Zanzow Cafe -- Yuugure Toki（夕暮れ時）

 

When I had my happy reunion with Makkin & The New Music Stuff in my previous article, I also discovered the indies rock band Zanzow Cafe（残像カフェ...Afterimage Cafe）. And so I was able to place Makkin's "Kimi ga Suki"（君が好き）and one song by Zanzow Cafe into the backlog.

I did find a website for Zanzow Cafe which has its discography dating as far back as December 2001, although Genki Ohmori（大森元気）and his group officially released music starting from 2002. In April 2004, the band released "Shi-gatsu no Kotoba"（４月のことば...Words of April）, a concept album going through one full cycle of the four seasons. 

One track is the rock ballad "Yuugure Toki" (At Dusk) or could it be "Yuugure Ji"...just not sure but let's go with the former for now. Set in autumn, despite all of the crashing electric guitars, it's quite the tenderhearted love song about a man talking a walk during the titular sunset and remembering a past romance. I'm not a huge rock expert but listening to the arrangement, I'm sure that someone more well versed in the genre can compare this song to something recorded over in the West at around the same time.

I've only taken a quick glimpse through the website but it seems as if Ohmori has gone to a new project in recent years called "Zanzow no Bouquet"（残像のブーケ...Afterimage Bouquet）.

Makkin & The New Music Stuff feat. Genki Ohmori from Zanzow Cafe -- Kimi ga Suki（君が好き）

 

Well, I've got one final challenge as we all rush to the end of 2025. I'm not too far away in terms of the number of articles for this year to reach 1000. However, I'm gonna have to increase my output by a fair bit to reach that goal before Wednesday the 31st and I figure by that point, I'm going to be busy watching this year's Kohaku Utagassen.

Anyways, let's begin the push with a band that I've been fascinated by for some years. Unfortunately at the time, I had only been able to find one complete tune on YouTube by Makkin & The New Music Stuff and that was back in 2019. Bassist Toshiro "Makkin" Matsuki（松木俊郎）began this solo project of bringing together a lot of the groovier stuff from the 1970s such as soul, funk and other New Music influences to show some of the really nice old-school stuff once more.

Happily, one YouTube channel cba abc was kind enough to upload Matsuki's first album of this project, "Makkin & The New Music Stuff" from June 2006, and though this was a solo thing for him, he did love his collaborations with various other professionals. Case in point, the second track from 33 seconds is "Kimi ga Suki" (I Love You) with Genki Ohmori（大森元気）from the indies band Zanzow Cafe（残像カフェ）handling the vocals. As expected from the sound that Makkin had wanted to bring back, "Kimi ga Suki" is one nostalgic sunny and summery trip that would probably have the good folks at Sugar Babe smiling in approval. And the way Ohmori sounds here, I'd think that his girlfriend was right in the studio with everyone else. She would be smiling in approval, too.