Aqua City by Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega Tribe - 1983

 

Kanagawa prefecture is famous for turning out artists who've dedicated their music to Summer.  Anri is the first example that comes to mind, but then you have bands from the Shonan region like TUBE, folk duo Bread & Butter, and most famously, Southern All-Stars. However, the one band that most City Pop fans in the west will be familiar with is Omega Tribe, lead by Kiyotaka Sugiyama (杉山清貴). 

THE HISTORY 

Omega Tribe was a band that debuted in 1980 as the amateur band Kyutipanchosu. After winning the  Yamaha Popular Song Contest, they were picked up by Koichi Fujita (藤田浩一), producer & president of Triangle Productions,  and they changed their name to Omega Tribe just in time to release their debut single, Summer Suspicion in April 1983, followed by their first album Aqua City, sever l months later.

During the recording or Aqua City, the band included, of the Kyutipanchosu members, guitarist Toshitsu Takashima (髙島信二), Keiichi Hiroishi (廣石恵一) for drums, Takao Oshima (大島孝夫) for bass, and Kenji Yoshida (吉田健二) for guitar. The original band's keyboardist Akira Senju (千住明) was replaced with Toshitsugu Nishihara (西原俊次). The goal of Aqua City was to further cement their new identity as the summer pop band,  with a collection of songs with themes of summer, the beach, and the sea. To accomplish this they needed the best production team possible. While Kiyotaka himself was the lead singer, he only composed 3 of the songs on the album, the rest of the music composition was handled by music veteran Tetsuji Hayashi (林哲司), who was responsible for giving them their signature yacht rock sound. Arrangements were split between Hayashi, Tsugutoshi Goto (後藤次利), former bassist of rock group Sadistic Mika Band, and Kenzo Shikuma (志熊研三), who had previously worked on Toshiki Kadomatsu's debut album, Sea Breeze, in 1981. One of the lyricists for the album was Korean-Japanese writer Chinfa Kang, who's made previous hit singles for artists like R&B singer Masaki Ueda (上田正樹), and pop idols  Hiromi Iwasaki (岩崎 宏美) & Mariko Takahashi (高橋真梨子). The other was Yasushi Akimoto (秋元 康), who's considered today the most famous lyricists in Japan and would later be known for revolutionizing the idol industry with his seminal groups Onyanko Club and AKB48. Aqua City was released by VAP Records on September 21, 1983, peaking at #4 on the Oricon charts. The album's stylish blue-tinted cover photo was taken at the Waikiki Walls of Honolulu Hawaii.

THE MUSIC

1) Summer Suspicion: Omega Tribes very first hit single, a pop-rock song about a young man's worries of his girlfriend breaking up with him before the summer's over. Complete with a dramatic opening, cheesy synths, beach boy-inspired vocal harmonies, and a rocking guitar solo, this makes for the perfect opening track.

2) Paddling To You: A pretty standard 80's pop-rock song with slightly more surf-rock vibes. This song was written by Sugiyama during the band's Kyutipanchosu phase and was modified to pass the strict screening of the producer.

3) Midnight Down Town: Things get a bit more interesting here with a George Duke-inspired Latin disco track about lovebirds out for a late-night party.

4) Light Morning: A much mellower rock ballad composed by Sugiyama, although it retains the same pop-rock feel of Paddling to You.

5) 海風通信 (Sea Breeze Communication): Another surf rock-inspired pop song.

6) Transit in Summer: Side B begins with easily the best song on the album. A resort pop number about two lovers taking a first-class plane ride to summer vacation. From the smooth drums & bass-line to the Champaign sounding synths, the mellow guitar licks, this is definitely the most city pop-sounding track.

7) Trade Wind: A great melodic follow-up to the previous song, Trade Wind continues the light mellow motif and goes more for a tropical paradise sound. The vocal harmonies on the chorus are fantastic, plus we get an amazing saxophone solo halfway through the song.

8) Sexy Halation: Another light & mellow track, this time about falling for beautiful women at the beach.

9) Alone Again: One of Omega Tribe's most iconic songs which pretty much established their formula for slow ballads. A romantic song defined by its mellow beat, melodramatic strings, and smooth vocals that fade out into the sound of ocean waves.

THE VERDICT

Production: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Vocals:⭐⭐⭐⭐

Arrangement:⭐⭐⭐

Aesthetic:⭐⭐⭐⭐

Memorability: ⭐⭐⭐

Composition:⭐⭐⭐⭐

I think Aqua City is a good introduction for the band. It lays the groundwork for all future albums with its slick arrangements, and lyrics formed solely for the purpose of evoking the feeling of summer vacation, the ocean, and some imagery of urban skyscrapers scattered throughout. It's one of those albums where I wouldn't worry about finding a translation since you're not going to find anything deep or sophisticated. It's 80's sunshine pop at its finest.

 What goes into my major problem with the album is that it feels very by the numbers. There are only 3 unique tracks on the album and the rest fall into generic 80's soft rock territory, with the same-sounding guitar solos and generic synthesizers, causing everything to blend into each other. Out of the 3 tracks written by Kiyotaka Sugiyama, Light Morning is definitely my favorite as it's the most mellow out of the other pop rock-sounding tunes. Midnight Downtown does the best job to break up the monotony of the whole thing as it's the only Latin-inspired track on the album. It also helps that Tetsuji Hayashi took a few cues from George Duke's 1979 track, Brazilian Love Affair. The same can be said about Transit In Summer which very obviously bites from Niteflyte's song, You Are. Thankfully Hayashi does enough to make each song more unique and stand apart compared to their American counterparts.

I think what really saves this album that the overall production of the album, while played safe, is consistent in quality. The bass is driving, the drums are steady, and the guitarists have an excellent sense of rhythm and some impressive solos. It also helps that Sugiyama himself has a very soothing voice, and the backing vocals only help to accentuate its ethereal sound, as well as further evoke the Beach Boys-inspired vibe to the album. I'd say he's definitely one of the best male vocalists in the City Pop genre. 

Overall, despite having very few killers stand-alone tracks, Aqua City does a good job establishing Omega Tribe's winning formula and listening to the album consecutively, I think it makes a great soundtrack to a day at the beach or a cruise down a sunset lit highway. Which was obviously their goal. I was fortunate enough to meet a real Omega Tribe fan from Japan last year in 2019, he had a gold chain with their logo and everything He came to visit Santa Monica and was drawn to the souvenir shop I worked at since I was playing Omega Tribe on the loudspeaker. While we were bonding he told me that same day Kiyotaka Sugiyama was performing his last live concert with Omega Tribe. Even though Omega Tribe is no more, Sugiyama himself is still making music, which you can listen to now (along with his Omega Tribe works), on iTunes and Spotify.