Long time no see! And I'm off--

MiChi & The Telephones - Wonder Woman

Genre: new wave, pop-rock, electronic
Song style: catchy, dancey

Looking at this song, I actually wouldn't mind MiChi replacing The Telephones' vocalist! Seems like she's an indie songstress with a half-British, half-Japanese background. These guys made it briefly on the Oricon charts - congrats to them!

So as you can see, I've been MIA for quite some time. Being back at home got me into a routine that kept me away from Japanese indies - and I also wasn't running across any great gems. While I still have a long list waiting, I still want music to be excited about posting every once in a while! Things will continue to be irregular for a while. I leave for Japan in little over a day (almost exactly 36 hours!) I'm very excited :-) But I'll be moving around a lot for a while, so won't have internet access. But I'll definitely be discovering a lot of great music! So when I reconnect to the internet world, I will keep you posted.

Happy Birthday to DSK!

Rumania Montevideo - Still for your Love & 恋するベティー

Genre: alternative
Song style: girl alternative

This post is in honor of my friend, who's celebrating a birthday today! While it's already over by now in Japan, there's still an hour to go here in America. We were talking about songs from our childhoods that inspired our current music tastes, and this song came up. This is a very unique band that sadly had a short life - they were only active for three years (1999 - 2002). It's also pretty amazing to see a female drummer also be the main vocalist! While my friend has moved onto much heavier music (which I promise will be up here soon!), it's nice to reminisce on one's childhood every once in a while. How much has changed since this band was popular - it's been 11 years now. And imagine 11 years from now too, where will we all be...

Happy birthday, my dear friend! :-)

Bring out the electronics

いしわたり淳治 & 砂原良徳 + やくしまるえつこ - 神様のいうとおり

Genre: electronica
Song style: like a female Depeche Mode

Random coincidence of a song! It's been sitting on my list of songs to update probably because it made the Oricon rankings recently so I decided to look into it. It's very chill but I like the electronic vibe a lot. I'm a big Depeche Mode fan, and it really has a similar vibe. The producer for this song is one of my true loves - Ishiwatari Jyunji is the producer of a number of other amazing bands on here, including 9mm Parabellum Bullet, Chatmonchy, and A Flood of Circle. Yoshinori Sunahara is a talented electronic keyboardist, and singer Yakushimaru Etsuko is the vocalist of band Soutaiseiriron (相対性理論). I'll be checking out the three of these rigorously in the next days. Anyways, this song is apparently the theme song of the anime "四畳半神話大系" ("The Tatami Galaxy") about a college student of Kyoto University. Fits perfectly with the last post and my reminiscing of Kansai as I prepare for Kanto. Expect a continuing Kyoto theme (well for at least one more post)!

This was the hottest spring of the year

Princess Princess - 世界でいちばん熱い夏

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: 100% 80's female electro-pop

So this music isn't exactly "rock", "indies", or exactly my style but these girls are so cute!! There's something I just admire about them - a bunch of girls in the 80s in Japan standing up to stereotypes of what a band should be and going on to make tons of number one hits. They've inspired many of the female artists of today. I just saw a movie now where their popular song Diamonds appears in karaoke and I couldn't ignore it. These girls were active from 1983 - 1996. Cheers to days where we can just enjoy being silly princesses haha. Speaking of which, I'm starting cake decoration classes next week!

Gothic pink

Tommy Heavenly6 - Gothic Pink

Genre: hard rock, pop-rock
Song style: gothness and cuteness combined

This song comes out of one of Tomoko Kawase's many musical projects. She began as the vocalist for the band The Beautiful Green, but also began to pursue a solo career - first as pop artist Tommy February6, but then diverging into the second, more "rock and roll" character of Tommy Heavenly6. I like the mix of her cuteness but also the slightly hard edge to the music.

On a random other note, I'm finally graduating college in the next couple of days! I should be excited and nostalgic, but instead I feel antsy and a little negative. I hope the next days and my last weeks here come to a good, fulfilling close.

Flip

FLiP - ライラ

Genre: hard rock, alternative
Song style: a new kind of girls' rock

I randomly saw these gals during some Youtube browsing, and wow I'm impressed! Despite the plethora of female artists on this blog, I have a strong bias for male vocalists, especially in the genre of heavier rock music. But these girls from Okinawa do an amazing job of pulling it off, and give an interesting masculine yet feminine melodic vibe. I look forward to looking into more of their music. They released an album back in February that I'll try and get a hold of.
On random other notes, travel has come back into my life! This is my last day back at home before returning to school for graduation and some part-time work. And two days ago I bought tickets for a trip to Shanghai (with the World Expo) and Korea! I'm excited but a little nervous about what this year will have in store for me.

