Toko Furuuchi -- Ugoku Hodou（動く歩道）

 

On February 21st 2022...so just a few days after this writing, velvet-voiced singer-songwriter Toko Furuuchi（古内東子）will be releasing her newest album, "Taion, Kodou"（体温、鼓動...Body Temperature, Pulsation）, exactly 29 years following the release of her very first single, "Hayaku Isoide"（はやくいそいで）in 1993. Being the late bloomer that I am, I found out about Furuuchi a few years later when I was living in Chiba-ken and first heard the wonderful ballad of hers, "Dare Yori Suki Nanoni" （誰より好きなのに）in 1996.

I thought it would be nice then to introduce what seems to be the advance single from "Taion, Kodou", "Ugoku Hodou" (Moving Walkway) to finish off Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP on a very elegant note. And after getting those six CD albums just in the last several days, I'm now gritting my teeth at the temptation of getting this album (and a few more) on the strength of "Ugoku Hodou" which was written and composed by Furuuchi.

Just from remembering Furuuchi's songs in the past, "Ugoku Hodou" has that quintessential feeling of AOR and soul. Basically, I see and hear her as someone akin to Anita Baker in the Quiet Storm vein, although I know that their vocals are very different, but this song also incorporates some pleasant and light piano jazz. Plus, that background chorus which helps launch things really sets the relaxing mood. 

Furuuchi does have that career 30th anniversary coming up. All my congratulations to her!

Yui Murase -- Nemuru Kioku（眠る記憶）

 

For a song titled "Nemuru Kioku" (Sleeping Memories), it's pretty bright and bushy-tailed. This was a track on Yui Murase's（村瀬由衣）album "YUI MURASE" from June 1994, and it starts off like the beginning to a night out on the town before the protagonist gets deep into the dancing and frolicking about downtown. It's a pretty nice 90s City Pop tune that we have here and maybe that electric guitar solo has a tinge of Steely Dan influence.

And it appears that Murase wanted to have some more Y folks on "Nemuru Kioku". There is of course the singer Yui herself, but Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）came up with the lyrics while singer-songwriter  Yudai Suzuki（鈴木雄大）was the melody maker. But alas, there is one M in here, too, with Motoki Funayama（船山基紀） handling the arrangements.

I'm going to have to ask my student tomorrow about how the night life in Tokyo has been. Japan has been behind us in terms of the Omicron Wave but I am hoping that things will be looking up for them in the coming weeks.

Kazushi Inamura and Dai Ikkan Dai Hyakusho -- Go-Youjin（御用心）

 

Last month, I discovered the late Kazushi Inamura（稲村一志）and his band Dai Ikkan Dai Hyakusho（第一巻第百章...Volume 1 Chapter 100）through his light and mellow song "Ni-gatsu no Nioi"（二月の匂い...The Smell of February） which doesn't sound or smell anything like February at all. On the contrary, the senses activated here are the ones for July or August.

Inamura was known as a folk singer-songwriter but listening to "Ni-gatsu no Nioi", I'd say that the song lands more in the J-AOR or even City Pop file. However, I found another Inamura song that happily takes things further down the urban contemporary rabbit hole with "Go-Youjin". This one is an even more interesting specimen since according to the HMV website, this particular song had never been put onto any of Inamura's albums, but it did get onto the B-side of his 1982 solo single "Frozen Heart".

This very kakkoii tune reminds me of Boz Scaggs (notably "Jojo") and perhaps TOTO. It's got that slow funky beat and some wonderful keyboard stuff which has me thinking of going down the highway in a car at sunset. As for the meaning of the title, I went to Jisho.org and found the definitions of "care", "caution" and "precaution". But the way that Inamura coyly sings out the title, I feel that perhaps "Take Care" might be the translation as if he were warning the listener that there are wolves everywhere out in the big bad city. Well, it might be a dangerous metropolis out there but dang, I like the soundtrack for it.

