Lyric

Album title: Sakura in Kyoto
CD release date: April 5, 2025
Digital release date: May 5, 2025
Product number: MOCR-0005
Track list
1. Sakura in Kyoto 2025
2. Tunnel
3. Image
4. Fireworks for the first time in 4 years
5. Twisted song
6. Block
7. Tomato stew
8. Christmas present
9. Kimono
10. Proust
11. Walking with you -Sakura in Kyoto- (Bonus Track)

[Recording Musician]
Vocal, Chorus, Electric guitar, Acoustic guitar, Arrangement: Yugo Ogura - YUGO
OGURA -
All Programming: Daitchi
Gut Guitar, Electric guitar: Masaru Aoki (Track 1, 3)
Piano: Atsushi Shimada (Track 10)
Bass: Kenji Watanabe (Track 1,9,10,11)
Drums: Takuto Nagao (Track 1, 11)


[Self-liner notes]

This is the first full album release in about three years since the previous work "Top Screen". This full album contains 11 songs in total, including the single "Fireworks in Four Years," "Tunnel," "Twisted Song," "Block," and "Christmas Present," which were exclusively distributed on Travel TV, plus the English version of Sakura Mau Incline, "Walking with You -Sakura in Kyoto-," as a bonus track.

The title song, "Sakura Mau Incline," was not originally planned to be included, and the English version, "Walking with You -Sakura in Kyoto-," was planned to be included. However, the concert on the release date will be held at the Kyoto International Community House, a hall right in front of the Keage Incline, where the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. We thought that it would be a good opportunity to rearrange it and release it as "Sakura Mau Incline 2025," so we decided to include it.

The second track on the album, "Tonenru," was the first song written for this album. While it is a guitar rock number that can be said to be the essence of Yugo Ogura, it is a philosophical piece that depicts how he thinks about the endless darkness in his own way. "I thought I had to do something that only I could do, but the more I went on, the more I could not see, and I could no longer walk." The demo version of "Image," which he made in his 20s, came on the shuffle playlist while he was driving on January 1, 2025, and he decided to include it in his next album. It became a song that has meaning because he is singing it now. The guitar is Masaru Aoki, who also participates in Stardust Revue's latest work "Hoshikuzu Bouken-oh," and his guitar playing has been highly praised by Kaname Nemoto. The main part of the album, "Proust," is a rare collaboration between lyrics by Satoshi Yamagata and composition by Yugo Ogura. Satoshi Yamagata is one of the "Flat," a group of fellow musicians from his hometown of Kyoto. During meals, the topic of wishing for a song like this came up for a while. I asked him to write the lyrics, and that's how it came to be. I often pass by the school building where I went to as an elementary school student, so I was able to sing this song with those feelings in mind. I was also able to sing with the awareness that it was directed at the children who go to the school now.

It can be said that this album is clearly in a different style from his previous works, and the full album is like a toy box, where you can hear Ogura Yugo's classic songs.