15 March 2015, No. 53, Tatsuro Yamashita, ‘Windy Lady’

The first cool band I heard out of Japan was Shonen Knife, and ever since then, I've known that Japan can be trusted to adopt basically any musical style and throw their own odd twist on it. Think Yellow Magic Orchestra, Boredoms, 54-71, Deerhoof kinda counts, etc., et al. So I was pleased to find this downtempo piece of boogie awesome from Tatsuro Yamashita, stringy though it is. Actually, though, the strings in "Windy Lady" at No. 53 are unobtrusive and kind of nice.