Qujila -- Yuuyake（夕やけ）

 

Always nice to encounter a band or singer for the first time that sounds as if it's taken another side road off the main highway, melodically speaking.

I never heard of the band Qujila（くじら）but there is something about their "Yuuyake" (Evening Glow) which begins with some light if striking percussion before a gentle melody wafts in involving a steel pedal guitar. Qujila has been listed on J-Wiki as a rock band but on the Discogs site, it's been categorized as rock, funk/soul, pop, folk, world and country. Maybe the last two genres sum up the aural experience on "Yuuyake" although a buzzy electric guitar comes in halfway through this otherwise very genteel song. Vocalist and guitarist Yasuo Sugibayashi（杉林恭雄）is our most reassuring vocal guide, and the image that I get from this one is just sitting out contentedly on some rock somewhere in Sedona, Arizona and watching the sun set. The band has me thinking of other groups such as Sentimental City Romance（センチメンタル・シティ・ロマンス）and Sing Like Talking.

"Yuuyake" is a track on Qujila's 5th studio album "Melon"（メロン）from July 1990. According to that J-Wiki profile, the band started out with Sugibayashi, drummer Hitoshi Kusunoki（楠均）and Kioto（キオト）on bass in the early 1980s but it eventually grew to a 9-person group. Their first major single and album came out in 1985, and they've been continuing to release both into the 2010s.