kiki vivi lily -- Hoshi Kissaten（星喫茶店）

 

I remember when the very first Starbucks landed in Japan on a side street just south of the main drag in Ginza, Tokyo. It was thirty years ago in 1996 and not surprisingly, trying to get into the place just after it opened was another exercise in futility. Again with any new and popular shiny place, hourlong (at least) lineups were the usual thing. The video above by Destination Japan shows Starbucks No. 1 in Japan celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Eventually, I did get to go into the place and since then, Starbucks has become a frequent destination to meet people and even teach them. Although the Ginza branch didn't become one of those oft-visited places for me, I was a fairly regular customer at the West Shinjuku branch. To be honest, I never became a huge fan of the coffee there since it seemed to taste somewhat charred, but I did like their seasonal miniature take on Sacher torte (imported from Austria) which is this dense chocolate cake completely slathered in rich chocolate icing. It looks like and feels like an NHL-issue puck going down the gullet. As I said, I enjoyed it but I learned never to have one during a school night.

Anyways, singer-songwriter kiki vivi lily has given her own tribute to the modern coffeehouse via her "Hoshi Kissaten" (Starcaffe). A track on her May 2023 EP "Blossom", if I can use some complimentary coffee terms, it's a creamy and rich number that goes down well and could be entered into the Neo-City Pop genre or perhaps it can be considered to be a good ol' pop tune. Also, give thanks to kiki vivi lily's own creamy vocals. As someone who's not a coffee connoisseur (since I love cream in my coffee), I'm all for this, along with a latte and a cinnamon roll.

I've heard about this Starbucks Reserve in Tokyo, which is purportedly the largest Starbucks of its kind in the world. A couple of my friends have had dinner there. Only in Japan, eh?

kiki vivi lily × SUKISHA -- Blue in Green

 

Well, at least it's brilliantly sunny out there with the temperatures actually above zero degrees Celsius. Still, snow is everywhere of varying colours and conditions although we are waiting avidly for the arrival of spring.

Today, we're starting the usual Urban Contemporary Friday with something more recent. And this time around, a couple of music makers from other collaborations are being brought here together on KKP for the first time. I first introduced Fukuoka-born singer-songwriter kiki vivi lily last year when she worked with Cosmic Funk duo KAGAMI on the 2025 "Friends". A couple of years ago, I got my first encounter of singer-songwriter and trackmaker Hiroyuki Ikezawa（池澤寛行）, aka SUKISHA, when he was collaborating with jazz and soul guitarist Shingo Sekiguchi（関口シンゴ）on their 2020 "Imaginary Trip". 

Well, if we go back even further, we'll find that kiki vivi lily and SUKISHA worked together as well to provide a song called "Blue in Green" in February 2019. With some of that familiar electric piano groove and the singer's buttery vocals, we get launched into some cool and nocturnal urban adventure (mind you, kiki prefers to stay at home in the dark as shown in the official music video below). I do love that dancing bass and the rest of the beats, although things get a little weird in the last quarter of the song.

KAGAMI feat. kiki vivi lily and Kan Sano -- Friends

 

Just out of curiosity and a sense of the nostalgic, I threw in the phrase "Doctor Who and the TARDIS whizzing through space and time in a cartoon way." via the Bing AI art generator. Well, I thought I was going to get something bizarre but apparently, even Bing knows about everyone's favourite Time Lord and his TARDIS. However, the Doctor above apparently has the Tenth Doctor's face and the Eleventh Doctor's costume.

Anyways, enough geeking out over one particular corner of my pop culture mind. Let's go back to the one that I should be geeking out over for this blog. Let me introduce you to the group KAGAMI and quote their description from their website:

KAGAMI is a Netherlands-based Cosmic Funk duo led by producers Lucas Sim and Rotem Gerad. 

What began as a shared love for 80s Japanese City Pop and AOR grew into a project that also embraces the pulse of French Touch, Italo Disco, and Brazilian MPB. Inspired by artists like Daft Punk and Tatsuro Yamashita, their music blends live instrumentation with synth-centered production into a sound which is both nostalgic and forward-looking. 

So, as far as my own musical tastes go, there's a lot of potential expected from Sim and Gerad although I'm not up on my French Touch, but you can check out this link to YouTube for what this genre has. In any case, their debut EP from April this year, "Time Machine", boasts their take on 80s Japanese City Pop and AOR, and they've got some help from the buttery-voiced Fukuoka-born singer-songwriter kiki vivi lily and keyboardist, singer-songwriter and track maker Kan Sano. This one track "Friends" certainly has the groove of City Pop and some of that cute blippity-bloppity, timey-wimey synthesizer sense. It kinda sounds like the Doctor's innocent traipsing through Shinjuku with his latest companion.