Kuchiroro -- Itsuka Dokoka de（いつかどこかで）

I remember reading the liner notes in Chaz Jankel's self-titled first solo album from 1980 in which his bandmate Ian Dury from Ian Dury and The Blockheads had a listen to some of his tracks. He remarked bluntly about one of the songs, most likely "Ai no Corrida"（愛のコリーダ）, "Dude, this is like 10 minutes long!". Not sure how Jankel responded but I certainly had no problems with it. To be honest, I still prefer Quincy Jones' epic post-disco cover which is also pretty long at a little over 6 minutes, but Jankel's original clocks in at around 9:10. Plus, there is the even longer "Am I Honest With Myself Really?" at nearly 15 minutes (with the inclusion of the prelude "Fuse")! So those two tracks together make up more than half the total album running time of about 45 minutes.

Perhaps then I must have lucked out really well when it comes to those long songs since "Chaz Jankel" the album has been a heavy-rotation CD for me ever since I was able to get my hands on it years ago at the RecoFan in Shibuya. Especially with "Am I Honest With Myself Really?", it has never gotten arduous in the listening because it just takes me to so many entertaining places or genres such as synthpop, jazz and disco all within that quarter hour.

I think that's the case with pop unit Kuchiroro's（口ロロ）"Itsuka Dokoka de" (Sometime, Somewhere) which was a track in their March 2012 8th album "Manpower"（マンパワー）. Kuchiroro made its first appearance in "Kayo Kyoku Plus" through their collaboration with Bird on their cover of Sambomaster's "Sekai wa Sore wo Ai to Yobundaze"（世界はそれを愛と呼ぶんだぜ）back around Xmas last year. The group started up in 1998 and then had their major debut in 2007. It currently consists of Koushi Miura（三浦康嗣）, Shige Murata（村田シゲ）and Seikou Ito（いとうせいこう）who consider themselves the "permanent staff" while Kuchiroro also has its "contract workers" of 9 singing and songwriting members including actress Yuni Akino（秋乃ゆに）.

"Itsuka Dokoka de" doesn't quite reach Jankel's "Am I Honest With Myself Really?", but it's also a marathon runner of a song at almost 14 minutes. Kuchiroro has been categorized as a band dabbling in hip-hop, City Pop, Shibuya-kei, experimental and just regular J-Pop, and I think this particular epic makes use of three of the genres; as I write about this while listening to it for the third time, the permanent staff and the contract workers keep things majorly interesting. Their quarter hour seems to be a musical analog of various young people downtown making their everyday in life (accompanied by the usual slang and delivery) with things weaving wildly between rapping/sampling and truly anthemic. There are also smooth and rough parts along with layers of big production and just the guys providing their stream-of-consciousness desires for dinner and romance. Try listening to this while walking briskly through Shibuya on a Friday night...you may not need to enter a club for that night to be entertained.