Anri on Vinyl: A Guide to Her Essential City Pop Albums

Anri sang city pop straighter than almost anyone else who worked in it. Born Eiko Kawashima in Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture in 1961, she was recording before she turned eighteen: the 1978 single "Olivia wo Kikinagara" and the album that followed it put a clear, unhurried pop voice on For Life Records years before anyone outside Japan had a name for the sound. For most of a decade she was a very good singer with a very good label behind her.

What turned her into one of the genre's defining voices was a writing partnership. Toshiki Kadomatsu, then a young guitarist and songwriter, supplied most of 1982's Heaven Beach, including "Last Summer Whisper", and the fit was immediate: his resort-funk chord changes and her bright, wistful delivery pulled in opposite directions in exactly the right way. He took over as producer with Bi-Ki-Ni in 1983 and stayed through Timely!! later that year and Coool in 1984, a three-album run that is as concentrated a stretch of city pop as the era produced. Her catalog ran well past it, through Trouble in Paradise in 1986 and Circuit of Rainbow in 1990, and she still records and performs today from Los Angeles.

Anri's records matter now because the reissue program caught up with them. For Life put the 1982 to 1984 albums back on analog in 2023 on limited colored pressings cut for export, the first time most collectors outside Japan could buy them without paying vintage-import prices. We carry five, covering the whole arc: the Kadomatsu peak, the Los Angeles session record, and a latter-day live document. For the wider scene around her first, our Essential City Pop on Vinyl guide features her alongside Yamashita, Takanaka and Casiopea; this one goes deeper on Anri alone.

Anri - Heaven Beach (Clear Yellow Color) Vinyl LP

Her fourth album, from 1982, and the one where the sound clicks. Kadomatsu wrote most of it, and the second track, "Last Summer Whisper", went on to become the Anri song the city pop revival found first, a slow-burning piece of summer melancholy that has been sampled and covered for a decade. "Fly By Day", "Lonely Driving" and the closing title track hold the same late-afternoon light. Pick up Heaven Beach on clear yellow vinyl.

• Why it's worth purchasing: the home of "Last Summer Whisper", the single most-requested Anri track in the shop.
• Why it's worth purchasing: the first full Kadomatsu collaboration, so it is the starting point for the run that follows.
• Why it's worth purchasing: a limited Japanese clear yellow pressing that matches the artwork and sounds the way the record was mixed to sound.

Anri - Bi-Ki-Ni (Limited Edition Pink Color) Vinyl LP

Released in June 1983, this is where Kadomatsu moves into the producer's chair, and he structures the album like a DJ set: side one is labeled the Disco Side and is written, arranged and played by him end to end, from "Good Bye Boogie Dance" through "Dancin' Blue" and "September Walkin'" to "Yes I'm In Love". Side two, the Sea Side, loosens the tempo and brings in Takeshi Kobayashi and arranger Jun Sato, with Anri writing two of the songs herself. Grab Bi-Ki-Ni on pink vinyl.

• Why it's worth purchasing: the purest boogie record in her catalog, with a full side of Kadomatsu writing and playing.
• Why it's worth purchasing: a two-sided concept that still works as a sequenced listen rather than a singles collection.
• Why it's worth purchasing: two Anri originals on side two, which is the earliest good look at her as a writer.

Anri - Timely!! (Blue Color) Vinyl LP

If you only take one Anri record home, take this one. Issued in December 1983 and produced by Kadomatsu, Timely!! opens with a re-recorded "Cat's Eye", the song she had cut that summer as the first opening theme for the Cat's Eye anime, and it never loses that momentum. "Windy Summer" is the other anchor, a chorus that has outlived every format it has been pressed on, and "Kanashimi ga Tomaranai" opens side two with the kind of hook Kadomatsu built his reputation on. Order Timely!! on blue vinyl.

• Why it's worth purchasing: the single best entry point to her catalog and to the Kadomatsu era generally.
• Why it's worth purchasing: it holds "Cat's Eye" and "Windy Summer", the two Anri songs most likely to be recognized across a room.
• Why it's worth purchasing: the clear sky blue pressing was cut for the export reissue program and is limited to that run.

Anri - Coool Vinyl (Limited Edition Clear Green Color) LP

June 1984, and the sessions move to Los Angeles. Coool puts Anri in a room with American studio players, Nathan East on bass and a horn section arranged by Jerry Hey, with Barry Fasman handling strings, and the result is sleeker and more American-sounding than the three albums before it. "Bring Me To The Dancenight" and "Surprise Of Summer" carry the groove, "Maui" closes it at walking pace, and a new version of "Kimamani Reflection" ties it back to the earlier catalog. Pick up Coool on clear green vinyl.

• Why it's worth purchasing: a genuine Los Angeles session record, with a rhythm section that played on a great deal of what you already own.
• Why it's worth purchasing: the cleanest-sounding album of the run, which makes it the best demonstration of what these reissues can do.
• Why it's worth purchasing: it closes the Kadomatsu arc, so owning it completes the 1982 to 1984 stretch.

Anri - Funtime Vinyl LP

The outlier, and a good one. Funtime is her first studio live album, cut in a single take in 2017 with the band she has worked with longest, and it reaches across four decades in one sitting: "Kanashimi ga Tomaranai", "Olivia wo Kikinagara", "Summer Candles" and "CAT'S EYE" sit beside soul covers she has carried for years, including the Isley Brothers' "Between The Sheets". Spread across a double LP with the room sound left in, it works as a best-of with a pulse. Grab Funtime on vinyl.

• Why it's worth purchasing: a single-take studio live set, so the performances are complete takes rather than assembled ones.
• Why it's worth purchasing: the widest catalog overview on one record, from the 1978 debut single to the 1980s hits.
• Why it's worth purchasing: a double LP that runs long, with covers that do not appear anywhere else in her discography.

If You Like Anri

The records above point toward the same small circle of Tokyo musicians, and we carry all of them.

• Tatsuro Yamashita: the songwriter at the center of the whole era, and the obvious next shelf after Timely!!.
• Hiroshi Sato: the keyboardist who gave city pop its warmest, funkiest end, with a catalog that rewards slow digging.
• Masayoshi Takanaka: the guitar side of the same scene, all tropical fusion and permanent sunshine, and the deepest import run we stock.
• Miki Matsubara: a contemporary with a jazz singer's instincts, best known for "Mayonaka no Door" and worth hearing well past it.
• Casiopea: the instrumental fusion end of the shelf, for when you want the playing without the vocals.

Mariya Takeuchi belongs in that circle too, and the two of them finally recorded together as Peach & Apricot in 2021; we carry her on disc rather than vinyl at the moment.

Anri's five records are a tidy way into a scene that can swallow a budget. Begin with Timely!!, work backward to Heaven Beach, then browse everything by Anri. The wider Japanese shelf lives in Imported GOODS, with the instrumental end crossing into Jazz Fusion. Come dig through the Japan bins in person at 4 Thacher St in Boston's North End. It's all in GOOD TASTE.