"Love you and it's no surprise"

The sun is threatening to hang around for a few days and this always has a predictable effect on the music I listen to. The sun means I reach for my Pizzicato Five CDs and dance around like some uncoordinated nutter.
The trouble with blogging about P5 is that they have an enormous amount of songs and have done several versions of most of them. And they're almost all fantastic. This leaves me with the rather lovely problem of picking just a few songs to put up to represent this prolific and joyous band.

The Japanese band Pizzicato Five started off in 1985 with - unsurprisingly - five members, but over the years members came and went, leaving a duo of Maki Nomiya and Yasuharu Konishi from 1994 until 2001 when the band was finally put to rest. They're like the lovechild band of Burt Bacharach, Serge Gainsbourg and dance music (but only the good stuff). Barely a song goes by where they don't manage to slip the word 'groovy' in somewhere. In fact, that's probably the word which best sums them up. Pizzicato Five are groovy!

The first song I put up has to be Happy Sad, which was the first Pizzicato Five song I ever heard. Irresistibly catchy and full of shooby-dooby-doos.

Pizzicato Five - Happy Sad mp3 (available for 7 days)

Next I've chosen Pizzicato Five's first release from 1985. It starts off sounding rather threatening and industrial, but within 20 seconds you get to the more familiar poppy sound you associate with P5 and it switches between the two all song long. Groovy!

Pizzicato Five - Audrey Hepburn Complex mp3 (available for 7 days)

Finally, this may well be my favourite P5 song. Apparently it's about a deliberately awkward, high maintenance woman who believes in love at first sight and wants to be taken care of. I hope that doesn't say anything about me!

Pizzicato Five - Nata Di Marzo mp3 (available for 7 days)

God, I love this band! Buy Pizzicato Five albums from Matador Records

Bonus: Maki Nomiya - Nicola mp3 (available for 7 days)