L'Arc-en-Ciel (ラルク アン シエル raruku an shieru?) is a Japanese rock band that formed in Osaka in 1991. The bands name is French for "The Rainbow" or literally "The Arch in The Sky" and is often abbreviated to Laruku (ラルク).
Following the Awake and Asia Live tours, L'Arc-en-Ciel's members turned their attention back to their solo projects. Tetsu began recording with a new band called Creature Creature. Yukihiro rejoined Acid Android, which released its newest single, "Let's Dance", on April 5, 2006. Acid Android joined Mucc, another Japanese rock band, to perform two concerts in Shanghai, China in April of 2006.
Hyde composed "Glamorous Sky", the theme song to the film adaption of the manga Nana starring pop singer Mika Nakashima. It was the first time Hyde composed music for another vocalist. Hyde's most recent solo singles are "Countdown", the ending song for the Japanese release of the American movie Stealth (released on October 5, 2005), and "Season's Call", the opening song of the anime Blood+ (released February 22, 2006). Both singles topped the Oricon charts.
Hyde's latest solo album, Faith, was released in Japan on April 26, 2006, accompanied by a five month tour throughout Japan between April and August of 2006. After signing on with Tofu Records, four small concerts were scheduled in San Francisco and Anaheim, California in the United States. Hyde made his U.S. debut in July of 2006, the first of L'Arc-en-Ciel's solo projects to extend internationally. On August 23, Ken released a solo single entitled "Speed".
On November 25th and 26th, 2006, L'Arc-en-Ciel played two shows at the Tokyo Dome to celebrate their 15th anniversary, entitled L'Anniversary. A poll was created on the official website during the weeks before the concert which allowed fans to pick which songs they would like to hear at the event. The concert was later shown on the WOWOW channel on December 23, 2006. It was also broadcast on February 8, 2007 on Korea MTV.
L'Arc-en-Ciel later recorded the song "Shine" to be used as the opening song for the NHK-BS Anime, Guardian of the Sacred Spirit, however it has yet to be released as a single. They kicked-off their Mata Heart Ni Hi Wo Tsukero 2007 tour in Japan. L'Arc-en-Ciel released the single Seventh Heaven on May 30, 2007, which topped the Oricon charts for 2 consecutive weeks.[citation needed] The song My Heart Draws a Dream was used in a Subaru commercial, and was released as a single on August 29, 2007 and it made the #1 spot in the Oricon Weekly charts.
The song Daybreak's Bell was used as the first opening for the anime Mobile Suit Gundam 00, and it was released as a single on October 10th, topping the Oricon weekly charts as well. From November 14 to December 25 there was a limited edition single titled Hurry Xmas, along with two new DVDs coming out in September and December, titled 15th L'Anniversary Live and Chronicle 3 respectively. The single Drink It Down, which was released on April 2, 2008, topped the oricon charts and was used as the Japanese opening song for the PS3/Xbox360 game Devil May Cry 4.
Following the release of the album Kiss on November 21, L'Arc-en-Ciel announced a tour called Theater of Kiss, which was held from December 22 to February 17, 2007.
They recorded a new song, Nexus 4, which was used for Subaru Legacy commercial. They will be releasing this song on a double A-side single together with SHINE on August 27, 2008 along with TOUR 2007-2008 THEATER OF KISS DVD.
Recently, they've concluded their TOUR 2008 L'7 ~TRANS ASIA via PARIS~ which was held in 7 Major Cities in 6 countries/territories [ Shanghai (China) - Taipei (Taiwan) - Paris (France) - Seoul (South Korea) - Hongkong - Tokyo-Osaka (Japan) ] starting from April 19 to June 8, 2008. On this tour, they've announced a definite live show hiatus until 2011.
Currently, marking the continuation of their solo works, Hyde joined K.A.Z of Oblivion Dust in their new project VAMPS.
Currently, marking the continuation of their solo works, Hyde joined K.A.Z of Oblivion Dust in their new project VAMPS.
