Kazuhito Kikuchi working on new Ayu song?!
 

-from Kazuhito Kikuchi. - http://twitpic.com/1rgdnh

Something about making Ayu's new song while editing someone else's song.~ I think he's using his iPad and MacBook at the same time, haha.

I'm... curious, scared, and excited all at the same time.

His other works with Ayu:
Depend on you
As if...
WHATEVER
appears
immature
Who...
vogue
Far away（D・A・Iとの共作）
SURREAL
About You
Replace
HEAVEN
Beautiful Fighters

A duet with Alan??? Jaja
Maybe it will be the new a-side

No, don't bring her into this.

There are two different songs. He's working on them at the same time.

Well I hope the song turns out good in the end!

so the info is true??
Tetsuya Komuro --49th
Kazuyoshi Kikuchi -50th

Well, it's straight from Kikuchi himself.

...will the 49th single be a 3A? -hides-

Or maybe it'll be the 50th... and CREA will be back?

"CR-3A side single" haha.

really?!!
omgod, this 3 singles are gonna be awesome:heart
i'm waiting an epic ballad for the 50th single :heart

What has he done in the past?

EDIT: About you, HEAVEN, SURREAL, and Who...? Sounds good, though some of his other work I don't really care for at all. Last he did was Beautiful Fighters it seems? 4 years ago.

●Depend on you／浜崎あゆみ
●As if...／浜崎あゆみ
●WHATEVER／浜崎あゆみ
●immature／浜崎あゆみ
●Who...／浜崎あゆみ
●vogue／浜崎あゆみ
●Far away／浜崎あゆみ
●SURREAL／浜崎あゆみ
●About You／浜崎あゆみ
●Replace／浜崎あゆみ
●HEAVEN／浜崎あゆみ
●Beautiful Fighters／浜崎あゆみ
------
Kazuhito Kikuchi

Let´s see what type of song does he make

O.O I can't wait for the other singles. I love a lot of songs he composed

He made HEAVEN?????OMG

I love this guy. It seems like Ayu's bringing back her music staff from A Song For xx - MY STORY all over again.

I have a budding feeling CREA might be back for the 50th single. omo. :heart

OMG That's gonna be epic *O*
yay Kazu :heart

If CREA is back i will deffinetly buy the single

OMFG...

these 3 singles project are gonna be TOTALLY AWESOME :luv2

Ah please let's not do that...Ayu doesn't do duets let alone with someone who doesn't match her voice and singing style.

"The song after next is by Kazu-bou~~~"

Ayu: EHHHH?

From her Twitter, HAHAHA.

if this's true! i can be so sure 50th single 'll be composed by D-A-I or CREA !

Yay!!!!!! I love kazuhito kikuchi :heart!!

Out of the songs he did for ayu, I love HEAVEN/SURREAL/vogue/appears/WHATEVER so much. I think Depend on you/immature/Far away/About You are quite nice.

So I hope the new song will be as good as those.. or even better :)!

oh...

I miss the charm of Depend on you, vogue, and SURREAL

excited!!! thanks for the info!

not really interesting with this unless CREA was working for the new song

I dun really understand the craving for CREA. Well it'll be great if she's doing it because it's her 50th single. Probly I'm not into it because I've already become her fan before she composed her songs. Yeah the first few ones were great (M, evolution, NEVER EVER), and some great songs afterward.. But I felt like she was recycling her composition after I am. She was never trained to be a composer anywayz so I dun think it's her fault. But unless she's making a big bang (like... M was so unique, and evolution was so cool), I won't set my expectation too high in case she's really making her own music for her 50th single :P.

I didn't really like Depend on you when I first heard it on A BEST (I didn't buy ASfxx). As time goes on, I still dun think I seriously in love with the song... At the same time I think it's epic since it's quite unique in her discography. It's like the young ayu showing off her naked emotion back when she was in early 20s...

woww can't waittt..
the single will be released another 2 months after July i think..
OMG can't wait!

