adore the drums in this tune. Unfortunately, that's about all the information I can get about this song since the band still doesn't have any sort of website or even any recognition on J-Wiki. I think their Facebook page is about it for representation outside of any media reports on them. But I did find out that Tomomi Sano（サノトモミ）is the vocalist here.

Various folks have put forth that City Pop as a genre should be addressed to the creations by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）, Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）and others from decades back and that the tunes made by folks like Ryusenkei should be given a new name or the old one of AOR. However, I think the newer stuff I've heard still fits the bill enough to earn the return of the name of that favourite genre of mine. At the same time, though, I think I can see their point since City Pop seems to refer to the big city (namely Tokyo) during a time when the Economic Miracle was paying off in big dividends...a time that no longer exists now.

Incidentally, you can also try out another song from "City Music": "Airport '80"（エアーポート’80）.

Tomomi Sano -- Myojo （明星）

Something nice and mellow to start off the weekend. Regrettably, there is not a whole lot of information about this singer I've just discovered by the name of Tomomi Sano（サノトモミ）. According to her Twitter account, she was a guest vocalist on Neo-City Pop band Ryusenkei' s（流線形）1st album back in 2004 before releasing an album in 2005 titled "Silent Flight".

One of the tracks on that album is "Myojo" (Venus), a club-friendly groove tune. Nothing particularly earth-shattering about the song but it makes for pleasant listening during the dinner hour, and it also makes for some fine reminiscing about that time in the early 2000s when folks like bird and Misia were providing some of that groovy J-R&B. I wouldn't mind a return of some of that genre just about now.

Roppongi Hills

Ryusenkei -- Airport '80 （エアーポート’80）

I just came across a 2012 article on "The Japan Times" that talks about a return of that Perrier-sipping and plane-hopping Japanese genre known as City Pop. And considering some of the singers I've encountered for the first time via YouTube and articles on this blog, I think the return is still happily on the move. Perhaps Japan, and specifically Tokyo, may no longer be all that close to the top of the economic heap as it was when City Pop was experiencing its first heyday, but it seems that there is still a want for some of that urban contemporary beat.

One of the relatively new artists that I discovered in the last few months is Ryusenkei（流線形...Streamline） aka Cunimondo Takiguchi nee Toshiaki Takiguchi. He is mentioned in that Japan Times article but otherwise there is not a whole lot about him aside from his own Facebook page. However, I did find out that he has had three albums so far under his belt, "City Music" (2003), "Tokyo Sniper" (2006) and "Natural Woman" (2009).

Tonight I'm featuring a track from Ryusenkei's first album "City Music", "Airport '80", created by Takiguchi. Both the album and the song are perfectly titled considering the genre. The airport is one of the representative places when it comes to City Pop...that launching point to exotic horizons, whether they be the shores of Honolulu or the streets of Manhattan, or that landing point before heading into the world's biggest megalopolis. As soon as I heard that melody of shimmery strings and strumming guitar along with those technological bloops after that recording of soaring jets, I knew I was getting back into some comfortable musical territory. The mellow vocals also had me craving those huge cocktails with the paper umbrellas. I'll be interested in trying to catch up with what Ryusenkei has been producing over the past decade.

Have a look at a couple of articles that Marcos V. has written up on similar material. One is on Greeen Linez and the other is his playlist on those Retro Grooves.