YeYe, Ginger Root -- Suimen ni, Ice（水面に、アイス）

 

Happy New Year and welcome one and all to 2026! Hopefully, once you are seeing this, you are largely hangover-free or very satisfied with the finale to "Stranger Things".

Let's start the first entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with something a little more eclectic but still quite relaxing before everything comes out of Holiday mode as of tomorrow. I don't know anything about YeYe but according to what I've found out thus far, she's singer-songwriter Natsuko Hashiguchi（橋口なつこ）from Shiga Prefecture and when she was about 20 in 2009, she started up the trio concentrate on popping as their bassist and vocalist.

She also began a solo career under the name YeYe (the Chinese word for "grandpa" [yéye]) from 2010 which has embraced indies pop, chamber pop, guitar pop, and electro pop. One digital single that she released in August 2022 was "Suimen ni, Ice" (Ice on the Water) and it's a collaboration between her and Ginger Root with his delectably synthy 80s sound. Ginger Root took care of the arrangement of YeYe's creation to make it sound like an old-fashioned lighthearted pop song played at a tropical club as filtered through all that technology of the 80s. From what I could glean from the lyrics, it sounds like someone is pining for that significant other and hopefully that water will be able to melt through the ice.