“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside,” wrote the American author Maud Har Lovelace. Here is the front-runner artist of the city-pop genre which pleasantly goes with the rosy and grassy month of June. The four-member British indie band, PREP, is leading its listeners towards the trendy genre of city pop.

All four members of the band were already successful musicians in their own fields before becoming a group; Llywelyn ap Myrddi is a successful composer, Tom Havelock is a vocalist, Dan Radclyffe is an amazing guitarist nominated for a Grammy, and Guillaume Jambel is a drummer. These four people gradually gathered together with their shared love and passion towards music, and began uploading their music on Soundcloud, one of the most popular music platforms worldwide.

After their successful debut with the digital single, *Sunburnt Through the Glass* in November, 2015, their first Extended Play record (EP), *Futures*, with a total of four tracks, was released in 2016. Then, after a long period of waiting, their second EP, *Cold Fire*, was released in 2018 and is now considered one of their best albums due to the featuring of DEAN, one of the most popular rhythm and blues (R&B) singer-songwriters in Korea, and Reva Devito, an American artist also devoted to R&B. Moreover, in their following EP, *Line By Line*, Korean artists Shownu and So! YoON!, along with American guitarist Cory Wong, took part in featuring. PREP’s attempts to musically communicate with artists from different countries truly contribute to the originality and abundance of their music.

It is also worth noticing that PREP experiments with diverse musical genres in their albums. One of their most beloved songs, “Who’s got you singing again,” starts with a jazzy mood, and then funky guitar sounds slowly emerge throughout the song, maximizing the listening pleasure. The song “Pictures of you,” which was released on May 14, is characterized by the typical sound of electronic pop, but also diffuses with the deep soul of R&B. This also translates to their performance in Korea in 2018, where there were a total of six people on the stage. The other two people were musicians, James and John, who helped PREP in their album making. They played instruments that are not commonly used in pop songs (bass, saxophone, and flute) adding to the uniqueness of PREP’s music. Basically, the use of numerous musical instruments for the background is precisely what amplifies the very charm of the city-pop genre.

In an interview with Asialive365, PREP mentioned, “We can happily take more than a year to finish a song. No one is kind of rushing us.” This can be explained by how the diversity of their musical backgrounds creates a lot of discrepancies in musical opinions within the group. Their fans likewise pleasantly embrace the wait as they know that they will be given a wonderful prize at the end, just like the saying “better late than never.”

“Keep losing my mind at the end of the night, but it always comes back to you.” These lyrics to their song “Pictures of you” speak to big fans of the genre of city pop since they always seem to come back to PREP to satisfy their music taste. Even if you are not a fan of this genre, you can still enjoy the melodious sounds and fresh moods of a night in June through PREP’s music. It will present to you an image of a crisp, clear night.