Gus and Jamie grew up in the suburbs south of London and went to school together. In search for a new band member, they posted advertisements, including on MixB, an online bulletin board for Japanese expatriates, largely due to their interest in Japanese rap. They selected Sarah based on her background in art, and their interest in her bilingual ability. Although she had collaborated with a Japanese girl group previously, Sarah did not have a background in professional singing; instead, she was interested in collaborating with Gus and Jamie simply because she "wanted to try it".
The band released their debut mixtape Intro Bonito through Double Denim Records in August 2014. They wrote many of their songs featured on the mixtape using a Casio SA-45 mini-keyboard. The band also contributed "Flamingo" to Ryan Hemsworth's compilation EP shh#ffb6c1. In September 2014, Kero Kero Bonito released Bonito Recycling, a compilation of Intro Bonito remixes by artists including Danny L Harle and Spazzkid.
On October 21, 2016, their official debut album Bonito Generation was released through Double Denim Records. The album featured previous singles such as "Picture This" released in March 2015, "Lipslap" released in February 2016 and "Break" released in June 2016.
On February 12, 2018, the band released their single Only Acting which featured a more darker, rock-influenced style compared to their previous releases. On February 20, 2018, the band released their EP, TOTEP. The EP included the aforementioned single Only Acting, and other songs following the rock-influenced style. On May 8, 2018, the band released the single Time Today, and announced their second studio album, Time 'n' Place, which was released on October 1, 2018 The album was inspired by radical changes in the band's personal lives and featured a similar sound to TOTEP.
On July 8, 2019, the band uploaded "KKB Life" to their YouTube channel, a vlog video recorded during the Time 'n' Place era, announcing that a new era is starting. They later released the single When the Fires Come in September 2019 and their EP Civilisation I later that month. The EP and lead single featured an electronic style, similar to the band's production in their earlier work. In 2020, the band wrote and performed It's Bugsnax!, the theme song for the video game Bugsnax, which was featured in its announcement trailer. The members of the band recorded their parts of the song remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On April 21, 2021, Kero Kero Bonito published their EP Civilisation II, a sequel to their previous EP Civilisation I, after releasing the single The Princess and the Clock earlier on February 24, 2021. This EP continued the electronic style the band established in the first EP. On September 10, 2021, the band published a compilation, Civilisation, combining EPs Civilisation I and Civilisation II, with the added track Gateway in between them.
Outside
Kero Kero Bonito Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I see the leaves getting dewy
They're breathing
Fresh air awakens everything
While the winds are barging through
They greet you
Like any other morning
Landing on cue
I hear the drizzle coming down
And then I realize in all of my life
I don't think that I remember it
Being so vivid
One, two, three, four
Five, six miles away
I wonder if they notice over there?
Until the light throws colors across the vista
Piling so high they reach out of sight
To heaven
The first two lines of Kero Kero Bonito's song "Outside" describe the singer's perception of the world around them with the arrival of rain. The mention of smelling rain is interesting because it's a more unique sense to talk about in reference to weather. The dew on the leaves, and the mention of everything "breathing" presents the idea that the rain is bringing life and refreshing energy to everything around it. The next two lines mention "fresh air awakens" and the "winds are barging through". Here, the singer describes how the rain and accompanying natural elements greet people who are outside. This suggests that the rain has brought people outside, and they are interacting with the natural world.
The next lines continue to describe the morning outside, with the singer asserting that it is like "any other morning". However, the use of "landing on cue" could contradict this. It sounds like the singer is waiting for something to happen, and it has happened now as expected. Perhaps the arrival of rain marks the beginning of something new or important for the singer. The next section about hearing the drizzle coming down is interesting because it is then noted that the singer does not remember the rain ever being so "vivid". This is another unique descriptor of weather which makes the listener wonder what the singer means by "vivid". Lastly, the song ends with the idea of light bringing colors which are piling up and reaching towards the sky, a beautiful and somewhat mystical image.
