[Bright & rhythmic]
No.220EX "Lahaina" by DEPAPEPE
Hi. The song we would like to introduce to you today is, "Lahaina" by "DEPAPEPE".
A bright & rhythmic Pop-instrumental song "Lahaina" was released as the third single CD of a guitar instrumental duo "DEPAPEPE".
"DEPAPEPE" is an acoustic guitar instrumental group formed in 2002.
The group is very popular with their Pop & stylish instrumental music, and amazing playing skills of each two guitarists.
Some websites explain that the song "Lahaina" was originally written as a theme music for a surf film.
That may be why this song is so sunny & animated.
If you like, please listen to.
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.
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Thank you.
Cover art today
Song data
| Title | Lahaina |
|---|---|
| Artist | DEPAPEPE |
| Album Title | Ciao! Bravo!! |
| Catalog Number | SECL-368 |
| Track No. | 2 |
| Duration | 3:30 |
| Released | 2006 |
| Publisher | SME Records |
| Lyricist | Instrumental music |
| Composer | DEPAPEPE |
| Arranger | DEPAPEPE&Taichi Nakamura |
About the creators
Instrumental musicLyricist
This track is an instrumental music, and therefore thus there is no lyricist for this song.
DEPAPEPE Composer
The credited composer, "DEPAPEPE" is also a performer of this song.
So, we would like to come back to them in "About the artist" section later.
DEPAPEPE & Taichi NakamuraArranger
The names of "DEPAPEPE", and "Taichi Nakamura" are credited as the arrangers.
In this section, we would like to introduce "Taichi Nakamura" mainly, since "DEPAPEPE" will be covered in the later section.
"Taichi Nakamura" is a guitarist, composer, arranger, music producer, band master, recording engineer, and a member of a music producer's team, "Kabuki", active since around 1984.
"Nakamura" is known as a musician who supported the very early era of a popular singer "Naotarō Moriyama" as an arranger, and helped "Moriyama" to release a million seller single, "Sakura (Dokushō)" (Cherry blossoms - solo) finally in 2003.
Short bio
According to the references listed below, "Nakamura" started his career just after graduated from music school, though he had been an advanced amateur throughout his high school and college age.
Since then, he seemed to have been concentrating on staff side, or production side jobs, like music composition, arrangement, playing instruments as a backing musician, recording engineering, or work as a music producer on the ground of the music production.
Around 2000, "Nakamura" began to focus more on music producer's jobs, and has supported a few of newly debuting, or newbie artists.
"Naotarō Moriyama", "Ikimono-gakari", "Thelma Aoyama", or "Naohito Fujiki" are the examples of the artists that "Nakamura" closely worked with.
In 2003, a newbie pop singer "Naotarō Moriyama" , a very popular music artist now, released his 2nd single "Sakura (Dokushō)" (Cherry blossoms - solo).
Contrary to expectations, this became a big & long hit, and eventually achieved a million sale in May 2004.
Thanks to this hit, "Naotarō Moriyama" was invited as a performer to a prestigious year end TV music program, "Kohaku Uta-gassen".
And he gained universal popularity as a pop singer.
"Taichi Nakamura" participated in this song as an arranger, and he also, has took his place among leading popular song arrangers.
References
For more details on "Taichi Nakamura", please have a look at the references linked below.
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Some notes on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Rhythmic Pop instrumental
This seems to be an uptempo & rhythmic Pop instrumental song featuring Samba-reggae instruments quite actively.
Festive
In the beginning, "A sunrise in a crispy autumn morning" like refreshing opening phrase is played by the two acoustic guitars, then the the electric bass, drums, and various samba instruments, like the Surdo, Conga, join, and start a bright introduction.
In the main part, two acoustic guitars, and the bass and drums plays modern and stylish pop instrumental music, by having occasional support from the acoustic piano and string synthesizer.
In the bridge and ending, a samba instrument all stars, in other words, the Surdo, SurdoRepinique, Tamborim, Conga, Agogô, or Apito (whistle) also join, and create a carnivalesque sound scape.
Reference
About Google translate
About the artist
DEPAPEPE Acoustic guitar duo
"DEPAPEPE" is a "Guitar Instrumental Unit formed by two men" (in their words), or an acoustic guitar duo formed in 2002 by guitarists "Yoshinari Tokuoka" & "Takuya Miura".
