ikkubaru -- Amusement Park/Neko wa Moufu no you ni（猫は毛布のように）

A few days ago, Matt K. contacted me again about this Indonesian City Pop band called ikkubaru and he introduced a song of theirs (with collaboration from JULIE) to me titled "Neko wa Moufu no you ni" (Cat's Like a Blanket). I'm sure the average pet feline is as soft and cuddly as a blanket, but unfortunately when our family cat, Mako, was still around, he and I weren't exactly too friendly with each other so I couldn't really find out. In any case, listening to this one, I did get that feeling of the warm and fuzzy variety, and even the vocals struck me as being someone cat-like. The somewhat cautious and deliberate delivery reminded me of ol' Mako trying to sneak up on me when I was in bed; cat paws getting ready for the strike. Luckily, with this song, the strike never occurs. Instead, I'm just enjoying the Vaporwave/Future Funkiness of it all.

I'd thought that this was the first time that ikkubaru would get its due on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but actually nikala mentioned about the band in her 2018 article for Ko Nakashima's（中島考）"drop". As for the band itself, the name is derived from the katakana rendition of the leader, Muhammad Iqbal, and ikkubaru itself was formed on Christmas Eve 2011 with their raison d'etre being the wonderful City Pop from Japan with artists such as Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）and Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）.

ikkubaru's debut album "Amusement Park" came out in October 2014. City Pop fans can rejoice since the song has some of that summery influence from Kadomatsu's "Sea Line" with that guitar hook. I would probably say that the Kadomatsu hook has been grafted nicely onto some of those crystalline synths of more recent J-urban contemporary. In addition, looking at Iqbal in the music video above, I also got reminded of another City Pop god, Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）.😀

Regrettably, I couldn't quite pinpoint when "Neko wa Moufu no you ni" was released, although the Soundcloud version has pegged it as being put up 6 years ago.

Thanks to Matt K. for letting me know about ikkubaru, and now I'm curious about some of the other non-Japanese bands/singers who are providing their own City Pop.