Like many, I suspect, I found my way to Tokyo’s AprilBlue via the fallout from the disbanding of For Tracy Hyde in early 2022. One of the main questions from distraught fans of the Japanese shoegaze heroes was “what can we listen to now?”, and the easy answer was the (many) other projects from chief songwriter Azusa Suga. There was RAY for those who liked their dreampop delivered via alt-idols – and new project Ponderosa May Bloom – but for those who wanted a traditional guitar band, there was AprilBlue.
On the surface, AprilBlue has a lot in common with FTH – big guitars, soaring melodies delivered by enthralling female vocals courtesy of Haruki Funasoko – but where For Tracy Hyde existed at the crossroads of youthful exuberance and wistful nostalgia, AprilBlue comes from a slightly more reserved and mature place, like an older, wiser sibling. And that’s just what I get from the music – I’m almost a year into Duolingo Japanese but still can’t try to comprehend the lyrics besides the occasional word or two. Because oh yeah, unlike FTH, there’s almost no English songs here.
Suga gave an expansive English-language interview to An Extension of Mustafa last year that talked about the Japanese music industry and shoegaze’s place within it and his musical career, including but certainly not limited to For Tracy Hyde. One of the questions regarded the timing of starting AprilBlue right amidst FTH:
Mustafa: “So that was around 2016 when you were also in For Tracy Hyde. You started AprilBlue whilst you were in For Tracy Hyde too, so with these projects at the time were you considering your options for where you wanted your career to go in the future?”
Azusa: “I don’t really think too much about things, I was just doing whatever I wanted to do and it ended up this way! For better or for worse!”
“‘Cause What I Do Is All for Me to Choose” An Interview with Azusa Suga @ An Extension of Mustafa
And another about what the origins of and ethos behind AprilBlue is:
Well, there’s not really much of an ethos like what For Tracy Hyde had because it was just sorta spontaneous. The reason why the band started in the first place was me and our singer Haruki had been friends for quite a long time- I think it was 2014 when we first met. In 2018 we went to karaoke together for the first time. I’d never heard her sing before but I found out that she had a really good singing voice and she could sing well, and she’d never done music properly in her life: she’d never been in a band, she doesn’t play instruments or anything, and I thought that was a shame so I just wanted to start a band with her so that she can express herself and show her singing abilities to the world!
Other than that, there hasn’t really been a proper concept or ethos behind the work of AprilBlue. If there ever was any semblance of a concept, I guess when we were recording our first album the idea was to record the perfect debut album and then just break up, because we thought that’d have a huge impact on the music scene! We thought that it’d be cool to do that, but it turned out that, by the time we finished recording our first album, we realised that we enjoy being in this band too much to split up! Since then, yeah, it’s just been writing and recording stuff whenever we feel like it without any thoughts about what direction we take as a band, or any concepts, that sort of thing. It’s been really spontaneous, to be honest!
Azusa Suga, AprilBlue
“‘Cause What I Do Is All for Me to Choose” An Interview with Azusa Suga @ An Extension of Mustafa
AprilBlue’s debut full-length Blue Peter came out in 2019 when For Tracy Hyde were still a fully ongoing concern, so there was probably some conscious separation of songs and style. Their just-released second album yura is, in comparison, bigger, bolder, and definitely has a jolt of that For Tracy Hyde energy without losing the traits that made AprilBlue distinct. Over half the record had been released as singles since 2022, but the collected entity still hangs together marvellously and the leadoff track, which wasn’t one of the already-released songs, has gotten a luminous (literally) video to go with it.
So to sum up: miss For Tracy Hyde? Listen to AprilBlue. But don’t necessarily expect For Tracy Hyde mk2. Though there is definitely some of that. Just listen.