"Go-Youjin" has also come out as a coupling song for a posthumous release of "Koi wo Suru nara"（恋をするなら...If You're Gonna Fall in Love） which was released in December 2018, almost 5 years following Inamura's passing in January 2014. "Koi wo Suru nara" was originally a track on the band's 1977 album "Free Flight" and a reissue of that album now has "Go-Youjin" as one of five bonus tracks. It has also appeared on a compilation series known as "Wamono A to Z"（和モノA TO Z...Japanese Things A to Z）, specifically on the December 2020 album titled "Wamono A to Z Presents Blow Up Trio Hen"（和モノA TO Z PRESENTS“BLOW UP"TRIO編...Blow Up Trio Edition）. So, for anyone who has fallen for this song, they now have some options.

Negicco -- Gozen Rei-ji no Sympathy（午前0時のシンパシー）

 

Not sure if this had been meant to be a Neo-City Pop number by the longstanding aidoru group Negicco, but the observations that Hitomitoi（一十三十一）is behind words and music (along with track maker PARKGOLF), her lyrics seem to have a couple setting up the ideal City Pop-themed date late Friday night, and the video was filmed around Yokohama Bay might have genre fans thinking that the trio is flexing their urban contemporary muscles.

Whatever the case may be, "Gozen Rei-ji no Sympathy" (Sympathy at 12 AM) is a cool and glossy number that was released as Negicco's 24th single in August 2020. With those trip-the-light-fantastic synths in play, the song is also pretty light and trippy. I can only hope that I can spend another couple of nights in Yokohama once more.

Perhaps I'm a little late to the party, but City Pop-themed dates may have already taken place before the pandemic with couples coming into Tokyo or Yokohama to enjoy that midnight drive over the bridge. And once things settle down for safe tourism, they can resume. 💖

I WiSH -- Asu e no Tobira（明日への扉）

 

Ai Kawashima（川嶋あい）is a singer and a songwriter from Fukuoka who gained fame as a teen who came up to Tokyo in 2002 with her keyboard to sing on the streets and become known as Rojou no Tenshi（路上の天使）or The Busking Angel. I remember seeing a feature on the Fuji-TV morning show about her as she diligently carried her keyboard to places like Shibuya and Yotsuya to busk up to a thousand times in 2005. In the history of this blog, I'd only mentioned her once and that was because she wrote and composed the opening theme to the anime "Koi Suru Asteroid"（恋する小惑星...Asteroid In Love）.

During that runup from 2002 to 2005 to reach that golden number of 1000, though, Kawashima was already getting CDs produced. The first example of this was through the duo of I WiSH which consisted of Kawashima and composer/arranger Naohiro Sugawara（菅原直洋）. Sugawara had encountered the singer during one of her busking sessions after which a deal was made to create the duo with their names being ai and nao during their existence.

Their first single, released on Valentine's Day 2003, was "Asu e no Tobira" (The Door to Tomorrow), a sweet pop song which managed to stay on the Oricon chart for many months leading to a year. I recall it well since the video was popping up seemingly permanently on the weekly music ranking show "Countdown TV" on TBS with the scenes that I remember being all sorts of people giving ai a peck on the cheek. Meanwhile, folks everywhere were wondering who this lady was with the voice of an angel.

The truth eventually revealed itself as "Asu e no Tobira" hit No. 1 and went Triple Platinum, ending 2003 as the No. 6 single. Kawashima was responsible for words and music while Sugawara and Jun Ozawa（小澤純）took care of the arrangement. The song would also appear on I WiSH's debut album "Tsutae Koboba ~ Namida no Ochiru Basho"（伝えたい言葉　～涙のおちる場所～...Words that I Want to Convey ~The Place Where the Tears Fall Down~）which was released in October that year, and it would peak at No. 2 and ended up at No. 36 on the yearly album chart. "Asu e no Tobira" would also become the theme song for a popular Fuji-TV reality program called "Ainori"（あいのり...Love Ride） which lasted from 2002 to 2003.