Tranny palindrome

中村中 - 事勿れ主義

Genre: jazz rock, pop-rock
Song style: powerful jazzy rock, sorta 90s ish

It's great when artists have a palindromic name (though only for reading, not for saying). I've had such a wonderful past week and have fulfilled much of my desires. Today went to a May Day festival and yesterday did some square dancing. :-) Anyways! Guess the big secret of Nakamura Ataru (this artist). She was born male! Yes indeed, here's a powerful female tranny singer - wow. Could you have been able to tell? It's a catchy video too, let's all not get knocked down by the people around us, etc etc. I discovered this song randomly while watching TV a year ago or so. Her other songs apparently tend to be either jazzy like this, or more like enka ballads. So I'm not sure if you would enjoy her other works, but this song is at least good for a playlist or two.

Somewhat old news but...

JinnyOops! - (clip from) HO!コミュニケーション

Genre: punk, ska
Song style: some serious female energy!!

So I know I saw this Osakan band about a month ago, but yesterday my friend just sent me the sample CD he got from the Boston Japan Nite show. I ended up only getting through half of the 9mm Parabellum Bullet album (liking it so far) but had a good time reminiscing with the sampler. And I realized, I really like JinnyOops!'s music. They're very talented and have such charisma that defies normal ideals of Japanese cuteness. Unfortunately this is only a clip of their awesome song HO!コミュニケーション but if you want to hear a full track, here's a fan-made music video. I really see this band going places. They released their first mini-album in February and hopefully will strike it big. They're also so friendly and sweet, especially the vocalist! I hope she enjoyed her time in America.

Note: I realize this combo of youtube and blogger has been cutting off the side of a lot of clips since youtube went widescreen. I'm looking into a solution!!

I can't

Olivia - できない

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: somewhat heavyish pop-rock

The name Olivia has been one of the strongest presences in my entire life. I'm glad to see the name has manifested itself as this half-American half-Japanese singer Olivia Lufkin. I received a collection of this gal's stuff from one of my closest friends a couple of years ago. Though some of it sounded predictable and some sounded amateur, something about it is endearing and catchy. I am also happy to see halfies succeed in the industry! This girl has gained popularity through her songs in the film Nana, though she is still mostly under the radar. So here's a post of girl-power - thanks to the Olivia in my life, and to the friend who gave me this other Olivia. I want to be done with the other gender. This friend and I will be going out tonight and hopefully fulfilling what we've been looking for.

Concert: Sakura matsuri part 2

情熱マリーとしゃぼん玉ハイスクール (Jonetsu Marie and Shabondama High School) - モーレツ!!調教ママ

Genre: ska, jazzy rock
Song style: a catchy song of a woman being tough

Turns out this band (what a crazy long name) will be playing at the Sakura Matsuri tomorrow in Washington DC! I like their song a lot better than Uzuhi's, gotta say. I could see them being really exciting and charismatic. I'll be there tomorrow. I hope the event is fun and not "fake Japanese".

Also anther band, Spirit + Noise will be performing tomorrow. They're a shamisen rock group (mainly instrumental). I'm not totally sure how I feel about them so I'll cover them after the show if they end up being good.

Anyone go see Dazzle Vision?

Dazzle Vision - HERE

Genre: hard rock, metal-ish
Song style: sounds like Utada Hikaru went metal

So did any of you see this group play at Sakura-con a couple of days ago in Seattle? I don't know much about this band and they haven't had any new releases since 2008, but I think they're a very respectable heavy group. I think the female vocalist is very talented. The band is still pretty underground (I mean look at the quality of their music videos) but deserve more appreciation. Today I woke up and felt so peaceful and loved. (And no, no one was there or anything!!) Hope you all feel that same feeling sometime this week as the weather becomes more beautiful and the cherry blossoms reach their peak.

Gamble on this rainy day

Shiina Ringo - Gamble

Genre: jazz rock
Song style: a powerful, sensual orchestral song

This is an amazing song by Shiina Ringo that comes off of the soundtrack for the movie "Sakuran" - which I highly recommend (it's essentially a Japanese Moulin Rouge, about geisha in surrealistic colors). A good pace to a stale day of what feels like almost 72 hours of rain thus far. She's also in the group Tokyo Jihen, which had a release last month (which I mentioned back in the day).
The past couple of days, Western music has found its way back onto my plate - I've been listening to Boards of Canada, Hot Chip, and Casey Desmond for various random reasons. Luckily I still have a long list of Japanese artists waiting their turn for a blog post, and I'm sure soon enough I'll return to the dark side. A couple of days ago I downloaded the Novembers album "picnic" and I have to say it unfortunately didn't impress me as much as expected (though I'm addicted to the song "ama retto").

Again

YUI - again

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: a cool gal rocking it out alternative-style

YUI is an extremely popular female singer/songwriter who walks the line of rock and pop in the catchiness but heartfeltness of her songs. If you know Japanese music, you've probably heard of her. Nevertheless, I'm a big fan of her songs (especially this and Love & Truth). Not much of a contemplative spin to add here, except that she's always been hovering around in the background in my exploration of music (I've always known about her but never really explored her). Sometimes her songs can get repetitive, but I have a deep respect for her. On a completely unrelated note, my computer's charger is broken and has been smoking so I'm awkwardly fooling around in the library right now...

