moumoon -- Sunshine Girl

 

I swear that I've seen the band name moumoon somewhere before, so I assumed that I had covered the duo consisting of vocalist/lyricist Yuka and multi-instrumentalist/composer Kousuke Masaki in the blog before. But such was not the case at all.

So, allow me to make amends. The single here, their 7th to be exact, is "Sunshine Girl" which was released in May 2010. It was created for a commercial featuring Shiseido's Anessa sunblock line and though it begins with a stompy drum, the melody soon becomes so bouncy with Yuka's lyrics tripping the light fantastic. The beat just about takes things into a reggae pattern. "Sunshine Girl" hit No. 10 on Oricon and went Double Platinum. It's also a track on moumoon's 2nd album "15 Doors" from March 2011 which peaked at No. 8.

I'll leave Wikipedia to give a brief description of moumoon: The band's name is a portmanteau of the French word "mou" (soft) and the English "moon". The duo met at a summer rock festival in 2004; after swapping demo tapes, the pair decided to work together professionally. The band self-produced and arrange the vast majority of their songs, with Masaki composing the music while YUKA writes the lyrics. Both band members were brought up on classical music, with Masaki playing piano and YUKA a keen violinist. Their present musical style covers various types of music such as pop, alternative rock, electronica, folk and indie rock.