Commenter Bon tipped me off on another Atarashii Gakko no Leaders（新しい学校のリーダーズ）collaboration with another artist some days ago in the article for L'Arc-en-Ciel's "Driver's High". Since I'm not only a fan of the cool-and-crazy school uniform-wearing song-and-dance group but enjoyed their work with former SMAP member, Shingo Katori（香取慎吾）, in last year's "Tokyo Tower", I figured that I was going to have to give another one of their joint projects a try.
The thing is though that Bon's recommendation goes quite a ways back to 2019, at least according to when this YouTube video was first uploaded. Atarashii Gakko no Leaders cooperated with the 5-piece band Klang Ruler. To be honest, when I first heard that name, I kinda wondered whether there was something Klingon about these guys, but nothing could be further from the truth. This is a group that has been around since 2014 and has dabbled in pop and alternative music.
Another impression that I have about Klang Ruler is that they also like to do their dance beat covers of the old Showa and Heisei Era music, and that includes Linda Yamamoto's（山本リンダ）"Dounimo Tomaranai" from 1972. Working together under the banner of "Midnight Session Chapter 3", I can't seem to find any sign of this cover coming out in the discographies of either the Leaders or Klang so maybe the midnight sessions were just one-offs on YouTube (correct me if I'm wrong). But getting back to the song, Wild Child Suzuka does sound like a fresh-faced Linda before any cigarettes and alcohol. And she passes the mike off to Klang Ruler while her group does a bit of their choreography. Some nice bass action, too.
The current lineup for Klang Ruler is yonkey and Chihiro Yasuda（やすだ ちひろ）as the co-vocalists with SimiSho on drums, Takumi Kato（かと たくみ）on bass, and Gyoshi on guitar. I was looking through their discography thus far and I was intrigued when I saw that the band had covered the 90s City Pop duet "Shibuya de Go-ji" by Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）and Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）. It was released as an October 2022 digital single and it has the sophisticated pop tune transform into a Trance ParaPara number.
I'm back from Japan and catching up with blog reading at last! Since I referred 新しい学校のリーダーズ on a L'Arc post, here I am to tip you off on a L'Arc song that might be of interest to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMIJRWOa4n0
ReplyDeletei don't know what to call this ? neo-citypop? I remember the first time i heard it i started to hum Coldplay's "When I Ruled the World" (but L'Arc's song came a decade before Coldplay's).
Hello bon and welcome back from Japan. Hope you enjoyed your time there. I had never heard "Metropolis" before last night. For the most part, the L'Arc-en-Ciel songs that I've known came out around 2000 and afterwards.
DeleteI'd probably say that "Metropolis" is more pop/rock than City Pop but it is an intriguingly arranged song with that underlying funky rhythm.