Yuki Kajiura LIVE vol.#21 - 60 Songs (July 26 - August 24, 2025)

OK....

So I just had a burst of inspiration...

The debut of another super-prime trio during YKL21, in the persons of J-Y-Ka!
Since there's no Keiko and LINO is not as familiar with most of the songs, Kajiura may have to rely on her most stable 3 (with Kaori in place of Keiko) to do some of the wonderful trio work they did at my-beloved Kanagawa live.

https://youtu.be/Ws1wbqAbJvU?si=2uInbTTakwnv0lRi&t=461
Just listening to this intro and the smoothness of the blend and character of the voices. Kaori voice isn't as thick as Keiko's and she places more forward so there was a particular blend on this second verse of "Key of the Twilight" that just made me happy, and was a highlight from the song. You can hear Keiko comes in with her thicker tone for the echo/response line to repeat the pre-chorus.

Kaori just needs to be fully in the vocal blending mindset to make it work (Keiko is almost always in the blending mindset which is why she's so good).
 
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Sure, there might be some (or a lot of) songs with just the remaining trio but with EMIKO there's 5 of them listed. EMIKO doesn't have to master ALL of it. They can split Keiko's parts up among eachother (as well as some old parts the remaining singers had).

Of course that's under the assumption that EMIKO is there for that reason (regular alto parts) in the first place.
 
The thing that I'm still worried about is YK filling vol21 with Emily's songs again... Just about everyone will complain how stale it is if that happens.

But guess we'll see...
 
I an not sure Emiko is coming as a straight swap for Keiko in the alto role.

Anyways, Emiko > LL (and even rito) speking purely vocally, so she’d be stronger at singing harmony than her.
 
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"Straight swap" maybe not, but for some tracks, possibly. In some post earlier I was imagining Kaori and Emiko splitting Keiko's harmonies up between themselves (with LL possibly taking over some of Kaori's parts). Of course it doesn't have to end up being that way. Maybe she really does come out for 2 or 3 tracks every live. The fact that her first official appearance on a Kajiura track is doing some lower harmonies ("lighthouse") is certainly something to think about.

We'll see.
 
wat11 said:
waits*
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🤔
grunty said:
YK filling vol21 with Emily's songs again
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Maybe half of them? And if she can get Emiko to sing one or two, it would help to reduce the Joelle effect a bit.
grunty said:
Kaori and Emiko splitting Keiko's harmonies up between themselves
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Oh yeah! Really looking forward to this even though even Joelle (and Yuriko) can hang a bit with the low notes. I would be interested in switching Joelle and Yuriko downwards sometimes to allow Kaori and Emiko to go higher. Just to create that additional harmonic flavour.
grunty said:
Maybe she really does come out for 2 or 3 tracks every live.
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This is also possible.
grunty said:
doing some lower harmonies ("lighthouse")
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You're not wrong. That could be a foretaste of what she will do in YKL21, and could also serve as a way to begin fan acclimatization to the new order.
 
Another trio I am really interested in hearing are the soul/jazz-influenced ladies: Emiko, Joelle, Kaori. I am hoping they get a chance to shine on stage with strong leads.

Since Emiko and Kaori are both power belters so that's another configuration that's waiting to be explored.

It's always been interesting looking at the common/different tendencies and abilities of the ladies on stage - both vocally and performance-wise. For example, rhe way you had Keiko and Kaori being "Fiction Punktion" as Kajiura affectionately called them (YKL#4) since they were more energetic, jumpy singers. Almost like a "sub-unit" of FJ (I was watching a long Morning Musume history video yesterday and the idea of sub-units was in my mind).

Ultimately though, Kajiura's music is more controlled and refined in presentation, so there isn't space to freestyle as much. Kaori seems to use her energetic belt as an expressive release from the otherwise controlled and pre-defined vocal arrangement, and so bringing in more of her vocal personality (which I always love to see).

On that point though, I am watching a vocal coach on YouTube as I type this, and she's just spoken about singers like her (the coach) that have a lot of vocal power (I immediately thought of Kaori) and how they don't know what to do with all that power, so if they open their mouths too wide they can lose control of their sound (also a tendency of Kaori 😂).

Kaori usually sounds really nice when she's using less power and focusing on control/blending and word-painting.
 
There arent much Jazzy songs with vocals in kajiura soundtracks except maybe the ones from pri-pri pandora hearts expanded, and hitorigoto the FJ song, but i would welcome vocal versions of bgms.:stars: (for example fireseeker with a song of storm n fire vocals.) or even the ones from vanitas.
 
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