Line by Line Meaning
I think I smell the rain again
I sense the refreshing smell of rain in the air
I see the leaves getting dewy
I observe the wetness accumulating on the leaves due to the moisture in the air
They're breathing
The leaves seem to be alive and exhaling as a result of the fresh air
Fresh air awakens everything
The pure and clean air energizes all living things
While the winds are barging through
The strong gusts of wind are moving rapidly and forcefully
They greet you
The winds welcome you into their presence
Outside here
I am currently outside
Like any other morning
This particular morning seems like a typical one
Landing on cue
Everything seems to be happening exactly as it should be
I hear the drizzle coming down
I can hear the light rain starting to fall
And then I realize in all of my life
It dawns on me that throughout my entire existence
I don't think that I remember it
I can't recall ever experiencing this same sensation before
Being so vivid
The details of the current moment are incredibly clear and intense
One, two, three, four
Counting in succession
Five, six miles away
Somewhere distant, around five or six miles from my current location
I wonder if they notice over there?
I ponder if the individuals in that far-off place have also taken notice of this climatic event
Until the light throws colors across the vista
As the sun rises, its light illuminates the surroundings with various hues
Piling so high they reach out of sight
The colors become so abundant that they fill up the entire field of vision
To heaven
The colors seem to travel beyond the sky, towards the heavens above
Contributed by Kaylee C. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@petsnrocks
For those who find the change of KKB's sound on Time 'n' Place jarring, here's the press release to better contextualize it:
The sophomore full-length from Kero Kero Bonito, Time ‘n’ Place is an album ineffably shaped by the subconscious. Lead singer and chief lyricist Sarah Bonito (who was raised in the suburbs on the Japanese island Hokkaido) found herself rattled in recent years by recurring images in her dreams: a water park from when she was little, a hallway in her primary school. After those dreams started, she also received an unexpected photo from her brother: a picture of a plot of bare land that once held her childhood home, the house now demolished. (“I felt like I’d lost something, even though I didn’t know I needed it,” she says.) And in another heartbreak for Sarah, 2017 saw the death of her beloved childhood pet, a boy budgie named Nana whom she received soon after moving to the UK at age 13.
At the same time, Sarah’s fellow KKB members experienced some life-changing upheaval, including the loss of several close family members. So when the London trio began writing again, they felt compelled to diverge from the carefree sensibilities of their early work (a form of kitsch electro-pop that jumbled up lo-fi dance music with bilingual lyrics, British TV references, and stories about animals). Resuming a very teenage and visceral approach to making music, KKB effectively morphed into a band, with Sarah on vocals, Jamie on bass, Gus on drums, and their friend James Rowland on guitar. Their debut for Polyvinyl, Time ‘n’ Place is a document of that band finding its voice, a coming-of-age story told in warped guitar solos, shining melodies, unnervingly tender lyrics about yogurt and seafoam and feral parakeets.
Though much of Time ‘n’ Place was self-produced in Gus’s bedroom in the London suburb of Bromley, it was also partly recorded by Jimmy Robertson (Arctic Monkeys, Fuck Buttons) and Stereolab drummer Andy Ramsay (King Krule, Wire) at Ramsay’s Press Play Studio in South London. Along with Rowland, the album features contributions from noise/electronic musician Jennifer Walton, a string arrangement by composer Calum Bowen (aka bo en), and a three-part choir made up of Cecile Believe, Oscar Scheller, and Crying’s z (aka Elaiza Santos). Built on the same volatile energy that’s made KKB’s live shows famously mosh-heavy, Time ‘n’ Place collages those elements together in a sound that’s both chaotic as punk and symphonic as ’60s pop.
For KKB the urgency of Time ‘n’ Place was imperative—they needed to process their pain and confusion in frantic, kinetic movements, and bashing away on drums and guitars felt more fitting than assembling songs on a laptop. It’s also much more true to their upbringing as musicians, back when Gus and Jamie were growing up in the South London suburbs and played in garage bands together all during their school days. With the added vision and otherworldly voice of Sarah—who spent her adolescence in the UK town of Kenilworth, and met Gus and Jamie on a web forum five years ago—the classically dissident music of their indie-rock forebears takes on weirder and more wonderful textures and colors, giving way to something dreamy and transcendent but not without its nightmare moments.
While loss of innocence is an overriding theme on Time ‘n’ Place, the album is weighted with existential reflections of all kinds. “Make Believe” is partly about lucid dreaming, but it’s also about self-inflicted anxiety, and the danger in slipping into fantasy as a way to escape fear. “Time Today” is about waking up early and feeling determined to make the most of the day, and the sad/sweet naïveté of that optimism in the face of self-sabotage. “Only Acting” follows a social-media-age identity crisis, the song itself coming unhinged as its narrator spins out of control. And on “Dear Future Self,” KKB examine their worries about the state of the world, bending time by including a line about global warming in a song styled toward Brill Building pop.