Another Replace would be nice.

Of his compositions, the songs I love are the ones in bold:

Depend on you (My first Ayu song)
As if...
WHATEVER
appears
immature
Who...
vogue
Far away（D・A・Iとの共作）
SURREAL
About You
Replace
HEAVEN
Beautiful Fighters

So it's safe to say that I'm quite happy he's composing for Ayu :D I've liked most of his past stuff so it'll be great, I'm sure :D I can't wait to see what he comes up with :D

Yeah Depend of you is my favorite song of all times!
It's the first song of ayu I heard. kazuhito is a god. XD

OMG if it's true!!!

Who..., SURREAL, About You and HEAVEN are SUPERB songs and I love them so much!!

*O* these 3 singles will be EPIC!! I can tell this!!

i realli hope CREA and DAI will be back =) the singles and nxt album will be awesome

hope for another HEAVEN

I have a feeling the next few songs are going to be powerful, so the next album (which is still far away, since we just got one in April :D) will blow me away.

:thud

God I was just doing some wishful thinking in the first moon/blossom thread but the possibility of Crea + DAI returning seems brighter and brighter with each new detail. :3

I really hope (if this is true) that he's working on another SURREAL, appears, or HEAVEN... or even better, vogue. :luv2 And I just recently realized the amazingness of WHATEVER (the PV version), leaving Beautiful Fighters as the only song he's worked on I don't like so the margin of error is very slim imho.

If he's on board than this 3 single project will be nothing short of incredible. :yes

Seems that he hasn't worked with her for a long time... Most of mentioned songs are great, so I'm happy he came back.

I'd say this is good enough for a 49th single coming in the fall - should this keep pace, she should get her 50th single during the "peak winter" season!

It's really great to hear for a new song - I think we're on a good pace right now for that!

really good!!!but is very soon...

wow... he did very well on SURREAL, i hope he'll do good in the 50th

If it's true, I would be happy! I LOVE all of the other songs he has done! awesome.

It'll be awesome if he does something unique again like SURREAL. That song really stands on it's own in Ayu's discography.

SURREAL is one of the greatest songs ever

How is he underrated? He made some of her biggest hits :rolleyes

Because no one seems to know anything other than CREA? Haha.

Finally kazu <3 I'm excited to see what he'll come up with and alan's song <3

So much speculation...I want answers!!

omg these are some of my ayu favs. this would be really cool. i cant wait now. ^___^ this is a nice little pattern going on :)

Wow I hope it's true because i love him!

Because he's also made a few that nobody seems to ever care about (immature, As if...), and also a few that people - at least at this forum - seem to really dislike (like Beautiful Fighters >_>). He hasn't done that many compositions from her discography, either, so it seems people always forget about him. :( And even more so, because all I ever hear about, really, is DAI and CREA. >_< Which, I love Ayu's compositions, but she's not her best composer. And DAI is terribly overrated, in my opinion. :\

I guess you're right. I personally love all the songs he's done. I don't understand what people have against immature :love

I never really liked immature either... it annoyed me. Lol.

omg omg omg please...

this is funny...my friend just said yesterday "kazuhito kikuchi should do another song for ayu" lol

I'm soo excited! it better be true...

immature is my :heart and surreal is her best song ever...I'm fairly certain it wont sound like anything he's done...but I'm still excited <3

Wow, he's done quite a mix of tunes. I like Surreal, Vogue & Far Away. Kinda getting into As If... now and Heaven, Immature and Replace are good. Who knows what type of song we'll get.

mi|kshake~

Me neither. Such an amazing little song. :love I don't get some of the hate I've seen for appears neither. It's like my favorite song off of that album and like... ever. :D

Kazuhito is the best!!!!!!!!! (He's the composer of alan, and you know i love alan)
Yay, i hope another epic song like HEAVEN or vogue.

Kazu! This 3 singles project is already turning out to be really good :luv2.

hope he would arrange a new song like Who...

