SUKISHA x kiki vivi lily - Over The Rainbow
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high,
There’s a land that I’ve heard of, once in a lullaby
With SUKISHA and kiki vivi lily, Over the Rainbow is something of a journey inward. Rather than something on a grand cinematic scale it’s more like falling into a dream within a dream, where the colors and emotions become more intense and the surroundings mysterious and fantastic. I’ve never taken a “trip” myself, but maybe this is what it’s like.
Setting out on a road trip along the coast with the high tide as your guide, the pace picks up from Rainbow Town as they take you through different colors and moods, a summer storm, blue, green, pink, winter and spring. The album is structured as a few set pieces with interludes, with the key songs (with lyrics) being Rainbow Town, Blue in Green, Pink Jewelry Dream and Gray Spring.
In typical SUKISHA style, the songs have a definite groove, melodic bass lines, funky guitars and mellow keyboards. The first three mean that you’ll be dancing along on the feature songs, while the keyboard sets the mood ranging from backing chords to wild solos and environmental flourishes. SUKISHA also has a good sense of pacing, deploying creative builds and drops (inspired by EDM perhaps) for tension and release. The effect of this is to increase the intensity, you feel like there’s another level, a burst through the clouds, a feeling of covering vast distances. The album structure too even puts a track about falling asleep in the middle, like you’re going even deeper. In contrast, the interludes give you time to stop and smell the flowers in this strange world.
It’s not too unlike some of SUKISHA’s mixtape stuff, but what makes the journey special is kiki vivi lily in the manic pixie dream girl role, her cute voice never overpowering/dominating the music in a diva way, instead her vocals are layered or sampled to make a fairy chorus kind of effect. Even though SUKISHA is a capable singer (and the guy that wrote all the music and lyrics), kiki vivi lily brings the songs to life and makes the concept work.
When it comes to the question “what’s at the end of the rainbow,” right before the end we have the gentle lullaby “Gray Spring,” which is about someone you go to meet in spring after a long absence. It feels like a bit of a love song but in this world it could also be a loved one, someone from the other side that you could only see again in a dream. Is this the afterlife then? Some kind of paradise or heaven? Or is it a memory?
There’s something bittersweet about it, because like all dreams it comes to an end, quite quickly. Long enough to feel like you’ve been on a journey, so short (barely half an hour without the tofubeats remix) you wonder what just happened. But in that sense, it’s like a pleasant daydream that you could experience on a coffee break, on a park bench or gazing outside a train window during your commute.
And like the best recurring dreams, it’s one you’ll want to revisit whenever you have the time.
That’s where you’ll find me.
Tokyo ON also recommends: SUKISHA - Beside Your Bedside, kiki vivi lily - vivid