marble

marble is a Japanese musical duo, originally named The Student's and formed in 1999. The members, Micco and Tatsuya Kikuchi, met and became friends while they were both enrolled in music school. Kikuchi was the main musical support for Micco at that time, who was acting as a solo artist. As they got to know each other better, they decided that they could both make better music if they performed together, and formed The Student's. After getting signed to Warner Music Group's indie label in 1999, they had two releases, but got increasingly more involved in production for other artists and gradually did less and less of their own activities. However, the urge to write and perform their own music came back, and to commemorate this change in attitude, they resigned from the company and renamed themselves 'marble' in 2003 and played shows with a backup band, but they split from the band in 2005, and Micco and Kikuchi continued their performances as a duo. Since their major debut in 2007 with Lantis, they have had a number of releases, including their first album in February 2008. Their songs have been featured in such anime as Hidamari Sketch, Kamichama Karin, KimiKiss pure rouge and Tamayura ~hitotose~. Their sound is described as calm and soothing "organic pop", most likely because they use very few synthesized instruments and the main instrument is an acoustic guitar.