Satoshi Suzuki - Distant Travel Companion

Satoshi Suzuki (鈴木慧) perhaps said it best himself on the OBI strip of his 1987 privately pressed LP - Tokyo Contemporary! consisting of 40% Jazz, 30% Soul, 20% Brazil, and 10% Kayokyoku - a mixture not too far off from what is now referred to as City Pop.However, this archival compilation of Satoshi Suzuki's works presents a perspective of the City Pop sound not from affluent 1980s Japanese bubble economy-era studios and highly paid studio musicians, but from a one-person band making the most of the instruments in their home studio, inspired by musical traditions from around the world.With notes of city pop, AOR, jazz, soul, bossa, and kayōkyoku - Satoshi Suzuki's intimately recorded pop songs are charming and full of wit, with a seasonal and poetic approach to these musical forms using only a drum machine and an array of digital synthesizers. Sounding a little like Pacific Breeze played on a Casio keyboard and drum machine, Uku Kuut soundtracking a SEGA video game, or the wonderful lo