MATA ASHITA

ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Kazuhito Murata’s 1982 debut Mata Ashita already contains most of the elements that would define his later work: open-road melodies, carefully built vocal harmonies, clean guitar textures, and an instinctive feeling for songs that seem to belong to summer. The album is especially notable for the circle of musicians around it. Tatsuro Yamashita, Shigeru Suzuki, and Mariya Takeuchi all contributed, placing Murata directly inside the highly connected studio world that shaped Japanese AOR and city pop at the beginning of the 1980s. Yet the record does not feel like a collection of guest appearances. Songs such as “Denwa Shitemo,” “Lady September,” and “Greyhound Boogie” establish a consistent personality that is lighter and more road-oriented than the nocturnal urban sound associated with many of his contemporaries. Even the album’s softer passages carry forward motion. What makes Mata Ashita impressive as a debut is its confidence: Murata sounds less like an artist searching for a style than one refining a sound he already understands. Its mixture of Japanese melodic writing and West Coast-inspired studio craft became the foundation for the albums that followed.