Aimer has released two new albums on 10th April, Sun Dance and Penny Rain.
Following her hall tour that recently concluded Aimer Hall Tour 18/19 “soleil et pluie”, she worked on two albums with following those keywords with Sun Dance being the Sun (soleil) and Penny Rain being the Rain (pluie). Featuring many bright songs with a dance ensemble is Sun Dance, and Penny Rain features many deep songs with some darkness within them. Two albums with entirely contrasting themes.
The first of two interviews is Aimer’s Sun Dance, originally posted on Natalie. This is the third of four parts.
The sequel to Kataomoi, a guitar pop Love song
The mood changes from the next song, Koi Wazurai
Koi Wazurai was written after it was confirmed to be the theme song for a romance reality show Who is a Snow White and Wolf. Just by referencing the title, you can tell it was mad with Kataomoi in mind. Or to be precise, even before the tie-up was confirmed, we wanted to make a sequel to Kataomoi in a guitar pop style. We had a few demos but, they weren’t really that good so it got left hanging. With the offer from Wolf however, we felt it was perfect for it.
And to say?
Regardless of it being an album track, many people have listened to Kataomoi, and covered it as well. Especially with people in their teens it really felt ideal for them. And that was the ideal target audience of Wolf too, so we went ahead and pushed for the romance theme in this song.
You don’t really have that many love songs in your discography at first right?
That’s right. But for Koi Wazurai it was really easy to shake off. Especially since the song was good.
The composition was done by Masahiro Tobinai who does most of your songs, even 3min.
Koi Wazurai is basically a demonstration of his specialty. The structure of the song was interesting for example, repeating the same lyrics in a block for the chorus. It’s because of that structure that the words I want to convey stands out even more. He praised me on the lyrics. On the other hand, I was unsure of how to sing it so in discussing with Tamai san, and he suggested, “to shake off from romance, you should take a step back and sing a little more objectively.” So, if you get too close to the lyrics, you’d sing it emotionally and it’d be too heavy, so I sang it flatly.
Also the flow from Koi Wazurai to Hanabira tachi no March, and then to Omoide wa Kirei de was beautiful.
Thank you very much. These three songs was made at entirely different points of time, but they were all made with the Sun album in mind, so the landing of the lyrics and the pace are very similar. Until now the landing has always been mostly sad but not this time. If it’s a breakup song, we look forward after breaking up. The feeling of thankfulness in breaking up exceeds the sadness of it. I thought about the positivity of the message when writing them.
You didn’t mention it in our previous interview for Hanabira tachi no March.
I wanted to hide it until the album was completed. (laughs)
Breaking out of the monochromatic world
The 8th song Monochromatic Syndrome once again returns to a dance music song. This was also made by Tobinai and this song really hit me.
Really?
Yes. It feels like a Disco track.
That’s right. As said earlier it was an up-tempo song made for the tour because I was lacking them, but it has a more adult ambience to it. The pitch was generally low. Therefore, I could sing it with the best parts of my voice easily when recording it.
The lyrics was amazing too. It’s the first time you sang about yourself since ONE.
I’m glad. After I made blanc and noir, and ONE, I couldn’t decide between black or white, and I wanted something more colourful for this song. It’s not monochromatic but it has a color to it. So I felt like I’ve managed to go beyond the axis of white and black in myself.
For example like with Rokutosei no Yoru Magic Blue ver. And After Rain -Scarlet ver.-, every single from ONE onwards had a theme of self-covers with a color attached to them.
That’s exactly it. Therefore, I wanted to create something new beyond the white and black, so the concept of these albums Sun and Rain was the most ideal. In that, Monochromatic Syndrome was the one song where I am breaking out of the monochromatic world, and I want to say I am now able to sing very colourful songs. However, I was very worried about the lyrics in particular. I wanted to mix the monochromatic me with the current me in it.
The story of the lyrics itself feels like it has an image of a delinquent teen flick.
Ah, that could be right. Actually there’s a monochromatic film by Leos Carax titled Boy Meets Girl. I went out of my way to watch that film before. I thought about that movie and I wanted to make something almost as pure for that, but not as close to Koi Wazurai. I mixed in some romance elements too. A love of reckless abandon, adding colors to a monochromatic world.
I see. It’s very amazing to see you add 4 colors to this.
Haha. That’s right, I wanted to add even more colors to my world from here onwards.
Source: Natalie