I think his only arrangement work with Ayu was HEAVEN with Yuta Nakano/KZB (aka him) unless I'm remembering it wrong...

I am curious what software he uses to write a song for ayu in Mac.

Ayu + alan??......intresting, I would like to see that.

I really like kaz's work.

OMG! this 3 single project just keeps getting better and better

OMG OMG :luv2
These 3-single project will be EPIC!

Oh oh!!! I hope so!!!!!! *crosses fingers*

He's definitely made some solid Ayu songs :yes.

I hope to god it's something new!!!

wow, the songs composed by Kaz are AWESOME (mostly at least)
after moon/blossom, Ayu goes on with early era composers, I'm happy with it~

Really!? that's cool, I think I gonna love 49th single > 48th single!

You're hyping it too much! Lol.
I guess this whole 3-singles-project is kinda hard not to hype, anticipate, and speculate about. But I'm gonna try my best not to make any assumptions for any of them.

wow back to the past

Im not gonna get all hyper here, but If its an oldie coming back Im gonna say "coolio, hope it turns out good".

exciting! Thanks for telling


looks like Ayu is really back to basics... maybe then it's possible to hope for a fully CREA album someday. been praying for it to Pino-san, this dog has super powers i tell you

Yeah, Kazu go for it~

He really makes good music, well it has been a while for him, Ayu used Yuta Nakano in the last years very often.

Ayu is pulling a lot of surprises out for these singles!
Please let the 50th single be the return of CREA...PLEASE! :D

Oo! If its true I hope it'll be something like SURREAL! O.O

Ayu changed so much, I don't think she's able to make similar songs like some of her epic old ones.
I mean, yes, she can make awesome new ones, but I doubt that they'll be like her old ones, even if she uses old composers.
I absolutely love some of Kikuchi's works, so I'm happy to hear he's composing for her again, but I wouldn't set my hopes high that it will sound like Ayu's old songs or does have the same feeling(s). I'm ready to hear something awesome and new from those two.

Does anybody understand what I mean?
Lol, nevermind. :laugh

He's been away for a LONG time...
Im so glad Ayu is going down the road of nostalgia!

Really???? So If that's true then my guess for her next single is right.. I hope it' really Kazuhito-san!! I love his works!!!

Thanks for the info.

The thing is that I don't think that it's the point of using those composers again.

I think she wants to use them to create new stuff that fit to her today rather than bring A Song for xx~RAINBOW back. ^^

If you expect those songs to be like/sound like the older ones then you will probably be dissapointed since I don't think that it's the point of the whole project at all. xD

Out of that list, SURREAL stood out the most to me. If he can compose as... well, surreal, as that song, then I will most definitely--- :thud

I really don't think the key to the next big Ayu song is to make it sound like her old stuff.

Its about moving forward - making a modern track, that reflects on her past but brings in the current and future as well. This composer has done some excellent tracks for her, but they sound dated for 2010. So it'll be interesting to see a more modern composition.

lol I understand completely and I feel the same way. I'm eager to see what modern Kazu and Ayu will sound like though.

momentum was pretty much "M" all over again, and people kinda didn't react well to that. No one wants remakes of her old stuff like what other singers seem to do by remaking the songs that made them big. It's not like Ayu's been doing that anyway, imo.

I never really saw momentum as another M, though I definitely could understand how people related the two to each other. The only thing those two really had in common for me is that I loved them from start to finish and they both blew me away.

Really, I'm just happiest when she does the type of music that best represents her and her feelings at the time of making the single or album. I don't expect things to sound exactly like they did in the past because I know she's the sort of artist that likes to move forward and try new things.

Lately she hasn't been going into the past, or trying to recreate it by using old composers and such. I think she's just connecting her past with her present, and what is wrong with that? We learn from our past afterall, our past is what made us who we are.

I think her working with old composers can show us just how much she's grown.