Elsewhere on Time ‘n’ Place, KKB look into multiverse theory (on “If I’d Known,” a Randy Newman-inspired song featuring a verse rapped by Jamie) and the shift in perspective that comes with getting older (on “Swimming,” a bittersweet tribute to singer-songwriter Yumi Matsutoya). Recorded with a gang of their dearest friends, all singing together in a ragtag chorus, “Sometimes” is a tear-jerkingly hopeful song about pushing through depression. An album concerned with the sanctity of physical space in an increasingly virtual world, Time ‘n’ Place also speaks to the thrill of going outside (on “Outside”), the tranquility of the town dump (on “Dump”), and the surreal stillness of a deserted rest stop (on “Rest Stop,” a track that finishes the album in a beautifully glitched-out non-ending).
Within the cartography of Time ‘n’ Place, the most important space is the suburbs, an aspect of their shared past that KKB find infinitely formative. As kids, each member quickly learned the need to invent their own wildness and excitement, embracing misfit status in a place where any form of self-expression could be seen as aberrant. That iconoclastic spirit has carried over to KKB’s current role in the musical landscape, with Time ‘n’ Place partly conceived as a reaction against the sterility of playlist culture. It’s a sublimely untidy album, anarchic but balletic in grace, music born from willful imagination and a sense of purpose best captured in the band’s own words: “More than ever music needs to be set free, because it can be anything, so we just decided to do whatever the fuck we wanted.”
@samhenson8177
I think I smell the rain again
I see the leaves getting dewy
They're breathing
Fresh air awakens everything
While the winds are barging through
They greet you
Outside here
Like any other morning
Landing on cue
I hear the drizzle coming down
And then I realise in all of my life
I don't think that I remember it being
So vivid
One two three four five six miles away
I wonder if they notice over there?
Until the light
Throws colours across the vista
Piling so high they reach out of sight
To heaven
@macacoartico42
Creo que huelo la lluvia otra vez
I think I smell the rain again
Veo que las hojas se humedecen
I see the leaves getting dewy
Estan respirando
They're breathing
El aire fresco lo despierta todo
Fresh air awakens everything
Mientras los vientos atraviesan
While the winds are barging through
Te saludan
They greet you
Afuera aqui
Outside here
Como cualquier otra mañana
Like any other morning
Aterrizando en el momento justo
Landing on cue
Oigo caer la llovizna
I hear the drizzle coming down
Y luego me doy cuenta en toda mi vida
And then I realise in all of my life
No creo que lo recuerde siendo
I don't think that I remember it being
Tan vívido
So vivid
Uno dos tres CUATRO
One two three four…
@thelittletyrant5539
Союз нерушимый республик свободных
Сплотила навеки Великая Русь.
Да здравствует созданный волей народов
Единый, могучий Советский Союз!
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы, народов надежный оплот!
Знамя советское, знамя народное
Пусть от победы, к победе ведет!
@petsnrocks
For those who find the change of KKB's sound on Time 'n' Place jarring, here's the press release to better contextualize it:
The sophomore full-length from Kero Kero Bonito, Time ‘n’ Place is an album ineffably shaped by the subconscious. Lead singer and chief lyricist Sarah Bonito (who was raised in the suburbs on the Japanese island Hokkaido) found herself rattled in recent years by recurring images in her dreams: a water park from when she was little, a hallway in her primary school. After those dreams started, she also received an unexpected photo from her brother: a picture of a plot of bare land that once held her childhood home, the house now demolished. (“I felt like I’d lost something, even though I didn’t know I needed it,” she says.) And in another heartbreak for Sarah, 2017 saw the death of her beloved childhood pet, a boy budgie named Nana whom she received soon after moving to the UK at age 13.
At the same time, Sarah’s fellow KKB members experienced some life-changing upheaval, including the loss of several close family members. So when the London trio began writing again, they felt compelled to diverge from the carefree sensibilities of their early work (a form of kitsch electro-pop that jumbled up lo-fi dance music with bilingual lyrics, British TV references, and stories about animals). Resuming a very teenage and visceral approach to making music, KKB effectively morphed into a band, with Sarah on vocals, Jamie on bass, Gus on drums, and their friend James Rowland on guitar. Their debut for Polyvinyl, Time ‘n’ Place is a document of that band finding its voice, a coming-of-age story told in warped guitar solos, shining melodies, unnervingly tender lyrics about yogurt and seafoam and feral parakeets.
