Yukako Hayase -- Tsubaki Hime no Natsu（椿姫の夏）

 

Yukako Hayase（早瀬優香子）is a singer that I discovered because of the work on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" over the past dozen years. So far, although there are only a few of her songs on the blog, I've gotten the impression that she's been able to gain her own loyal group of followers for her appealingly quirky brand of technopop.

Case in point: her April 1987 single "Tsubaki Hime no Natsu" (The Summer of the Lady of the Camellias). Written by Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）and composed by Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, even going late into the 1980s, Harry still had some of that remaining YMO magic spinning around in his head when he made what sounds like some happy techno cabaret for Hayase. I can imagine two professional tango robots tripping the light fantastic on the dance floor here.

"Tsubaki Hime no Natsu" also got a slight re-arrangement when it was placed on Hayase's July 1987 album "Polyester". It still keeps its techno sheen but it then maintains things a little more intimately as if the cabaret club got a little smaller and at the same time, it gains a bit more of that old Tin Pan Alley（ティン・パン・アレー） Tiki bar style. Incidentally, the single version was used for a Shiseido cosmetics campaign.

Yukako Hayase -- Suiyoubi made ni Shinitai no（水曜日までに死にたいの）

 

Considering the title of this song (and even the album title) and that today is Thursday, I hope that the lass is OK.

Anyways, "Suiyoubi made ni Shinitai no" (I Wanna Die by Wednesday) is a track on actress/singer Yukako Hayase's（早瀬優香子）debut album "SO・UTSU"（躁鬱...Depression） from January 1986. Years ago, I wrote about her debut single and fellow track mate, "Sartre de Nemurenai"（サルトルで眠れない）which is a funky piece of technopop arranged in a way that had me thinking of Miharu Koshi（コシミハル）when she first began her journey as a diva of the genre, away from her old City Pop days. There is also Hayase's breathy delivery.

"Suiyoubi made ni Shinitai no" has got the bleeps and bloops of the synthesizers but the style is a bit different. There's some added techno cabaret feeling to Akira Nishihira's（西平彰）nocturnal arrangement of Shinji Harada's（原田真二）melody although the funk does return in parts. Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）provided the lyrics and in fact, he provided the lyrics for all of the songs in "SO・UTSU".

Yukako Hayase -- Shima no Dekigoto（島の出来事）

 

Well, it looks like a few hours earlier, YouTube took a technical tumble for some reason which meant that videos couldn't load although the live streaming ones like Japan's "Weathernews" eventually could come up after about 5~10 minutes. The worldwide reaction was perhaps equivalent to this scene below.

I did go through an hour of this but then after catching a couple of favourite programs in succession on TV Japan, I returned to the computer to see that things were back to normal. No casualties aside from one's wits.

Back to the show then. Actress/singer Yukako Hayase（早瀬優香子）was someone that I first heard about half a decade ago when I first came across her YouTube video of her eclectic debut single "Sartre de Nemurenai" （サルトルで眠れない）from January 1986. I've heard at least one more song after that, and my impression was that Hayase was one of the more intriguingly quirky singers that I've had the opportunity to experience.

Then for tonight, I give you a track from her 3rd album from June 1987 "Polyester"（ポリエステル）, "Shima no Dekigoto" (The Island Incident). Listening to this one, I couldn't easily categorize it but ultimately I think it can straddle the line between straight pop and New Wave, and of course, there is some of that tropicality (my own made-up word). The New Wave part is because there is one part in "Shima no Dekigoto" that reminds me of one of the first songs of the genre in Japan that I ever heard, "Sumire September Love"（すみれ September Love） by the band Ippu-Do（一風堂）, although the synthesizer seems to be a little more subdued when compared to "Sartre de Nemurenai". Still, the whimsy and Hayase's kittenish vocals are very much intact.

Makoto Yano（矢野誠）, Akiko Yano's（矢野顕子）first husband, composed the song while Hayase herself wrote this one (as she did for three of the other tracks on "Polyester") under a pseudonym（千石花土根）that I couldn't quite transcribe immediately. Thankfully, I gather that the name of the YouTube channel is indeed the romaji reading of that nom de plume: Hatone Sengoku.

Anyways, to my fellow YouTube viewers, let us all take some nice cleansing breaths.

Yukako Hayase -- Tokyo no Yoru（東京の夜）

I had this song in my backlog and I can't remember when this first showed up. In fact, although the YouTube details illustrated that it was written, composed and arranged by Chika Ueda（上田知華）, the singer certainly didn't sound like Ueda.

Some investigation later, I have found out that this Ueda-created tune is performed by Yukako Hayase（早瀬優香子）. "Tokyo no Yoru" (A Tokyo Night) is a fairly dreamy and slightly haunting ballad about a woman in a relationship who loves her side of things but isn't so sure that her partner is willing to go the distance. The song has a distinctive flavour but despite the title, I wouldn't say that it's a City Pop tune and despite the synths, I wouldn't say that it's a synthpop song either. There is a certain languid cabaret feeling to it, though.

"Tokyo no Yoru" is a track on Hayase's 6th album "Tomorrow Moon" which, though recorded back in 1992, didn't finally see the light of day until December 1997 due to some sort of unfortunate red tape, it seems, through the studio.

Yukako Hayase -- Sartre de Nemurenai （サルトルで眠れない）

Yukako Hayase（早瀬優香子）is another one of those folks that I stumbled across purely by accident via YouTube the other night. Judging from one record cover, I had initially thought that she was one of the hundreds of aidoru that blazed through the 80s, but then on reading her entry in J-Wiki, she was more into the French Pop side of things.

So I decided to try out her debut single from January 1986, "Sartre de Nemurenai" (Can't Sleep to Sartre). From the title right there, I gathered that she wasn't in the aidoru section of kayo kyoku. And yet, the lyricist was Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）, the creator of aidoru supergroups Onyanko Club and AKB48, while Kenji Omura（大村憲司）took care of the music. Speaking of which, I'm not quite sure what French Pop of the 80s sounded like, but Omura wove quite the saucy somewhat technopoppy melody for Hayase for which the singer was more than happy to complement with her kittenish vocals as she sang about suggesting taking a break from studying to work in some kissy face with the beau. Ooh la la, indeed. To a small extent, she reminded me of Miharu Koshi（コシミハル）when she had brought her own mix of French & technopop to re-invent her musical image, although I think Hayase was more poppier.

Hayase was born in Tokyo in 1967, and according to J-Wiki, although she had a small role in a 1979 drama, she basically started her career in acting in the mid-80s before twinning that with singing the following year. As a singer, she released 8 singles and 7 albums. In the 90s, she started doing that slow fadeout from show business to the point that rumours of death and disappearance started circulating before she disproved those by writing some comments to the contrary on a fan site.

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