[Song Review #214] "Sakura" by KimBIANCA & Mukaiya Club
Hi. Today's song is "Sakura" (Cherry Blossoms) by "KimBIANCA & Mukaiya Club ".
"Sakura" is a chic, elegant & jazzy vocal ballad duetted by a unique singer "KimBIANCA", and a prominent pop vocalist "Keizō Nakanishi"
This is not just a song of "KimBIANCA" & "Keizō Nakanishi", but it was created as one song of "Mukaiya Club" which was an experimetal music project led by a powerful musician "Minoru Mukaiya".
So, we would like to introduce "Mukaiya Club" as a primary subject of this article, then wish to present why a singer "KimBIANCA" happened to involve in the project.
If you like, please have a look.
Links to the music shops, offering song samples, are located on the bottom of this page.
Some contents have been put away in tabs with "▶" mark in each section, so please click it to see.
We are now working on improving appearances of our posts.
If you find anything odd, please kindly let us know.
Thank you.
Cover art today
Song data
| Title | Sakura(Cherry Blossoms) |
|---|---|
| Artist | KimBIANCA & Mukaiya Club |
| Album Title | Mukaiya Club no kiseki(The miracles of Mukaiya club) |
| Catalog Number | OGCD-0005-6 |
| Track No. | 3 |
| Duration | 3:36 |
| Released | 2011 |
| Publisher | Ongaku-kan |
| Lyricist | KimBIANCA |
| Composer | Minoru Mukaiya |
| Arranger | Minoru Mukaiya, Motokazu Shinoda |
About the creators
KimBIANCA Lyricist
The Lyricist of this song is "KimBIANCA".
"KimBIANCA" is a singer-songwriter, dancer, and performer active since around 2003.
She had been particularly visible in a music scene amicable with LGBTQ community, since she was also a member of the community.
And she was sending powerful messages to the outside society through her boundary-pushing songs, or performances which were sometimes a little erotic, direct, and radical.
But surprisingly, the entertainment agency, which "KimBIANCA" once belonged to, suddenly announced the news that she will stop all of activities in entertainment business for unlmited period from now on.
Short bio.
According to some references on the internet, "KimBIANCA" started her career as a dancer & choreographer when she was a college student.
Due to an injury, she gave up a life as a dancer. And alternatively, "KimBIANCA" re-started as a singer in around 2003.
In 2008, "KimBIANCA" moved to new management office in Tokyo. And in this occasion, she changed the style of her performance drastically, in other words, erotic, radical, and being straight.
And in 2010, "KimBIANCA" released her first single, "Nuginasai-yo" (Take off your clothes).
Interestingly, the promotion video for this song was rated for adult only by "Youtube". They say it might be the first official music video uploaded by a Japanese singer.
Also in 2010, "KimBIANCA" happened to collaborate with Mukaiya Club, and created a beautiful ballad.
That is the song we are introducing today.
Also in 2010, she unveiled a fact that she is a bi-sexual.
Since then, she further strengthened her tie with LGBTQ community, particularly with the people in an entertainment category.
Good or bad, "KimBIANCA" became the first openly bisexual music artist, who enthusiastically deliver various messages from LGBTQ community.
In fact already in 2012, "KimBIANCA" was already an up-and-coming singer, and gaining popularity slowly but steadily.
And in 2013, "KimBIANCA" finally released a strategic single record from a major label, which was targeting to sell in all over the world in the future...
Stopped activities
It was a sudden news, but in 2014, the chairperson of KimBIANCA"s entertainment agency announced an indefinite leave of "KimBIANCA" from her music activity.
After that, she simply disappeared from internet without saying anything. In fact it was courageous, in a sense.
We do not know what is she doing now. But we are hoping to see her again.
References
Now, there aren't much references on the internet.
But if you like, please have a look at them linked below.
-
(Ref: blog.dp28237057.lolipop.jp/
Indefinite suspension)🇯🇵 -
(Ref: http://dp28237057.lolipop.jp/
biography &discography)🇯🇵
Minoru Mukaiya Composer
"Minoru Mukaiya" is a keyboardist, composer, arranger, music producer, TV character, Radio personality, chairperson of his own company, and a former member of a popular Fusion band "Casiopea".
"Mukaiya" is internationally recognized and popular as a founding member of Fusion band "Casiopea", which created a movement in the '80s.'
He is also well known as a charismatic rail enthusiast, and has been doing a few of railway related business as well.
Short bio.
According to some articles on interviews with Mr. Mukaiya, he started playing the piano & Electone from childhood.
In the mid '70s, he enrolled in the "Yamaha Nemu Music Conservatory" to pursue playing the Electone.
And while "Mukaiya" was a student of the music school, a newly formed, but powerful rock band requested "Mukaiya" to be a keyboardist for them.
