Tracklist:
1. Paradise Island (Heiankaku CM Song) [0:00]
2. Shi-Go-Sen [3:59]
Arranged By – Satoshi Takebe
Composed By – Kengo Kurozumi
Scanned/ripped from my EP copy
Sometime after Kengo Kuzozumi's 2nd album "Still" was released, Kurozumi continued to release several more EP singles under the TDK Records label—"Paradise Island" being one of them. Containing a commercial theme song for Nagasaki's "Heiankaku" wedding city hall on Side A and an original track on Side B, this single is a nice mixture of upbeat, beachy citypop vibes with "Paradise Island" and slow mellow vibes with "Shi-Go-Sen".
This single was eventually quote-unquote "remastered" by a sublabel of Vivid Sound Corporation in 2009—I put quotes there because it unfortunately isn't really remastered 🙃
These tracks were included as a bonus on Vivid's CD re-issues for Kurozumi's "Again" and "Still" albums, but just like the entirety of those albums these EP songs were recorded & post-processed horribly straight from vinyl. Presumably the masters were either lost or discarded by TDK Records if they went this route...
For some unexplained reason, I recently took a huge liking to Kurozumi's music again, so despite having owned this single for like years now I finally decided to recently work around with it. The first copy was a bit difficult to work with due to it being very clicky and noisy—this copy was posted onto YT by me but I later removed it as a friend had told me that it was plagued with inner groove distortion. So I ended up getting a 2nd copy to record—this one was cleaner, much easier to work with, and had less distortion than the first copy, so why not re-upload it while I'm at it?
These rips aren't perfect, but they are a HELL of a lot better sound-wise compared to the 2008 CD version and the official upload from Nippon Columbia themselves (which also uses the 2008 version).
A side note: both of these tracks were later included in Kengo Kurozumi's "Island of Oahu" LP with slightly different mastering and with beach SFX included.
Enjoy!
