Progressive pop/indie rock band JYOCHO will release a new album on February 16th.
Titled Let’s Promise to Be Happy, the album will be released on No Big Deal Records and made available both digitally worldwide and in a Japan-exclusive CD + DVD set. The eight-track album was written and produced by founding member Daijiro Nakagawa and
recorded at StudioSHIKARI and Studio 246 KYOTO in Japan.
The album will include the song All the Same, which is the ending theme song for the anime series "Banished From the Brave Man’s Group, I Decided to Lead a Slow Life in the Back Country". Also included will be the previously-released
digital singles Gather the Lights and Measure the Dawn.
On January 31st, the quartet premiered an album sampler, produced by graphic designer and photo manipulator ISAMYU, who also designed the cover art for the new album.
Links to pre-add and pre-save the album on Spotify, Apple Music and other major music platforms are available
here.
In celebration of the new album release, JYOCHO will be premiering a new music video on February 16th, and they’ll be playing two shows in Japan the following month: one at Live House
Anima in Osaka on March 5th and another at Shinjuku MARZ in Tokyo on March 27th.
Regarding the album, Nakagawa commented: “The new album is our most direct and intuitive work to date. The music on this release was influenced and revolved around the question, ‘Do we really want to be happy?’ For this new project,
we started with our first album in mind, from a macroscopic perspective, and ended up with this album, which is a microscopic piece. As we seek happiness, things that are not happy are born within us. It is difficult to keep happiness in the same place
for a long time. In order to keep it circulating, we have to bear and face the happiness and sorrow of others. I wonder if humanity is happy now.”
Directed by Takumi Ohsera (THINGS.), the concert DVD included with the CD+DVD edition of the album features a 10-song set titled JYOCHO presents: Machiya Extra Session (Live) filmed at WALL&WALL in Japan on August
29th last year.
The music video for All the Same and the album sampler are available below.
