Bonds with listeners connected by seven-color music!　Interview with Aika Yoshioka on the occasion of the release of her 7th album "Niji wo Tsunenai"!

With her soft yet dignified voice, singer-songwriter Aika Yoshioka, who is responsible for many songs in the "Hakuouki" series, will release her seventh album "Niji wo Tsunade" on February 15, 2017. The album, which will be released at the turn of her 47-prefecture tour that started last November and will continue until this May, will include a total of 13 songs, including songs from the "Hakuouki" series and other tie-up songs as well as new songs about her thoughts on the tour. We asked Mr. Yoshioka about his new album, which is filled with his "current thoughts.

I'm coming to see you! the title of the album is filled with his thoughts "I'm coming to see you!

─ ─ Congratulations on the completion of your seventh album "Niji wo Tsunagete" (Connect the Rainbow)!　The album is a colorful one, filled with various types of songs, as it is an album with the word "rainbow" in its title.

Aika Yoshioka (Yoshioka): Rainbows come in many different colors, such as bright, dark, and calm. When I laid out the songs on this album, there were bright songs, cool songs, sad songs, and many other types of songs, and I thought, "Maybe they are similar to the rainbow," and when I superimposed the songs, I felt like they fit together. Also, for this album, which will be released during the national tour, I had the image that the songs are being delivered to people who have not yet met me, and that you and I are connected by the rainbow, and I chose this feeling as the title of the album.

───The order of the songs is also very different, with the first half of the album focusing on songs that make you listen to the music and the middle half going all out for pop music. The last half of the album has a dramatic structure that makes the listener listen to the songs more carefully.

Yoshioka: I thought about the order in which I wanted the songs to be heard at a live performance. The first song is "Ruri no Sora e (To the Ruri-no-Sora)," which gives the audience a chance to listen carefully, and then "Tabidachi no Toki (Time of Departure): Mirai e (To the Future)," which is a calm song with a hopeful feeling. Then we added "YELL" to make the audience think "this is unusual," and after that, we wanted the audience to listen to songs that would make them clap their hands, and finally sing along with the audience for an encore.

─ ─ There are three new songs on the album, and one of them is the "encore song" "Daisy," isn't it?

Yoshioka: The first song was "Daisy," which was composed by Haruka Shimotsuki and written by myself. I wrote the lyrics to this song because I wanted to put into the song how I felt when I toured all 47 prefectures of Japan. In the past, I felt that many people came to the venues from different parts of Japan, and I felt frustrated that I couldn't visit everyone. But this time, I could really go to each of your prefectures, so I could say, "I'm going to see you all from my side! "I can sing happily because of you all! I can sing happily because you are all here! This song has a part at the end where we can sing happily together with everyone, and I immediately decided that it would definitely be an encore song. I think the bright, fantastic, three-beat tune, which is typical of Mr. Shimotsuki, is a good stimulus for the album.

─ I heard that labelmate Kaori Oda also participated in the chorus.

Yoshioka That's right!　It was the first song to be finished, but it was the last one to be recorded, and we really recorded it at the end of the year. Haruka (Shimotsuki) and Kao-chan (Oda Kaori) came all the way to the studio and sang the chorus together, which was really wonderful. The director and myu, who arranged the music, sang the last chorus and clapped their hands, making it a song that was truly created by everyone. The atmosphere in the studio was fun from start to finish.