CIRCUS TOWN

Led in by the country song ‘Turkey in the Straw,’ A1 is a skyscraper groove. Yamashita’s solo career made a fresh start here. A2, familiar from Moomin’s cover version, is an exuberant medium-tempo funk number that follows the example of Chicago soul. Its swaying beat and chorus raise the temperature unmistakably. What Yamashita learned from the New York sessions and arranger Charlie Calello was a sense of realism: how to make a sound feel alive in the present. No wonder A5, recorded in Los Angeles, feels so light by comparison.