"Mukaiya" accepted this invitation, and joined in this band as a founding member.
The band named themselves as "Casiopea", and started as an amateur group aspiring to be a professional.
"Casiopea" showed remarkable performances in various live stages and contest.
And finally in 1979, "Casiopea" debuted as a professional instrumental band by releasing their first album "Casiopea".
"Mukaiya" also started his career as a professional keyboardist in this time.
"Casiopea" very quickly gained its popularity, and became one of the most popular "Jazz-rock" (later called as Fusion) instrumental bands, by 1982 at the latest.
Their music was well accepted in overseas as well, and they became one of the rare Japanese band, gained certain level of international recognition.
"Casiopea" continued its activity as a band until the band leader "Noro" declared indefinite suspension of the band.
In 2012, "Casiopea" restarted its activity as a new band "Casiopea 3rd". And "Minoru Mukaiya" announced his decision to leave from "Casiopea" in this occasion.
Since then, he accelerated solo activity, and the band activity of his own.
Railway & computer
On the other hand, "Mukaiya" is also known as an outstanding rail enthusiast has an extensive knowledge about railway in general.
So, he is often appearing on various TV varieties as an expert, when they are broadcasting about railway as a hobby.
He is also one of the earliest PC users who owned his first personal computer already in the early `80s, and soon replaced it with an expensive Macintosh.
And at the point of the late '80s, he was an ardent participant at dial-up online BBS.
By connecting these strengths of him, "Mukaiya" produced and released a Japanese train simulation game series, "Train Simulator" in 1995, as one of the earliest of its kind.
This game soft sold extremely well, and nearly 30 episodes are crated until 2006.
"Train Simulator" became certainly a main pillar for his company.
Railway & music
"Mukaiya" is also a famous composer for departure melodies at the train stations, or a jingles for train announcements exclusively composed for each express train.
Until the mid '80s, train melody was not very common, and the most of stations were using just a whistle, buzzer, electronic sound, or voice announce.
But since JR Yamanote line in Tokyo started to use train melody in 1989, it quickly spread in all over Japan.
"Mukaiya" first created train melody in Kyūshū in 2004 when a new line of bullet train started up its service.
"Mukaiya"'s train melodies were so stylish and impressive, and they were well accepted.
Since then, he has written various train melodies in all over Japan.
References
Fore more details about "Minoru Mukaiya", please have a look at the references linked below.
-
(Ref: yoshihiko-chino.com,
profile)🇯🇵
Minoru Mukaiya, Motokazu Shinoda Arrangers
The arrangers of this song are "Minoru Mukaiya" & "Motokazu Shinoda".
"Shinoda" arranged the strings part, and Mukaiya arranged others.
Since we have covered "Mukaiya" in former section, we would like to introduce "Shinoda" a little in this section.
Short Bio.
"Motokazu Shinoda" is a keyboardist, composer, arranger, music producer, and Radio personality active since around the '80s.
According to the article on his profile page, "Shinoda" leaned keyboard from a super arranger "Masanori Sasaji" before debuting, when he was a college student.
In 1986, he released the first single as a band member, and started his professional career in music.
Soon, he set up his own management office, and became an independent musician.
Since then he has been collaborated with hundreds of musician as a skilled Jazz-Fusion keyboardist.
What's unique on him is he has been often actively working with the musicians in Classical music field.
For example he worked with a known composer "Isao Tomita" on Tomita's symphony series like "IHATOV" (utopia), or "The Tale of Genji".
He is also frequently collaborating with various Orchestras of both domestic and overseas, or some individual members of Orchestras.
"Shinoda" is also known as an author of various books regarding music theory.
Since his books present useful & practical approaches particularly for keyboardists in popular music, then his text books are still quite popular, and has been a long seller.
On his Youtube channel, "Shinoda" has been frequently posting video clips explaining chord works & music theory, or music composition technique for young musicians.
References
For more details, please have a look at the references linked below
-
(Ref: moto-music.co.jp/blog/,
profile)🇯🇵
Video clip
Lastly, we would like to introduce one of Shinoda's instrument track, "April fool" from one of his solo album, "Floating Colors" released in 2002.
It's a relaxing, and gentle instrumental music featuring his piano, and the Steelpan.
If you like, please listen to.
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Copyright notice on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Elegant & Jazzy
This is a chic and elegant ballad in a slow & relaxing rhythm.
Gentle & elegant
The acoustic piano, Cello, strings, bar chimes, and acoustic guitar begin a gentle & elegant introduction.
In the main part, a duet of chic and moist voice of KimBIANCA, and clear but atmospheric vocal of "Keizō Nakanshi" creates a beautiful harmony.
In the bridge, "Minoru Mukaiya" performs a Jazzy & wistful nice piano solo, backed by the wood base, strings, acoustic guitar, and percussions.
