Kiroro celebrates their 20th anniversary with a new album

Back in 1996, the Japanese musical duo, Kiroro, from Okinawa made their indie debut.

The group which consists of vocalist Chiharu Tamashiro and keyboardist, Ayano Kinjo, would make their major single debut in January 1998 with their hit song, “Nagai Aida”.

And now Chiharu and Ayano are back with a new album to celebrate their 20th anniversary titled “Aihaberu”.

The duo was recently interviewed by Yahoo! Japan about their return for their 20th Anniversary and Chiharu explained that their manager told them back in 2015 that with their 20th anniversary coming up, they should work on new songs.  She mentioned that the two would only do 1 to 2 performances per month and was not doing much songwriting as she has been busy with housework and taking care of her child.  But in January of 2017, they decided the would make music, which surprised their manager (who had given up trying to get them to make new songs).

Chiharu also explained that while she wanted to be in full on composition mode, she would get busy with daily life such as “Oh, it’s time to pick up the child”, “What am I going to make for dinner?” and there were too many things to think about, so, it was difficult at first to start writing songs.  But while writing, she started to write the songs and her thoughts would overflow.  But she admitted that she was worried because while she was getting into songwriting mode, she wanted to be back into singing mode, so when she would take the children to school, she would singe in the car and the car would be her place for practice.

Ayano concurred with Chiharu’s busy daily life as she put domestic life as priority and she had little time to think about music.  So, when she put the children to sleep, she would start playing the piano and wrote down her compositions.

When asked if they can imagine doing another reunion 20 years later, Chiharu said that they would be 60-years-old and they best be healthy.  Ayano agreed and both burst into laughter.

You can read more of their interview (in Japanese) here

Kiroro also performed a 20th Anniversary Medley on television on January 27th.  Check it out here:

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