Wacky day, not so wacky song

Chatmonchy - Last Love Letter

Genre: alternative, maybe shoegazing
Song style: high-pitched female vocals, good bass

I have to say from what I've heard so far, I find Chatmonchy a little bland. But I'm a big fan of the bass in this song, and it sort of grows on you (skip ahead a bit in the video by the way, it has a long intro). Today was strange, got a free salon haircut, had a free Italian dinner, then went to a Russian fashion show but got turned away because of my underage sister. Then got praised / yelled at by random homeless people. So many random strangers talked to us today, it was sort of annoying. And then as we were stuck in between stations in the train, I listened to some Rin Toshite Shigure as I watched an old man go senile through Sudoku, putting the same numbers next to each other and in the same squares. This video also explores senility versus youth (the only connection I can get to my day hehe). They will be performing at Japan Nite at San Fran, LA, and NY, as the most well-known band on the tour, so maybe both you and I should do more research on these gals.

The pale moon is laughing

fra-foa - 青白い月

Genre: hard rock
Song style: a pretty depressing heavy song, lots of raw emotion, female vocals

This song was one of my first exposures to Japanese music - I heard it on a random internet radio station back in the early 2000s and I thought it was amazing. In the following ten years, I never listened to any of their other songs or researched anything about the band but I still love the song. Today's an easy, lazy day but I thought I would mix up the flow of the blog with this track. Unfortunately, the band broke up in 2005 with the lead singer (Chisako Mikami) getting married and having a child. This song is about her younger brother who drowned to death... so sad! I hope your families all stay safe and sound during this spring break.

Love or Lies

Capsule - Love or Lies

Genre: trance, techno
Song Style: dancey trance

This song is in commemoration of the "Liar Game" movie coming out in theaters today in Japan. I really regret not being in Japan right now to be able to see it. I'm not usually much one for trance and I wasn't sure if I liked Capsule as much as Yasutaka Nakata's other projects, but I really like this song. It appears in the last episode of the "Liar Game 2" tv show (whose soundtrack came out March 3rd). As I listen to this song (and the most recent Rin Toshite Shigure album), I clean this room and pack my bags, my windows thrust open to the first 50 degree weather for the year. For the whole day I've been indecisive about whether to go to New York early or stay here. Either way, today is a sort of lonely day. I usually leave early on breaks, so it is strange seeing this town so deserted. Hopefully tomorrow's fun will make up for today's emptiness.

This band has such a bizarre name...

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs - このスピードの先へ

Genre: indie rock, according to Wikipedia "shoegazing"
Song style: sorta flowy, drifty, wailing music

I'm chilling now in my room, studying with my friend, getting ready to go to a male beauty pageant so I'll keep this short. It's been raining for days here. I chose this band because of the recent slew of male band posts and I wanted something where it was relatively easy to pick a video. I saw these girls perform as openers for 9mm Parabellum Bullet last year in a small club in Kyoto. They were very talented and their music was very passionate, but it all sort of follows the same tone as this song. I like the style, but more as background music than something for me to totally fall in love with. So it will be a good drifty band to support our lighthearted studying.

Go, Action!!!

Ego-Wrappin' - Go Action

Genre: jazz/funk rock
Song style: trippy, happy, swing-dancey, funky

Okay so I know I posted the jazziness of Tokyo Jihen very recently, but I promise this band is very different! This song is sort of trippy and I'd even put it closer to the same category of Far France. I woke up today with this stuck in my head and proceeded to listen to it on repeat while working on my homework (which is still not done after 3 hours, ugh!) I also downloaded their newest cd (2009) "Ego-Wrappin and the Gossip of Jaxx" and I like what I hear. Nice chill music. Strangely enough, I guess it's become my work tune. I first discovered this song while working at a research lab over the summer. I was alone in the back with a bunch of animals, me the only human, trudging away at my big desk and computer. So I went on little youtube trails where you hop along "Related Videos" and I discovered this catchy tune. I forgot about it completely until today when I needed something to make my programming problem set a little less painful.

You pour hot water in

東京事変 (Tokyo Jihen / Tokyo Incidents) - 能動的三分間

Genre: jazzy rock
Song style: groovy, jazzy, electronic, chill

This song made it into the top 100 of 2009 and is Tokyo Jihen's newest single, after a long break from the band. This catchy tune will be appearing on their new album "スポーツ" (Sports), which comes out a week from today on February 24, 2010. The singer, Shiina Ringo, has been in the music industry for a while and just gets better and better.

I remember saying goodbye to someone important to me for the last time and then going to a party. The party was fun enough, but they happened to put on "our song" and I couldn't enjoy it 100%. Around 1AM after all the trains and buses stopped running, I skipped the after party and had a relaxing, contemplative walk home. It took me about two hours, but a friend kept me company over the phone, searching online for places I could catch dinner that would still be open. I never eat ramen... but I settled into a Chinese food place, not realizing that was all they served. This song came over the radio and it was the best ramen I have ever had in my life.