Reference
About Google translate
About the artist
KimBIANCA & Mukaiya Club A dream project
As mentioned in the earlier section, we would like to talk about "Mukaiya Club" as a whole in this post.
Because "Mukaiya Club" was not a band nor kind of team, but just a loose experimental music project led by a known musician "Minoru Mukaiya" to seek for a new approach for creating music in the internet era.
Most of the music related activities of "Mukaiya Club" were happened from 2010 to 2011, and 17 songs, which was enough to fill 2 CDs, were created in this just 1 year + period.
So, today's song "Sakura" by "KimBIANCA & Mukaiya Club" is also a song created in this project.
Therefore, the song "Sakura" has a common "Mukaiya Club" taste, which is refined and smooth, and a little different from "KimBIANCA" sound which is usually more impassioned and edgy.
Then, we think it is better to introduce "Mukaiya Club" in total, rather than focusing on only "KimBIANCA", since it could be a little bit miss leading.
So, we would like to introduce everything we knows about the history of "Mukaiya Club".
A music activity of "Mukaiya Club" was started in 2010 and lasted until about 2018. And 10+ songs were released as download singles, and 1 album, contained 2 CDs and 1 DVD, were released in 2011.
For "KimBIANCA"'s discography, please have a look at the related page on OTOTOY, a site of online music shop. "KimBIANCA Discography"
(Please be reminded, but some cover arts on the site are possibly too erotic for some people.)
(Ref: Wikipedia-jp, KimBIANCA)
Beginning
"Mukaiya Club" was originally a name of a video stream channel opened on a once existed live video streaming platform "Ustream.com", by a known musician "Minoru Mukaiya" to broadcast video streaming programs related to two of his core activities, namely "Music" & "Railway".
At the point of 2010, there still weren't many presenters, or personalities airing programs regularly on video stream platform like Ustream.
In the circumstances, a person like Mr. Mukaiya, who are high-profile musician, and skilled to broadcast video streaming program were very rare.
Then naturally, Mukaiya's channel became popular, and many viewers gathered to watch his program.
And viewers were actively interacting with him by utilizing Twitter like SNS system, on the timeline displayed on Mukaiya's channel.
One day in April 2010, Mr. Mukaiya was airing his free play of the keyboard, and interesting talk as usual.
Suddenly, a prominent vocalist appeared on the lime line, and gave Mukaiya a greeting. It was "Keizō Nakanshi".
The viewers on the timeline were excited for this guest.
Mr. Mukaiya greeted "Nakanishi" friendly, and began to talk with him on a voice, and timeline.
After a while, "Mukaiya" spoke to "Nakanishi" saying "why don't we create a song together on this channel, together with the people on the timeline?". "And we will broadcast every single process of music creation to the viewers through video streaming."
"Yeah, sounds interesting". "Nakanishi" answered.
That was the start of the music project by Mukaiya Club.
Self made
The other day, on the next session, "Mukaiya" & "Nakanishi" got together at "Mukaiya"'s studio.
"Mukaiya" & "Nakanishi" agreed to create 2 songs and set a theme.
They composed melodies incredibly quickly, and completed an approximate music tracks.
At the same time, "Mukaiya" requested viewers to write nice lyrics for these 2 songs. And assured that the writers will be credited as lyricists, and paid as lyricist under standard industrial rules.
Two excellent lyrics were selected from entries. "Nakanishi" sang these songs as a vocalist and created a demo-tape (or Demo).
In this way "Mukaiya" & "Nakanishi" smoothly completed the pre-production. And began to prepare for real recording.
21st Love express & Twilight stream
In July 2010, real recording was started.
"Mukaiya" booked a brand-new & spacious recording studio in Yokohama, and requested top players like, "Akira Jombo" (Dr), "Yoshihiro Naruse" (B), "Hideo Saitō"(G), or "Miu Sakamoto" to join.
"Mukaiya" also assembled a big team of strings, the cello and cellist, the harp and harpist, saxophone, and super popular DJs, for making an authentic and luxury sound.
In addition to that, Mr. Mukaiya asked a professional internet broadcasting team to join, since it was a prime importance for him to air the details of recording in real time on the streaming service.
On top of that, a big team of major satellite broadcasting station was also joined, since they were making a documentary o this project of "Mukaiya"s.
Then, in the recording studio, more than a hundred musicians and staff were up and doing.
From rehearsal to final mix down, the record took almost two full days, and internet video streaming broadcasted everything, even a snooze of Mr. Mukaiya, to the viewers.
Cover arts for these two songs were also publicly offered, and a cool art were quickly provided by a viewer, and selected as a formal cover art.
And in 24 hours time, these newly recorded two songs, namely, "21st Love Express", and "Twilight dream" were uploaded, and began to be sold from online music shops like, music.apple.com, or e-onkyo.
