Music Monday | LOCAL CONNECT — コスモループ COSMO LOOP

Hello my BAYOG luvlies~ It’s Monday~ I bring you another quick Music Monday post (as I try to clean up and schedule my blog posts under drafts…). I’m feeling some Japanese tunes today~ So today I wanted to put a spotlight on the Japanese band Local Connect. You might recognize them from the soundtrack of the [My Love Story!!] anime. Anyway, I love this band and their music and find them so underrated since they’re not as well known. So I figured I’d share some love~

Admittedly, I don’t got a whole lot of information on them for you. Especially cuz I don’t know Japanese (other than the basics from a semester in college). But I’ll tell you what I do know~ Local Connect is a Japanese band from Kyoto. They were formerly known as H”palty. They underwent a name change when the original drummer left and they gained a new drummer. Local Connect consists of 5 members: ISATO (vocals), Daiki (vocals/guitar), Shuma (bass), Natsuki (drums), and ma-ki (guitar). Apparently, Natsuki is the only one who wasn’t originally part of H”palty. They were signed to the label VAP in February 2015. Local Connect is probably most well known for  [幸せのありか/Shiawase no Arika], which had been the ending theme for the 2015 anime adaptation of 俺物語!!/Ore Monogatari!!/My Love Story!!. If y’all know me, y’all know that was one of my fave manga series and anime. I absolutely loved the ending theme by Local Connect as well, and that’s what led me to discover more of their music. Their first EP was 過去ツナグ未来 which was released June 2015. I love literally the whole EP~ I recommend every single track. 7Rails is probably my second favorite EP from them. My faves from 7Rails would be: 沈丁花, Gold, ねぇ ねぇ, and コトバ と ココロ . コトバ と ココロ  in particular kinda gives me similar vibes to コスモループ at times~ My faves from 未完成 would be: [優シイ人] , [呼吸], and [ふたり]. Some of my other favorites include: [アンダーグラウンド], [スターライト], [Beautiful Day], DayLight Blue, snowdrop, and 冬草/Winter Grass. Also, Local Connect has recently released English versions of some of their tracks as well: [Regulus], [DayLight Blue], [By Your Side], and [再会の花歌 ]. Honestly, I think they did a really good job on the English versions as well.

Also, on a hella random note and flex: their official Twitter account randomly followed me on Twitter like 2 years ago. I hadn’t even followed them on Twitter yet at the time. So I don’t know why they followed me, but it was a very pleasant and surreal surprise. I’m super grateful they’d follow me, some random account in the US, haha. It was just really funny cuz I got the notification and was like, “WTF??” I had to do a double take. I was like, “Is this like THE Local Connect? Like the Local Connect band that I listen to…???” I don’t know, it was just like a “Wow” moment for me haha.

Alright! So let’s get into コスモループ or COSMO LOOP. It’s a track from their first EP released under VAP called 過去ツナグ未来. It was released in June 2015. Honestly, it’s my favorite from them as I love every single track. It also included [幸せのありか/Shiawase no Arika] from My Love Story!!. Unfortunately, this EP is not available on Spotify, at least not for US listeners. Which is a bummer for me. But I do at least have the album so I had to add it from my local files… Anyway, I definitely recommend every single track from this album. While I absolutely loved 幸せのありか, I remember being absolutely in love with コスモループ on the first listen. It definitely solidified me into being a fan of the band and music. It’s been 7 years, and I still absolutely love this song. It’s still one of my top fave Japanese tracks and J-Rock tracks. There’s something about this track that makes me envision myself looking up at a starry sky on a summer night too. I don’t know, but it just makes it more special to me somehow. Also, I’m not 100% on the lyrics cuz there were no actual translations. Also, once again, I only really know enough Japanese to get around alright as a tourist, so I kinda just had to MTL it with Google translate. But what I pretty much am getting is that there’s alot of uncertainty and fear. There’s loneliness, sadness, and departures. But there’s beauty in the world too. But it’s okay not to be tough. We don’t have all the answers, and that’s okay. All we can really do is to continue living as we are.

You can find コスモループ on Spotify, here (it’s unavailable for the US region tho…but I put anyway):

The music video is super simple. It’s black and white with the band performing in the middle of a field in what I presume is nighttime, and surrounded by lights. There are also alot of silhouette shots going on. Super simple. But I honestly dig it, and I do love the silhouette shots overlapping the overhead shots of the band performing.

I remembered there was this clip of them doing a live acoustic performance of it. I love the soft vibe of it~ So I post it too hehe~

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Yeah, so that was it. That’s today’s super short and simple Music Monday~ I hope you guys enjoyed the song and give LOCAL CONNECT a chance. They do have really great music. I honestly haven’t listened to as much Japanese music or followed as many Japanese artists as I used to in like middle and high school. So I love when I do come across a band that I immediately vibe with. They’re probably one of the few Japanese artists that I do kind of actively keep tabs on. I definitely would love to see them live if I ever get the chance to~ Or it would be cool to even run into them doing busking on the street somewhere in Japan~ Anyway, there are lots of great music and artists out in the world. So many of them are underrated. So I just wanna do my little part in sharing some awesome music and artists that I enjoy~ Again, I do highly recommend checking out their music~ Also, let me know if you have any underrated artists that you’d like to recommend to me~ I’m always up for new songs to listen to~ Anyway, that’s all y’all~ Take care and stay safe!~ Have a wonderful day and a fabulous start to your week~

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