The group is very popular not only in Japan but also in overseas, for their incredibly skillful guitar play, and their stylish but exciting instrumental tunes.
By the way, they say the group name "DEPAPEPE" is a coined term combines "Deppa" (A casual Japanese word means "prominent teeth", which Miura has.) and "Delpepe" (The name of the band that "Tokuoka" once belonged to).
DEPAPEPE debuted in 2005 with a single, "Let's Go!!!" (They also have released mini album from an indies label in 2004.). Since then, 8 singles, and 13 original, 4(DVD) live, and 5 best albums have been released until now.
Early times
A guitar instrumental duo "DEPAPEPE" was teamed up by talented guitarists "Yoshinari Tokuoka" & "Takuya Miura" in 2002.
In the case of "Takuya Miura", he started to play the guitar (electric guitar) when he was the 3rd grade of elementary school (9 years old).
According to some references, father of "Miura" was (and is being) a professional instructor of the electric guitar (Hard rock).
One day, he bought the electric guitar for 9 years old boy "Miura", and said to him, "Play it".
Poor school boy "Miura" began to take half-compelled private lesson from his father, a skilled guitarist.
But actually thanks to this special education, young "Miura" acquired an outstanding guitar technique which led him to be a guitarist later.
In high school, "Miura" got started in playing the guitar in front of the audience as a member of amateur band.
In 2001, "Miura" graduated from a high school in his home town "Kobe".
And immediately started working at one of the most famed live music Bar, "Chicken George" as a floor staff, to seek for opportunities for debuting as a professional musician.
Meeting together
At the "live house" (We Japanese call live music spaces, like music bars, or music restaurants etc, in this way.), "Yoshinari Tokuoka" had already been working as a floor staff, and "Tokuoka" automatically became a senior colleague to "Miura".
Since "Tokuoka" and "Miura" are both guitarists, they naturally began to talk about music, whenever they worked behind the scenes at the live performances of the various top class musicians in the bar.
One day in the early 2000s, a super rock instrumental band J&B (Jun Kajiwara (G), Yoshiyuki "Butcher" Asano (G), Hideki Matsubara (B), and Takashi Numazawa (Dr)) showed a great performance at "Chicken George".
During the concert, the two guitarists switched their guitars from electric to acoustic, and began to play a funky, thrilling, and exciting acoustic performance only by two of them.
The acoustic guitar performance done by "Jun Kajiwara" & "Yoshiyuki Asano" was in fact amazing, and "Tokuoka" and "Miura" were really impressed.
Since this time, "Tokuoka" and "Miura" began to think about playing the music like this together, seriously.
Indies debut
What "Tokuoka" and "Miura" focused most on creating their sound was to play the acoustic guitars like playing the electric guitars.
That is perhaps why their music is NOT jazzy, bluesy, or mellow, but a lot more active, exciting, and thrilling.
In 2002, "Tokuoka" and "Miura" teamed up a new unit, and name it "DEPAPEPE".
And started to perform on the street in their home town "Kobe" to let people know their brand new sound.
"DEPAPEPE"'s excellent performance quickly began to draw attention from music fans.
And already in 2004, "DEPAPEPE" had the fortune of releasing their first mini album "ACOUSTIC FRIENDS" from an indies label.
Major debut
Surprisingly, "DEPAPEPE" successfully released three mini albums from an indies label in under one year, since their albums were performing very well.
And eventually, the sale of these three mini albums amounted to amazing 100,000 copies.
They were lucky enough but, finally in May 2005, "DEPAPEPE" released their first major album "Let's Go!!!" (read as Let's Go Go Go) from SME Records.
Quite marvellously, their debut album came in at number seven in the total album chart when it was first appeared.
This was, and has been a record in terms of a debut album of an instrumental group, ranked in the top 10, on its first appearance in the album chart (overall).
Become a leading group
"DEPAPEPE" quickly has become one of the most prominent group in Japanese Pop instrumental category.
And not only in Japan, but also in overseas, particularly in Asia, the duo is keeping high popularity.
"DEPAPEPE" has released 9 albums so far since they debuted in 2005.
