Aoi Shiori

The sound here is guitar-forward indie rock in the specifically Japanese mode that developed in the mid-2000s — bright jangly chords with enough reverb to suggest distance, a drumkit that hits hard but not aggressively, a bass line that supports without calling attention to itself. The production is clean in a way that suggests recording-studio discipline applied to sounds that feel like they belong in a smaller space, and the result is music that breathes. The vocalist's delivery is characteristically youthful and unguarded — slightly rough at the edges, the kind of voice that hasn't yet smoothed itself into professionalism and is better for it. The subject is summer and loss, specifically the way summer returns to mark time passing and the absence of people who are no longer there to share it. The song became the opening theme for an anime about grief and unfinished goodbyes, and the fit between the music and that subject is near-perfect: both operate by accumulation, both circle around the thing they mean without quite touching it directly. Galileo Galilei, the band, came to wider attention partly through this placement and went on to a significant career before disbanding — this song is a document of a specific youthful ability to feel things simply and translate that feeling into sound without overthinking it. Listen to it in late summer, with the window open.