You can listen the samples of these songs at the sites of music.apple.com, and e-onkyo.
- music.apple.com
- https://music.apple.com/jp/album/minoru-mukaiya-keizo-nakanishi-project-single/377181315
- e-onkyo
- https://www.e-onkyo.com/music/album/mmc00013/
KimBIANCA & Sakura
Chic & elegant ballad, "Sakura" by "KimBIANCA & Mukaiya Club" was also produced in this manner.
In August 2010, Mr. Mukaiya began to creating a melody on his Ustream channel, since he was inspired by a story about a person named "Sakura", who were also "Ustream-ing" on another channel.
While he was creating a melody, a piece of a beautiful and artistic lyrics was appeared on Mr. Mukaiya's timeline.
"Mukaiya" and viewers of his channel were all surprised and praised the writer of that piece.
It was "KimBIANCA".
Mr. Mukaiya asked her whether she could write full lyrics, and come up to his studio in Tokyo to process it further.
At a later date, "KimBIANCA" popped in Mukaiya's studio while "Mukaiya" and "Nakanishi" were already airing Mukaiya Club video channel.
Within few hours, "KimBIANCA" completed the lyrics.
Originally, "Nakanishi" was intended to be a main vocalist for this new song "Sakura", and "KimBIANCA" was supposed to be a participant as a lyricist.
But after listening her singing of "Sakura", everyone there was amazed by her perfect expression.
"Mukaiya" and "Nakanishi" asked her to take main vocal. And the real recording date were set in December 2010.
The real recording of "Sakura" took place on the 5th Dec 2010 at the same studio in Yokohama, together with an instrumental song "The journey" which was combined with "Sakura" on release.
The scenes of recording were covered live at Mukaiya Club channel on the internet as usual.
fight song
A ballad song "Sakura" later became a recognized fighting song for Super express train "Sakura" operated by JR Kyūshū, and started its service in March 2011.
And a single CD was released in the same timing.
A link to the sample of this song is available at the samples section later. If you are in a hurry, please click here.
Other recordings
"Mukaiya Club" enthusiastically continued the recording sessions like these, and created 17 songs by August 2011.
Mukaiya Club no kiseki
Those 17 songs created by "Mukaiya Club" were released as a double CD album "Mukaiya Club no kiseki" (The miracles of Mukaiya Club) in August 2011 from a Mukaiya's music company "Ongaku-kan".
A DVD is also included in this album, and we can watch the recording scenes of those songs contained in the CDs.
There aren't any online music shop offering music samples of this album as a whole.
So, please go to the records list page of Mukaiya club at "e-onkyo" music shop linked below. And check each single records of Mukaiya Club one by one.
Or, as an alternative, we have found a video clip on Youtube which Mr Mukaiya is introducing all songs of this album by himself.
The link is in the bottom of this section, so if you like, please have a look.
- e-onkyo
- https://www.e-onkyo.com/search/search.aspx?artist=%e5%90%91%e8%b0%b7%e5%80%b6%e6%a5%bd%e9%83%a8
Nico-nico
In January 2012, "Mukaiya Club" moved their video channel from "Ustream" to a new platform" Niconico".
And continued music creative activity until around mid 2014.
The products were also sold as digital music, and also released as a CD titled "Niconico open recording 2013".
Break ?
It seems Mr. Mukaiya has stopped the activity of "Mukaiya Club" since around 2019.
We do not know why, but looking forward to see its activity again someday in the future.
References
For more details, please have a look at the references below.
-
(Ref: mukaiya.cocolog-nifty.com,
May 2010)🇯🇵
Video clip
Lastly, we would like to introduce a music clip of today's song "Sakura" which was uploaded by "Minoru Mukaiya" himself.
Please enjoy a little sentimental, but chic end elegant ballad together with an impressive movie of recording scene.
In addition to that, we found an interesting video of Mr. Mukaiya, then we would like to introduce this one as well.
On this video, Mr. Mukaiya is introducing many songs from his club's album "Mukaiya Club no kiseki" which we are introducing today.
Then, you can get the general idea of this album.
The album songs start to appear from 15 minutes. so, if you like, please skip the beginning part of this video.
Their will be flashy lines of texts appear on this video, though it is a basic style of niconico.
If you are not so comfortable with them, we are sorry but please close your eyes.
The uploader of this video has been allowed by Mr. Mukaiya to post his live streaming video in movie clip form on behalf of him.
So, there should be no problem.
If you like, please listen.
Music Samples
1
(試聴する)
AD: Listening samples (Free)
e-onkyo.com
music.apple.com
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | Sakura |
|---|---|
| Artist | 向谷倶楽部 × キムビアンカ(KimBIANCA & Mukaiya Club ) |
| Album Title | 向谷倶楽部の奇蹟(Mukaiya Club no kiseki) |
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