Just 18 months ago, I encountered the wonderful perky but cool wonders of Serani Poji（セラニポージ）thanks to some game music they provided back in 1999 for the Sega Dreamcast. Somehow those whispery vocals and the running R&B melody fit each other hand-in-glove.
Last night, I was reminded of the unit again when I discovered another really catchy tune by them called "Pipo Pipo". It was placed onto Serani Poji's 2nd album from November 2002, "one-room survival". This time, the melody canvas isn't R&B but the other aspect of Japanese urban contemporary, Shibuya-kei. In a way, the vocals fit even more with "Pipo Pipo" because they remind me of the breathy voice of Kahimi Karie（カヒミ・カリィ）.
In any case, "Pipo Pipo" is becoming a darn earworm now. I did mention in that first article that there were three folks involved in Serani Poji: Yukichi（ゆきち）, Yumi Higashino（東野佑美）, and Tomoko Sasaki（ササキトモコ）. Well, as it turns out, Yukichi completed the first album with Sasaki, "manamoon" before he left, and then Higashino came in for "one-room survival" and a third album before she left. Currently, it is just Sasaki minding the store with the latest album having come out back in 2010.
have just gotten into serani poji and stumbled upon this post. great writing and as a fellow fan of japanese music i will be keeping up, thank you
ReplyDeleteThanks very kindly and I'm happy that you've gotten into Serani Poji and Japanese music in general. Keep on reading!
Delete