Oh my I never thought of momentum is one of the M clones. I can't even related both songs together except 1) both titles started with "m", and 2) both are winter songs. M is more epic than momentum of course and I never liked momentum somehow. It sounds a bit lackluster.

For me, the only M clone exists is Free & Easy.

I dun expect her making something same as her older ones. Rather I think the excitement of using the old composers is that they may give some promising music that has been lost in her recent music. And I believe this is rather about personal feeling. In addition, who knows what the arrangements of those songs will be? They may have nostalgic feeling, at the same time they are rock tunes. Or maybe they have indian/middle east tunes again, or another Slt type arrangement.

There are just too many possibilities. I wouldn't mind if there's a song that has ASfxx powerfulness with new fresh melody :D.

OMG I love momentum!!! Its sooo awesome!!

But yes it is M ~episode II~ lol

I don't think anyone ever thought of any song other than momentum as an M clone.

My feeling about her using these older composers is that we can get a little more variety when it comes to compositions. It's usually pretty easy to sniff out Yuta or Yukumi stuff since she's worked with them so much in the last six (or two) years. Kunio Tago's revival was refreshing, and I think Yasuhiko and Kazuhito coming back can only be a good thing for her songs from a musical standpoint.

i like!!

Really? I've always loved momentum; I suppose in where it's related to M, aside from what you mentioned, the sort of power and desperation in the way the choruses are sung.

And really about M and Free & Easy? I never really thought of those two as that alike at all. I suppose it's interesting hearing about other peoples opinion of things; I never thought about those two songs like that :D

M and Free & Easy were released fairly close (Dec 2000, April 2002), both composed by her. When F&E was out, many people were like, "omg it's so similar to M..." Even tho the melody was different, the tempos and the themes were similar. Can't really blame us having that thought because she rarely recycled themes back then, even tho back then we've already noticed she'd been recycling her compositions. Can't blame ayu tho because she's never been trained to be a composer.

I guess my mind was doing something else while back when she released Secret. I never seen momentum as M clone until today.. LOL. What was I doing in AHS back then?

And I dunno how AHS members responded when F&E was released, as I was in another newsgroup and everyone practically treated F&E as M~episode II~.

I don't memorize names of the composers except probly D.A.I., HΛL, 菊池 一仁 and probly 星野靖彦(and LOL I dun even know 菊池 一仁 = kazuhito kikuchi.. shame on me). I knew those four because I always looked at booklet back then. Now I just look at the pictures. I guess I should study the recent booklets. :P

IMO, it's interesting that they ended up choosing an M-ish feel from HAL after having a bunch of arrangers do their take on it.

[Yuta Nakano and ats- were still in HAL at this point, IIRC]

...huh?
Sorry, but I hear no resemblance AT ALL.
Have I been listening to a different "momentum" than you? :laugh

How should I know? I'm just mentioning what I've read.

The presence of HAL's arrangement in both and the use of similar sounds in both M and momentum is probably what leads people to feel that they are quite similar.

^ :rolleyes

Well I guess I have bad ears. I don't hear any serious similarities :shrug

It's the echo piano / guitar / synth-beat heavy arrangement.

If you can't hear it, then I don't really know what to say, haha. M starts off without much, but when it starts picking up, that's when the arrangement starts to get a bit like momentum's. (Or the other way around.) Now that I think about it, momentum kinda does that "starts off soft" for the verses and gradually gets heavier as the song goes on thing that M has going on too.

**It's especially evident when momentum has that weird ~drum synth~ around the bridge of the song where in the PV all the candles get blown out and she looks amazing.

I'm about to listen to both now to try to hear any similarities lol ;)

Oh... that's the moment when ayu's arrangements were saturated with HΛL back then. Honestly I loved HΛL so much because of those HΛL Mix 20XX series :P. But again ayu loves using the same composers/arrangers for over a period of time.

and I just looked through Yuta Nakano's Japanese wiki. Well most of his compositions are not bad, and some of them are really good (Don't look back, sexy little things, EnergizE, Bridge to the sky, Mirror). But he has been doing most of ayu songs' arrangement, esp the periods between GUILTY and R'n'RC.

