Rising

The Yoshida Brothers - Rising

Genre: shamisen rock
Song style: cool traditionalness turned edgy

I love this concept, seeing these guys in hakamas rocking out on the shamisen with a rock crew backing them up. These guys are pretty big names in Japan, and I'm thinking America too because of their novelty. Not much to say about them other than they released an album last year called Prism. I saw some relative of theirs perform at the Toyota showcase in Odaiba wayyy back when. Perhaps another brother dun dun dun. Today was a very traditional day for me - had some delicious yudofu, and an ikura and uni donburi, so here's some "traditional" music to celebrate it.

Goodbye again

Toe - グッドバイ

Genre: instrumental, math rock
Song style: very chill and contemplative, one of their few vocal songs

There are so many songs out there entitled goodbye. In Japanese there are so many ways to say it - バイバイ,グッドバイ, じゃあね,また今度,さようなら,... I guess any language has a lot. I wonder how many times the average person says goodbye in a day? I must have made a record. Goodbye DS, goodbye KL, goodbye AL, goodbye exams, goodbye professors, goodbye trees, goodbye dining hall, goodbye dorm, goodbye college. I'll be back in a couple weeks but it won't be the same since everyone else will be missing. This group toe makes a lot of wispy, contemplative songs for a breezy summer day. Most of it's instrumental - for example, this is the only song with vocals off their mini-album "New Sentimentality". They're classified as "math rock" because of their complex beats but is so different from the other math rock stuff I've heard cause that stuff is usually very heavy. Cheers to our stop-motion lives.

Point

Cornelius - Drop

Genre: ambient, electronica, experimental
Song style: drops of sound building up to a waterfall

Cornelius makes amazing music for studying (yes that's a compliment hehe). His music is very atmospheric and should really be experienced as a full CD playing in the background as you focus on something, rather than as single songs or even music videos. It's something you absorb rather than concentrate on. He's highly respected in the music community (apparently ranked by HMV as Japan's #43 top musician). If you want an accurate taste of Cornelius, I recommend checking out their album "Point" with other gems like "Smoke" and "Point of Viewpoint". A calming happy close to my time here at home.

PS - I'll be at Japan Nite tomorrow night in NY. Hope to see you there! ;-)

Catchy music from dramas: Liar Game

中田ヤスタカ　(Yasutaka Nakata) - Liar Game

I'm a big fan of Japanese dramas, and one of my favorites right now is Liar Game (I'm on season 2 right now). It's a very psychological drama that makes you think and work on your logic skills!

One thing that really impressed me is the soundtrack of the show. The intro to Liar Game 1 is my favorite song of the week, and the way it integrates with the show makes you feel like a super smart detective when you listen to it (hehe). Here's a video showing what the intros of the two seasons looks like. I love how season 2's intro is just a mild variation on the first one.



Here's the entire intro to season one if you want to feel like you're rockin it out in outer space:



The music is composed by 中田ヤスタカ, a really famous artist in the music scene right now. He's most well-known for composing for chart-topping girl electro-pop group Perfume, and also for the more "indie" group capsule. I'll post more of his music as the topic comes around!

Who needs vocals

Pia-no-jaC - 台風　(Typhoon)

Genre: piano rock
Song style: powerful, jazzy, makes you want to flamenco!

I'm not much of a music-without-vocals fan, but I just couldn't ignore Pia-no-jaC. Every couple of weeks in Kyoto, I would buy a small pastry and stop by the sad and deserted shopping mall Shinpuukan. MTV Japan would blast on the large screen and vibrant, fancy stores were open to the nonexistent customers who came by. I always came here for this one gag-gift store on the second floor, to buy up weird goods like miso-flavored toothpaste or kanji-practice toilet paper. This song from Pia-no-jaC would always be playing. I thought it was cool but slightly a one-trick pony. I came back to Japan over half a year later, and visited this store again. The same song was playing and then I knew I just had to get their cd. This Osakan band does cool renditions of popular classical songs as well, and recently released a second cd on that theme. Please check them out!