that foreign music blog🌎

Today’s translation will be from last Thursday’s radio program, The King’s Place, which is a radio program hosted by musicians. Thursday’s host has regularly been J-indie Rock, Mr. ふぉるて, or “Mr. Forte”.

They’re a four-piece band that started in 2017 but had their major debut 4 years later in 2021. They’re distinct from other J-rock bands not only with Tsukasa breathy, melancholic vocals, but with their incorporation of a variety of genres and instruments, such as a synthesizer, horns, and funky elements. If you like bands like Shishamo or Saucy Dog, Mr.ふぉるてis something in between.

Keep reading or click below to skip to your favorite sections~👇

• Intro
• Song list ♪
• What do I want to do this fall? 
• Fan Message- Highlights-
• -Mr. Forte Behavioral Science-
• Half-time
• News Toro~
• -Ending-

Intro

To begin, Ryouhei Asaka (guitar) introduces the first topic of tonight’s broadcast, which is “What I want to do this fall”. He’s joined by the rest of the band: Hanon Yoshikawa (Drums) and Itsuki Fukuoka (Bass). The vocalist/ guitarist, Tsukasa Ino, isn’t present this week.

Due to my current level in Japanese, I’ll focus on providing fun and interesting highlights, rather than a word-for-word translation. I also apologize for the lack of accuracy in some parts. I’m confident that the information as a whole is correct, but some comments were really hard to catch and I had to guess what the overall meaning was. 

 If you live in Japan, feel free to check out Mr.ふぉるて/ Mr. Forte’s segment every Thursday night on J-Wave, The King’s Place! If you’re not in Tokyo, you can download the radio app Radiko and listen~

Song list ♪

1. 「シリウス」Mr..ふぉるて/ “Sirius” by Mr. Forte
   • A bright pop-rock song suitable for spring~
     
2. 「マヨイガ」羊文学/ “Mayoi ga” by Hitsujibungaku
   • A beat-driven acoustic with mysterious, breathy vocals
     
3. 「HUG」by 空音 (Sorane) feat. KojiKoji
   • An R&B/hip-hop song backed by funk elements
     
4. Ryouhei’s original remix, mashing up “BEST PART” by H.E.R feat Daniel Caesar and “ARCADES” by Kid Fresno Feat. Nene
   • Early 2000s inspired hip-hop/RnB.
     
5. 「季節が次々死んでいく」Amazarashi / “Seasons die one after the other” by Amazarashi
   • A J-rock song that boasts lyrics as provoking as the video, each word emphasized by the piano movements and the vocalist’s melancholic delivery.
     
6. 「PROMENADE」Mr.ふぉるて/ “Promenade” by Mr. Forte
   • A fun, funky J-indie song about a sweet, yet desperate love.

What do I want to do this fall? 

Are any of you single out there? Guitarist Ryouhei is, and is apparently looking for someone! What he wants to do this fall is to fall in love. In fact, not just for this section, but for the first half of the segment, the members, including the guitarist, himself, continue to cycle back to the topic of his dating life and ’合コン’/ “Gou-kon”. “Gou-kon” is an event where men and women gather to find a partner and, traditionally, get married. It’s similar to speed dating. 

Bassist Itsuki then shares that what he wants to do this fall is to change up his wardrobe. Apparently he only ever wears black, and he’s thus grown tired of it. Don’t go expecting him to show up on stage in full rainbow colors, though~

Drummer, Hanon, states that what she wants to do this fall is to get back into baking now that Corona has calmed down. She’s particularly interested in trying to make pumpkin pie. Itsuki and Ryouhei sounded really excited about this. Wouldn’t you like to try Hanon’s baking??~ ♪

Fan Message- Highlights-

They go through several fan messages which bring on several interesting anecdotes, but the most interesting one comes from a listener: Nasu

Hello Mr. Forte. One day I was rushing onto the train after a festival and just barely made it with my bag and towel in hand. Once I managed to make it home, I took a shower and passed out. I was exhausted. The next day, when I went to go out, I realized that I didn’t have my key. However, since I had been able to return home, I knew I hadn’t dropped it anywhere. Then when I opened the door, I saw that my key had been left in the door. I was relieved that the key was still there. So, Mr. Forte, is there anything careless you’ve done recently?

Mr. Forte immediately calls out Hanon, and she admits that her ‘careless mistake’ was that she was in a minor car accident. I initially assumed that this was why she’d taken a break, as later on in the segment, Ryouhei extends his gratitude to the supporting drummer who played on her behalf during the band’s activities. I couldn’t clearly catch the name, but it was something like Omiki Mik. When looking on their website and searching for news of the car accident, however, I instead found news that Hanon had suspended activities due to her panic disorder. Luckily it sounds like she’ll be joining the band on stage again from September, though. 