It is not really high pace, but it seems they are taking lot of time to create an album, and as a result, an interval of their album release is about 2 years.
DEPAPEKO
In 2018, "DEPAPEPE" and a very popular masterly acoustic guitar player "Kōtaro Oshio" formed a new experimental unit, and named it "DEPAPEKO".
And they began to seek for the possibility of new ensemble by gathering excellent skills of three outstanding guitarists.
Interestingly, "Tokuoka" and "Miura" of DEPAPEPE knew "Kōtaro Oshio" even before they debut as DEPAPEPE, in other words before 2004.
Because, "Kōtaro Oshio" had his live stage at "Chicken George, Kobe" where "Tokuoka" and "Miura" were working as floor staff at that time.
The two of floor staff, the future DEPAPEPE, had a just brief conversation with the performer "Oshio", but they had a very good impression with the guitarist "Oshio".
After the indies debut of DEPAPEPE in 2004, "Kōtaro Oshio" soon recognised "DEPAPEPE"'s high potential, and began to offer his support in various way.
For example in 2004, "Oshio" invited "DEPAPEPE" to his radio program, and aired an interview and their songs, even "DEPAPEPE" was still a street musician, and a newbie just released their debut mini album from indies.
Or, "Oshio" often advertised "DEPAPEPE"'s early albums together with his on the sales campaign of his albums.
Perhaps, "Oshio" was feeling "DEPAPEPE" as an important pal to promote acoustic guitar instrumental music together.
One day in 2018, "Kōtaro Oshio" took it into his head to arrange and play a very popular electronic pop song "Chocolate Disco", originally performed by a female pop group "Perfume", with acoustic guitar.
For ordinary people like us, to play that song with acoustic guitar seems to be very difficult, since the song has full of pulsive & complicated electronic sound and rhythm, generated by computers.
But "Kōtaro Oshio" was seeing possibility to perform, if he could have a help from "DEPAPEPE".
As it turned out, this idea of "Oshio" became a trigger to form a new unit "DEPAPEKO".
The members of "DEPAPEKO" found this approach interesting, and sought other J-pop songs they could cover like this.
And in the end, they performed 11 very famous J-pop songs, and one original song with their acoustic guitars.
And released them as "DEPAPEKO"'s first album, "PICK POP! J-Hits Acoustic Covers" in 2018.
It is very nice. If you like please listen to.
(We have prepared a link to a music video of "Chocolate Disco" played by DEPAPEKO at the bottom of this section. If you like, please also check.)
J-Hits Acoustic Covers DEPAPEKO [2018] [Digital music]
Recent
As is the case in all other musicians, "DEPAPEPE" had to cancel all their concerts because of Covid since around 2020.
But thanks to advances in medicine, fortunately the situation around us is getting better, and "DEPAPEPE" as well is slowly coming back to the stage at the moment.
In March 2022, "DEPAPEPE" held their 15th anniversary concert in Tokyo, over three years behind schedule.
Reference
For more details about "DEPAPEPE", please have a look at the references listed below.
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(Ref: rainbow-e.co.jp/depapepe,
profile)🇯🇵
drive!drive!!drive!!! DEPAPEPE [2008] [Digital music]
Video clip
Lastly, we would like to introduce a music clip of today's song, "Lahaina". (This seems to be filmed in Hawaii.)
Thanks to "DEPAPEPE", a music video of "Lahaina" has been available on Youtube for everyone.
If you like, please have a look.
And as informed in "DEPAPEKO" paragraph, we also would like to bring up a short music video of a popular electro pop song, "Chocolate Disco", performed by "DEPAPEKO", as video No.2.
Actually, it is quite intriguing if you compare original song and "DEPAPEKO" version, since they are amazingly close.
The sound created by the three acoustic guitars are beyond our imagination.
If you like, please listen to.
For just in case, here is a link to a music clip of original song.
"Chocolate Disco, (2013) by Perfume" (Youtube)
Music Samples
2
(試聴する)
AD: Listening samples (Free)
Amazon JP(en)
recochoku.jp
music.apple.com (Track No.2)
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | ラハイナ(Lahaina) |
|---|---|
| Artist | DEPAPEPE |
| Album Title | Ciao! Bravo!! |
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