Though much of Time ‘n’ Place was self-produced in Gus’s bedroom in the London suburb of Bromley, it was also partly recorded by Jimmy Robertson (Arctic Monkeys, Fuck Buttons) and Stereolab drummer Andy Ramsay (King Krule, Wire) at Ramsay’s Press Play Studio in South London. Along with Rowland, the album features contributions from noise/electronic musician Jennifer Walton, a string arrangement by composer Calum Bowen (aka bo en), and a three-part choir made up of Cecile Believe, Oscar Scheller, and Crying’s z (aka Elaiza Santos). Built on the same volatile energy that’s made KKB’s live shows famously mosh-heavy, Time ‘n’ Place collages those elements together in a sound that’s both chaotic as punk and symphonic as ’60s pop.
For KKB the urgency of Time ‘n’ Place was imperative—they needed to process their pain and confusion in frantic, kinetic movements, and bashing away on drums and guitars felt more fitting than assembling songs on a laptop. It’s also much more true to their upbringing as musicians, back when Gus and Jamie were growing up in the South London suburbs and played in garage bands together all during their school days. With the added vision and otherworldly voice of Sarah—who spent her adolescence in the UK town of Kenilworth, and met Gus and Jamie on a web forum five years ago—the classically dissident music of their indie-rock forebears takes on weirder and more wonderful textures and colors, giving way to something dreamy and transcendent but not without its nightmare moments.
While loss of innocence is an overriding theme on Time ‘n’ Place, the album is weighted with existential reflections of all kinds. “Make Believe” is partly about lucid dreaming, but it’s also about self-inflicted anxiety, and the danger in slipping into fantasy as a way to escape fear. “Time Today” is about waking up early and feeling determined to make the most of the day, and the sad/sweet naïveté of that optimism in the face of self-sabotage. “Only Acting” follows a social-media-age identity crisis, the song itself coming unhinged as its narrator spins out of control. And on “Dear Future Self,” KKB examine their worries about the state of the world, bending time by including a line about global warming in a song styled toward Brill Building pop.
Elsewhere on Time ‘n’ Place, KKB look into multiverse theory (on “If I’d Known,” a Randy Newman-inspired song featuring a verse rapped by Jamie) and the shift in perspective that comes with getting older (on “Swimming,” a bittersweet tribute to singer-songwriter Yumi Matsutoya). Recorded with a gang of their dearest friends, all singing together in a ragtag chorus, “Sometimes” is a tear-jerkingly hopeful song about pushing through depression. An album concerned with the sanctity of physical space in an increasingly virtual world, Time ‘n’ Place also speaks to the thrill of going outside (on “Outside”), the tranquility of the town dump (on “Dump”), and the surreal stillness of a deserted rest stop (on “Rest Stop,” a track that finishes the album in a beautifully glitched-out non-ending).
Within the cartography of Time ‘n’ Place, the most important space is the suburbs, an aspect of their shared past that KKB find infinitely formative. As kids, each member quickly learned the need to invent their own wildness and excitement, embracing misfit status in a place where any form of self-expression could be seen as aberrant. That iconoclastic spirit has carried over to KKB’s current role in the musical landscape, with Time ‘n’ Place partly conceived as a reaction against the sterility of playlist culture. It’s a sublimely untidy album, anarchic but balletic in grace, music born from willful imagination and a sense of purpose best captured in the band’s own words: “More than ever music needs to be set free, because it can be anything, so we just decided to do whatever the fuck we wanted.”
@explorythe4537
Thanks now I understand
@jopparow
You seriously think I'm reading all that?
@fallingpizza11
ah yes, it's all so clear now!
@AllisonDeereVR
I understand. I let anyone that makes music do what they want tbh its their choice
@archivehans
Dear god i don't think anyone else could get so noided so fast.
and they meet on a internet forum lol
@idgaflolxx
Am I the only one that cries at this song? I think the way they describe wind through the lyrics is astonishingly beautiful. This as an intro song is perfect.
@infort3354
this i like my comfort song, it helped me go through a lot of shit, i used to listen to it when i was sad and the tears of sadness became tears of joy
@bonirbonir92
the harmony on the line at 0:50 is so unbelievably gorgeous, I have to go and play it back over and over whenever i listen, i literally cant stop myself
@wazakk21
This opening track goes soo hard.. I'm 4 years late , just discovered KKB and totally in love with their music...