Itsuki, being as serious as he is, tends not to make careless mistakes. However, he admits how he tends to misplace his card key in the hotel room. 

Ryouhei, on the other hand, is extremely accident-prone. He talks about how it’s so bad that he even forgot his wallet, which prompted him to go cashless. Luckily living in Shibuya makes going cashless pretty easy, but there was a time when he went to this one particular bicycle parking space that required cash. He ended up walking his bike to another station about ten minutes away to find a place with cashless payment. I guess how it tied to the topic was that he’d gone cashless because he was careless. To be honest, I can kind of relate. Can you?

-Mr. Forte Behavioral Science-

This week’s subject is Ryouhei, who we learn can apparently do a really good impersonation of vocalist, Tsukasa. As a result, he often relies on that during blind dates. However, he’s been considering a new party trick and fans gave several ideas.  The point of this segment is for the fans to guess which option he’d actually do. So, the scenario is:

A party trick that Ryouhei needs to give up/a new party trick to do on a blind date

There are two answers that I’ll highlight, the first coming from the listener: kaimono wo temono no porisa

I think Ryouhei’s party trick should be to slurp from udon from his nose. I think he’d want to give up on an embarrassing trick rather than a cool one. Please perform this for a cute girl on a blind date~~

The three of them burst into laughter and, honestly, this idea was so bizarre that I’m not entirely confident that it’s correct. However, given Hanon’s disgust, I think that I got the main gist. Ryouhei follows up by saying that he’d do something like that to make the girl he likes laugh and that he’d want to marry someone who laughs with him. However, Hanon counters that there probably aren’t many girls who’d want to marry someone who’d do that on their first meeting. I dunno…maybe I’d give him points for trying. I’ve been on weirder dates, haha~

The second message is from the listener: mikapuru

Hello Mr. Forte. What you should learn for a blind date is palmistry. If you say you can read palms, girls would want you to show them. Also, if it’s palmistry, you can touch the girl’s hand. I think this would be perfect for you

Hanon agrees that this is the kind of party trick that Ryouhei would make and the guitarist plays along by saying that he’ll try hard for her. Hanon hurriedly rejects the idea, but Itsuki continues to push that Ryouhei would probably say something like, “You’ll get married soon”, to which Hanon vocally denied. Although I understand it was all just banter, Ryouhei was extremely flirty throughout the segment. However, I felt like he was doing it to get a reaction out of Hanon rather than to actually flirt, which was actually quite funny. ♪

At the end of Ryouhei’s discussion, the guitarist reveals that the answer is that: He had no other idea than to do Tsukasa’s impersonation because it’s “too good”.

Wow. Haha, what a cop-out, but that impersonation must be pretty good~ 

After that, they introduce Tsukasa’s scenario relating to their newest single, “I LOVE ME”.

What’s something that Tsukasa Ino, the composer of “I LOVE ME” can do to express “I LOVE ME” for 1000 yen?” 

Ryouhei says that Tsukasa can easily do that if it means buying 1000 yen worth of snacks, but this corner ends on Hanon prompting the listeners to send in their answers. 

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Half -time

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The show then starts the second half with Ryouhei’s DJ remix, which shows the guitarist’s interest in old-school hip-hop. Even the way they were mixed was very nostalgic, reminding me of something from rapper, J. Cole. 

The three then move into the final corner, “News Toro”, which I’m assuming translates to “News Take/Let’s take news”. This is the time when the band members reveal news from their personal lives. 

News Toro~

To be honest, I couldn’t clearly catch Ryouhei’s or Itsuki’s news–just that Itsuki is the only member who does sports. 

Hanon, however, mentions that she wants to get an eleventh piercing! Her next piercing would be on her right ear, where she says that, up until this point she’d been avoiding after something happened the first time she got it pierced. So does that mean she has ten piercings on just her left ear alone?….Wow. 

-Ending-

So, if you got all the way to the end, what have we learned? That Ryouhei is possibly…one of the most openly thirsty guitar players I’ve ever heard. I love how goofy he seems! I’m sure he’ll find someone soon enough~ It probably won’t be Hanon, though. Itsuki is also shockingly serious for someone who looks so sweet–I mean he probably is, but I imagine that the one in the band who’s always facepalming at the nonsense, but also secretly enjoying it and occasionally adding his two cents.

While I’ve always known of this band and have heard their songs, after doing this breakdown, I found myself really drawn to just how close they all seem to each other. The banter is so fun to listen to and I hope you can enjoy it just as much as I did, next week~ One song that left an impression on me after this episode was “Sirius”. It actually featured on their first Major full album, “Love This Moment”. 

I’m guessing that “Sirius” was one of the songs that made their popularity skyrocket. Understandably so. I was listening to it for the majority of the time I was writing this~

So, what about you? Is there a song from this week’s segment that piqued your interest?? ♪♪