Blue Peppers -- Believe In Love/Marine Snow no Toshi（マリンスノーの都市）

I had always been anticipating any new music from the duo Blue Peppers（ブルー・ペパーズ）, that smooth J-AOR duo bringing together the new and the old that I discovered about a couple of years ago. It didn't take much prodding for me to get their first full album "Retroactive".

Happily, I have also discovered that Naoki Fukuda（福田直樹）and Kaoru Inoue（井上薫）released a new single last December in digital download format and then later in January this year as a regular CD. "Believe In Love" keeps the sweet Blue Peppers sound with Fukuda singing away to an arrangement which had me thinking partially of Al Jarreau's "Breakin' Away". There's something so relaxing and optimistic about this one, and the cover of the two walking along the beach is perfect.

One YouTube commenter wondered whether Yutaka Yokokura（横倉豊）inspired this second song from the single, "Marine Snow no Toshi" (Marine Snow City) due to that koto in there, although since the instrument isn't listed on the page for the single on their website (just scroll down a bit), it's probably some keyboard magic by Inoue. Additional magic is provided by having Shiori Sasaki（佐々木詩織）return to share the vocals with Fukuda. It was Blue Peppers and Sasaki who introduced that first song to me back in 2018, "Roku-gatsu no Yume"（6月の夢）, and it's been love ever since. Nothing like these two numbers to bring in some mood of spring.

Apparently, the single is only in limited supply in stores, so I will probably wait a while until a full album comes out. Hopefully, that won't be long but I will keep my yen ready.