Kirinji -- cherish

It was because of the spacey disco of "Jikan ga nai"（時間がない）that I got Kirinji's 2018 album "Ai wo aru dake, Subete"（愛をあるだけ、すべて）, and my purchase of their succeeding release "cherish" which only came out a few months ago in November 2019 was due to their single "Killer Tune Kills Me" spearheaded by band member Erino Yumiki（弓木英梨乃）.

Well, if there were ever an excuse to rent a sporty convertible and spend a clear spring Saturday evening driving on the highways of Tokyo, "Killer Tune Kills Me" is the one in music form.

After having listened to "cherish" a few times, I think that this is a continuation of what "Ai wo aru dake, Subete" started, except that from the latter's dance floor, we do a few trips for a breather in the VIP lounge with "cherish". The thumping disco beats can still be heard in the background but there's some more relaxation involved in "cherish".

The first trip to that VIP lounge begins with the mellower, jazzier but still rather beat-happy "'Ano Ko wa Dare?' toka Iwasetai"（「あの娘は誰？」とか言わせたい...I Want Them To Ask Things Like "Who's That Girl?"）, enhanced by the soprano sax of Kohei Ando（安藤康平）as Takaki Horigome（堀込高樹）sings about a woman, perhaps an office lady in a huge corporation, fantasizes about getting courted by that young high-flying senior executive and getting to look at all the "little people" working as cogs while she gets to sip on that champagne. The disco still wafts into the lounge but there is also that wistful melancholic air about what the reality is.

Horigome provided words and music for all of the tracks but for this one, "Almond Eyes", musician and rap singer Chinza DOPENESS（鎮座DOPENESS）also co-wrote the lyrics as well as co-perform the song with Horigome. This is another reason to rev up the sports car...and perhaps hang out at the lounge doorway while looking at the disco floor.

"Kyuujitsu no Sugoshi kata"（休日の過ごし方...How to Spend a Day Off）is an introspective mid-tempo song about realizing that one needs to get out and smell all of the roses out from time to time. Life is indeed too short and beautiful to get wrapped up at home and negativity. The way that the song is arranged, it almost sounds like a prequel to "Jikan ga nai" in that although Horigome's lyrics are on a different topic, in terms of that now-famous music video, "Kyuujitsu no Sugoshi kata" seems to describe that middle-aged salaryman before he discovered the joy of dancing.

The closest synthpop track is "Pizza VS. Hamburger" which deserves a music video of dancing McDonalds and Domino employees having a "West Side Story"-style rumble, complete with pizza cutters and burger flippers ("Oh, god...watch out, he's got the spicy mustard!"). From what Horigome is singing, it's pretty obvious that he prefers the 8-slice Giga Meat like I used to order back frequently in Ichikawa (I think my photo is still up on the wall at the Gyotoku branch [either in celebration or warning]). The fun thing about this one is that it's arranged similarly to a contagiously quirky song by Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）, "Rose Garden" from her 1981 album "Tadaima"（ただいま。）.

In terms of whole songs, the above represents what I could find, but you can also delve into the digest right here. Once again, as with the previous album, not a wrong track can be found. Usually, I don't buy two albums by the same singer or band in one purchase, but that's what I did with Kirinji with obviously no regrets. Although "Ai wo aru dake, Subete" left a bigger initial impression on me and though I wish there was some more of that lovely melding of voices between Horigome and Yumiki on this particular album, "cherish" is still another winner.

By the way, as for the distinctive cover, the artwork was by New York-based artist Johanna Goodman from her "Imaginary Beings" collection.