Tweedees -- KLING! KLANG!/Hello Hello

 

Ahh...good ol' Tower Records in Shibuya...oh, how I miss the old place. A few days ago, Canada and the United States celebrated their Record Store Day and I'm pretty sure a lot of the vinyl hounds were more than happy to do their flipping of the LPs in search of aural gold.

I just mentioned the band Tweedees in the previous article regarding the latest by CHiLi GiRL so I thought it was time to get another song by this pop and Shibuya-kei-focused duo onto KKP. The last time I devoted time and space to bassist Reiji Okii（沖井礼二）and vocalist Natsumi Kiyoura（清浦夏実）was back in 2022 for their 2018 "Hanataba to Jiryoku"（花束と磁力）. Well, actually, I've opted to put up two of their songs from opposite ends of their career thus far.

The first one is their first single "KLING! KLANG!" from January 2015. Having nothing to do with the Klingons in the pilot episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise", the onomatopoeia reflected in the title is really the wonderful cacophony of music as Kiyoura sings about the joy of listening to one's favourite songs. It's the first time that I've seen Tweedees in a music video and for some reason, I have the impression that Kiyoura could have been the second coming of Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）but that is solely me. In fashion and in music, it's some pleasant Shibuya-kei.

From their most recent album in December 2022, "World Record", I give you their last track "Hello Hello". A short and sweet song, the lyrics were written by Kiyoura while Okii took care of the melody and arrangement. More of an adorable sing-songy pop tune, the vocalist invites the listener to join her on a voyage outside of the stifling confines of one's own room and explore the world. Y'know, I mentioned Record Store Day at the top...perhaps "Hello Hello" could be the fine theme for Library Day.

One point of trivia that I discovered about Kiyoura in her J-Wiki file is that her ancestor from a century previously, Count Keigo Kiyoura（清浦奎吾）, happened to be the Prime Minister of Japan in 1924.