She should hire D.A.I. to arrangement songs this time... Since she hasn't done that for quite a long time... :)

I don't think D.A.I does arrangements. Or at least, as far as I know, Dai Nagao has only done compositions for Ayu. (And if he did, it was with Naoto Suzuki who has disappeared, never on his own.)

Kazuhito Kikuchi arranged HEAVEN with Yuta and it was just... amazing, haha. I wonder if Kikuchi will be doing the 50th single since it'd probably be the more likely to be ballady of the three.

IMO, Ayu's best arrangers seem to be the ones used often with the exception of post-2003 HAL. I just don't understand why they were allowed to basically use the same arrangement 5 times for some songs. -sigh- CMJK, tasuku, and Yuta Nakano have all proven to be really competent and varied with their arrangements, often leaving HAL in the dust with their variety. HAL would never have been able to create something like Don't look back imo, haha.

With you detail, I can see the similarity :P. That's also applies to F&E. Soft verse, stronger bridge, then powerful chorus... Plus the gothic theme (I kinda feel it's a Joan of Arc theme instead...).

Why do I feel like he's done more songs than that? o.O Ugh, I gotta stop mixing up composer's names... Haha.

Well, that's exciting news! He seems to compose some good melodies. :)

Yeah... usually Dai Nagao arranged her songs with 鈴木直人 (Naoto Suzuki rite?). I wonder where this guy is now...

Hmmn, looking at wiki rite now (again lol), I like most of CMJK's works, but I think they've reached a saturated level in ayu's recent works.. Oh well I dun mind seeing them again, but Yuta is a better arranger IMO. They're better than HAL anywayz (omg no wonder I hate the songs in GUILTY so much...).
I dun really like Tasuku (looking at his wiki.. of the songs he did for ayu). Of all the songs he did for ayu (see wiki), I only love 5 or 6 of them.

Btw she hasn't used BOUNCEBACK for a long time... I wonder if she'll use them again.. :D

Kazuhiro Hara and Kazuhito Kikuchi seem pretty easy to get mixed up.

Kinda like Kazuyoshi Takahashi (Her ZACC hairstylist) and Kazuyoshi Shibleeeeeeeeeep (her photographer from 2008-end of 2009 basically).

Yuta Nakano was a member of HAL before he left for whatever reason. tasuku tends to have a very rich sound with his arrangements. I mean, he did Memorial address come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

Yes that's one of the songs I love from tasuku :D. I dunno which songs he arranged or composed tho since the person who did the wiki didn't list the detail.

And it's good that Yuta left HAL. HAL was only good till RAINBOW...

PS: Oh my I mess up tasuku with Tetsuya Yukumi!!!! LOL

Wow, that's a big mess up, haha.

tasuku's only composition with Ayu is fairyland (which is amazing) haha but he has a lot of arrangements done with her since... RAINBOW?

http://www.discogs.com/artist/tasuku

All of his arrangements are just so... LOVE.

tasuku's arrangement work with Ayu:
* I am... （共同編曲）
* Daybreak （編曲）
* taskinlude （作曲・編曲）
* no more words （共同編曲）
* independent （編曲）
* July 1st （編曲）
* Heartplace （編曲）
* taskinillusion （作曲・編曲）
* HANABI 〜episode II〜 （編曲）
* Memorial address （編曲）
* About You （編曲）
* Will （編曲）
* (miss)understood （編曲）
* In The Corner （編曲）
* tasking （作曲・編曲）
* Beautiful Day （編曲）
* Ladies Night 〜another night〜 （リアレンジ/rearrange）
* It was （編曲）
* taskinst （作曲・編曲）
* GREEN （編曲）

Looking at Kikuchi's list, his only arrangement work with Ayu seems to have been HEAVEN, haha.