Apryl Fool -- Kurai Nichiyoubi（暗い日曜日）

 

Just continuing on from the previous article, Chu Kosaka's（小坂忠）"Yuugata Love"（ゆうがたラブ）from January 1975, and paying tribute following the news of the singer-songwriter's passing last month, I also wanted to talk about one of the songs produced by his old band Apryl Fool（エイプリル・フール）. Also, since neither nikala nor I had mentioned this probably in any of the previous articles dealing with Kosaka, the singer was born Masayuki Kosaka（小坂正行）in the city of Shiki, Saitama Prefecture but was raised in Nerima Ward, Tokyo.

I provided an article a couple of years ago on one of the other tracks from the band's one-and-only self-titled album which came out in September 1969. "April Blues" was an instrumental, but this time, I have Kosaka providing vocals for this track called "Kurai Nichiyoubi" which translates directly into "Dark Sunday" but the official English title is apparently just "Sunday". Written by band members Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）under his other name during his time with Apryl Fool, Rei Matsumoto（松本零）, and composed by Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, the two future songwriting legends were on drums and bass respectively.

Apryl Fool has been noted as a psychedelic rock band coming out during the waning years of the Group Sounds era, but "Kurai Nichiyoubi" comes across as a very quiet and introspective, even dreamy, song led along by a tender-voiced Kosaka. I could even imagine it as a piece ahead of its time considering the future Shibuya-kei a couple of decades later, and in fact, keyboardist Hiroyoshi Yanagida （柳田博義）and guitarist Eiji Kikuchi（菊池英二）even add a bit of jazz in their solos. "Kurai Nichiyoubi" lasts over six minutes but despite a few listenings to it already, it doesn't overstay its welcome.