Marble
No puns this time! (I think.)
I’ve grown to like Marble’s music, the pop duo Micco and Tatsuya Kikuchi that have re-launched their brand of music since 2007. To be more concise than Wikipedia, the two signed up with Lantis in 2007, and since then they’ve released a line of music that really gets to me.
Before then, the two also have worked for and with different artists, writing music, touring, and releasing stuff. Both can compose, play and write; and in stereotypical musical-duo-form, Kikuchi gets to do the bulk of programming and play. Some names they’ve written for include Nana Kitade, Mai Nakahara, and Ryoko Hirosue, among others. Recently, they’ve written one of the character songs (at least?) for Hatsukoi Limited and provided the OP song and the Christmas episode image song. Their first single from Lantis launched with Hidamari Sketch (2007), as the ED song, and you can hear their latest single in Hidasketch Hoshimitsu (X***?). More (outdated) info can be found at the marblepedia.
Actually, I want to talk about that ED. See here. With lyrics. It’s a bit of a divergence no? I thought the way they sounded since 2007 had a particular method to their madness. It is like dressing up street pop with a lot of glitz, but in a fluffy, diet-soda kind of way. Compared to the songs on their two re-release albums, which was a lot more mainline indie/folk/jazz influenced, the new stuff is just outrageous. And I don’t mean outrageous like Lady Gaga. It’s like Akiba/Dempa with a much smaller dose of the electricity.
Oh right, their new song, “Sakura Sakura Saku ~Ano Hi Kimi wo Matsu Sora to Onaji de~,” is a freaking mouthful. And catchy in that cheapass teenage powered rock music way. Sigh. Perhaps it’s a progression from Hatsukoi Limited? Wait, there is a PV to Hatsukoi Limited? LOL?
It’s like seeing Micco in that outfit for Kuusou Jet reminds me of Elizabeth from Persona 3. Farm their old blog for pics–the two of them post quite a bit, and you can follow their new posts on their ameblo.
In fact it’s probably more amusing than a blog post full of links you can google up in a few minutes. In a nutshell that’s partly how I feel about Marble–they are nothing really extraordinary, but somehow they’re just really enjoyable. It is as if they are in a niche that takes advantage of their competent if humble skill set. It’s like, moe?
It’s so much like moe, that all this poking and researching don’t add much to my appreciation of their works. So weird. I guess it beats writing a post about the lone nipple pointing at the moon…
I’ve always thought that the stuff they’ve done for HidaSketch stays consistently pleasant and I’m glad to see X*** continues with their excellent form for that series. Everything else runs the gamut of being so-so, like Hatsukoi Limited’s ED (not my cup of tea) to wonderfully pleasant song they did for the super awesome episode of Hatsukoi. But in general, I’ll pretty much always give their music a chance.
It’s consistent in the sense that the composition isn’t really very different. Hatsukoi Limited is very similar to Aozora Loop, for example, but simply arranged with different beats and with that intro segment accentuating the pop-ness. And I think the similarities are all the stronger for the 3 Hidasketch songs before Sakura Sakura Saku.