In total, I WiSH released 6 singles and 2 albums up to 2008 along with a couple of BEST compilations. But Kawashima would also start off her solo career in the recording booth just a few months after the release of "Asu e no Tobira", and this has continued to the present day.

Buffalo Daughter -- Cold Summer

 

A few years ago, I put up an article on the rock band Buffalo Daughter. The particular song that I focused upon was "Oui Oui" which appeared on their 2014 album "Konjac-tion"（コニャクション）, and that one sounded more like a funk/pop tune so it went against the grain in terms of what I'd assumed their sound was. But perhaps that was the point by Buffalo Daughter...to be as unpredictable as possible.

My mind then wondered about the type of music that suGar Yoshinaga（シュガー吉永）, Yumiko Ohno（大野由美子）and MoOoG Yamamoto（山本ムーグ）were putting out in their very early days which began in 1993. So, after checking out their J-Wiki file, where I also discovered that there had been a fourth member, drummer Chika Ogawa（小川千果）, during their indies days, I saw that there was their very first album "Shaggy Head Dressers" from 1994.

I found one track called "Cold Summer", and yep, all I can say is that if Quentin Tarentino ever gets that final picture of his out, perhaps he can consider putting this one in. The Discogs website has a homegrown term called Leftfield to describe any album or song that is quirky and can't be easily defined. It's been used as one of the terms for "Shaggy Head Dressers" and I can certainly use it for "Cold Summer" which is a ball of alternative twangy film noir Western rock and some synthpop with a sprinkling of INXS attitude.

One big message that I got from "Cold Summer" is that the members don't really like cold winters. As a Torontonian who's been through one major snowstorm this season and several days of frigid temperatures (gotta another snowstorm coming in tonight), I can totally understand their feelings.

Naked Eyes -- (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me

 

Well, after our special Valentine's Day edition of Reminiscings of Youth, we're back with the usual Thursday ROY article, and this one is another song whose history with me goes all the way back to the late 1960s or early 1970s, but it really struck pay dirt in the early 1980s.

The golden songwriting duo of Burt Bacharach and Hal David came up with "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" in 1964 for Lou Johnson. Yet, I only heard this and any vocal covers in the immediately following years for the first time in just the last few weeks. For me, my childhood exposure to this standard involved me in the back seat of the car listening to the radio putting forth an instrumental version. However, it was catchy enough (after all, we are talking about Bacharach and David) that it has stuck inside my head for decades.

But then, during my high school days, a new version of "Always Something There to Remind Me" was released by a British New Wave group called Naked Eyes. This band consisting of Pete Byrne and Rob Fisher actually added the arrangement version of a warp engine to this Bacharach-and-David creation that I'd been hearing for years and made it epic. It was like giving scrawny Steve Rogers the Super-Soldier serum to become Captain America, and I admit that I'm being a little florid here in my description, but considering that at the time I was fully into my synthpop, hearing these new amazing crashing synths being applied to this old chestnut had me feeling really giddy.

The original single came out in November 1982 in the UK (it was released Stateside in January 1983) and then came the 12-inch remix which I liked even better since of course, we got more of those synthesizers. Kinda like what the music video was showing, I could envision one really New Wave-themed wedding in a massive church while this song is playing. 

I recall Naked Eyes having a goodly amount of fame for a few years thanks to this one and a couple of other singles by them that made it onto the weekly Top 50 radio and music video shows. "Always Something There to Remind Me" broke into the Top 10 in both Canada and the United States at No. 9 and No. 8 respectively.

So, what were the top singles coming out of Oricon in November 1982? Well, here are No. 1, 3 and 4.

1. Seiko Matsuda -- Nobara no Etude （野ばらのエチュード）

3. Toru Watanabe -- Yakusoku (約束）

4. Masahiko Kondo -- Horeta ze! Kanpai（ホレたぜ!乾杯）