The Film Studio Orchestra

condition (records/cover): NM / NM

Gatefold sleeve with glued-in insert. Obi included.

Japan's public broadcaster ran its own hit parade, and Victor's house orchestra recorded the results as instrumentals for people who wanted the tunes without the singers. Two discs of late-sixties and early-seventies kayōkyoku hits reset for strings, brass, electric guitar and the inevitable tenor saxophone, with the tempos nudged toward the dance floor and the melodies played dead straight. It is the Japanese equivalent of the Reader's Digest box, except that the arrangers were the same session men who were cutting enka and film scores by day.

The interest for our audience is the arranging itself: minor-key pentatonic tunes wrapped in Nelson Riddle voicings, a combination that exists nowhere else. Victor gatefold with the SWF prefix, Japanese pressing.