They are playing like schoolgirls, bouncing a balloon-shaped teddy-bear off each other and gaily dancing about in front of the Kiddy Ferris Wheel (admission 100 yen) for the lone press camera.
If Japanese folk duo Nika Soup and Saya Source look giddily excited, it is because they are about to perform at the launch party of their debut album, "Ipiya." Over 19 songs, these two seemingly ordinary young women sing sinister nursery rhymes and shamanistic hymns to a minimal backdrop of playfully strummed acoustic guitars, organ, recorder, simple drum machine beats and a taiko drum.
" 'Ipiya' is a word we made up," says Nika about the idea behind the album. "We concocted a story about a tribe of people, 'Ipiya-zoku' and what it would be like if the Ipiya people went to the mountains, and had their own festival. So we made an album as a soundtrack to that."