Love Psychedelico

Love Psychedelico (ラブ・サイケデリコ) is a Japanese rock band, often called Delico for short. They are popular not only in Japan but also Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Members

• Kumi (Born April 11, 1976, in Chiba Prefecture) – lead vocals, guitars, etc.
  • Kumi speaks native English because she lived in San Francisco, the United States, in her infancy. She married a man 10 years her senior on March 9, 2010.
• Naoki (Born July 21, 1973, in Shizuoka Prefecture^[1]) – guitars, bass, backing vocals, etc.
  • Naoki wrote his name in their early works as "Naoki Sato". He produces The Bawdies.

Backup band

• Hirohisa Horie (Neil & Iraiza): keyboards, guitar
• Kiyoshi Takakuwa (ex-Great3): bass
• Kenichi Shirane (Great3): drums
• Nobumasa Yamada (amp'box Recording studio): recording engineer, drums
• Tomohiko Gondo: programming

History

The band was formed in January 1997 by singer Kumi and guitarist Naoki Sato, while studying at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. Only Kumi and Naoki remained finally in the band though it consisted of several members at first.

They signed with major label Victor in 1999.

Their first album, The Greatest Hits, sold over two million copies.^[2] Their second album Love Psychedelic Orchestra, released in January 9, 2001, sold 690,000 copies.

Love Psychedelico visited America in March 2001 and appeared at the music festival SXSW. They also toured extensively through the club and bar circuit in the United States, garnering largely positive reactions. American cities the band has said to have enjoyed playing were Nashville, Austin, and Kumi's childhood home of San Francisco.

They have released two albums since, Love Psychedelico III, in early 2004, and compilation album Early Times, in February 2005. This best-of compilation received a positive response in the Taiwanese J-pop market and the group visited Taiwan in June of that year. They held a concert in Taipei on June 22 where many fans gathered, including a sizable number of celebrity attendees. It proved to be a very successful concert for the duo who do not usually appear publicly.

For the promotion of their new album, Golden Grapefruit, Love Psychedelico made their first televised music program appearance on Bokura no Ongaku in 2007. It is also notable that they were interviewed by Yoko Ono, famous experimental musician and widow of John Lennon.^[3]

They released a new album called This is Love Psychedelico in the United States on May 20 from HackTone Records^[4] because David Gorman, the president of the label, wanted a contract with them after listening to a record he got from an acquaintance. It marked their American debut. This album was also released on June 18, 2008 in Japan as This is Love Psychedelico ~U.S.Best~.

Style

Stylistically, Love Psychedelico is highly reminiscent of the British Invasion of the late 60s, both members having cited The Beatles and Led Zeppelin as influences, though the influence of American folk and blues are also present (Kumi having claimed Janis Joplin and Sheryl Crow, and Sato Bob Dylan, as influences). To pay tribute to their influences, Love Psychedelico sometimes borrow song titles from the bands that influence them.

Kumi's lyrics mix English and Japanese; while doing so is common in popular Japanese music, Kumi's performance is marked by fluent English pronunciation and an English-inflected pronunciation of Japanese, similar to that of many Japanese who have spent significant time abroad. While she did spend five years in San Francisco from the ages of 2 to 5, her spoken Japanese does not display the same affectations. This pronunciation makes the group's songs difficult to reproduce in karaoke performances in contrast bands such as Superfly who have a similar stylistic approach but without the English-affected Japanese.^[5]

Discography

DVDs

• The Film 1999.12—2002.05 (November 21, 2002)
• In Concert at Budokan (December 7, 2005)
• Golden Grapefruit Box (June 18, 2008)

References

Works cited

External links

• Official site
• Love Psychedelico at Musicjapanplus
• Love Psychedelico - The Film DVD Review at cityonfire.com
• Early Times CD Review
• Nippon Project interview