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ナンバーガール (NUMBER GIRL)

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Note: This review covers both volumes of Omoide In My Head 2 ~Kiroku Series~.

Number Girl live albums don’t not offer any new insights to the band’s music. There are few extended jam sessions to capture, fewer wild departures from what’s heard in the studio.

Number Girl live albums don’t serve the same purpose as, say, Grateful Dead or Phish live albums do. They don’t capture singular moments never to be replicated at other performances. They don’t commemorate audience reaction.

Number Girl’s performance of “Toomei Shoojo” from one show is bound to sound the same as another performance months or years later.

So why is a Number Girl live album such a commodity? Pretty much for one reason — the chemistry of the band’s four members reaches far beyond the stage, the amplifiers, the magnetic tape, or the digital bits.

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Number Girl releases DVD box set in September

Source: Bounce.com

Number Girl will release a DVD box set on Sept. 28. The 4-disc set includes complete footage of the band’s previous live albums, Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai and Sapporo Omoide In My Head Jootai (last live), plus other special programming. The box set continues the reissue campaign, Omoide In My Head Project, started to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the band’s formation. Number Girl disbanded in 2002.

Spiral Chord releases debut album in April

Source: Bounce.com

Since January 2004, ex-Number Girl bassist Nakao Kentaro has been a member of a new band named Spiral Chord. The band was formed in 2003 by Chikurin Gendou of Cowpers and Hera of 200MPH. Spiral Chord releases its debut album, Noonai Friction on April 27. The album includes completed versions of all five songs found on the band’s demo tape sold at its live shows. In addition to four new songs, Spiral Chord covers the Ramones’ “I Wanna Live”. Spiral Chord first appeared on the Rocket from the Crypt tribute album, A Case of RFTC Junkies, which also included Naht and BBQ Chickens.

Ahito Inazawa forms new band

Source: Bounce.com

After leaving Zazen Boys at the end of 2004, drummer Ahito Inazawa announced the formation of a new band named Vola and the Oriental Machine. Inazawa, going by the moniker Vola, takes on vocal, guitar and drumming duties for his new band. Inazawa’s bandmates include guitarist Aoki Yutaka (downy), bassist Arie Yoshinori and drummer Nakahata Daiki (syrup 16g).

In related news, Spiral Chord, featuring former Number Girl bandmate Nakao Kentaro, releases its debut album, Noonai Friction, on April 27.

Number Girl releases best album in March

Source: Bounce.com

Number Girl will release a two-disc best album on March 2. Disc one includes the band’s most popular songs, while disc two includes b-sides. Although the band’s official site was shut down after its dissolution in 2002, it will be relaunched for a limited time to commemorate the release of the new album. After the band’s break-up, singer and main songwriter Mukai Shuutoku went on to form Zazen Boys, while guitarist Tabuchi Hisako joined bloodthirsty butchers.

Audience participation encouraged

When Number Girl released its first live album, Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai, back in 1999, it was obvious they were playing to a small but devoted crowd.

The audience noise was supportive, but it wouldn’t have reached the decibel level of, say, an ‘NSync concert from the same time frame.

The ensuing years would find the band drawing larger crowds and sold-out shows, but just as the momentum was building, Number Girl called it quits in October 2002, when bassist Nakao Kentaro announced he was leaving the band.

Sapporo Omoide In My Head Jootai, a recording of the band’s final performance in November 2002, shows how far Number Girl had gone — and how much further it could have.

This time, the audience was very much into the music. They chant as Mukai Shuutoku hammers at the opening chords of “I don’t know”. They sing along with Mukai on “Teppu Surudoku Natte”, complete with a loud “Hey!” when drummer Ahito Inazawa kicks in with a beat.

They know the lyrics to “Zegen vs. Underground”. They count down with Inazawa on “Toomei Shoojo”.

Guitarist Tabuchi Hisako is definitely a role model among the women in the audience, who call out “Hisako-chan!” after a particularly shredding performance of “Haikara Gurui”.

Few bands sound as good — if not better — than its recordings, but coupled with an enthusiastic audience, a live performance such as the one documented on Sapporo Omoide In My Head Jootai becomes an experience.

The band’s set list skews heavily toward recent works. “Omoide In My Head” and “Iggy Pop Fan Club” are the only representatives from the band’s 1997 indie debut, School Girl Bye Bye. Number Girl does include a number of single-only tracks and b-sides (“Sentimental Girl’s Violent Joke”, “Destruction Baby”). “Samurai” would have been a nice addition to that list.

There aren’t, however, any wild re-arrangements in the set — no transformations on the level of the 10-minute mindfuck “Zazenbeats Kemonostyle” from the cassette-only Kiroku Series. The band even plays “Destruction Baby” straight, no dub beats.

“Urban Guitar Sayonara” gets a bit of tweak on the count that the band didn’t bring an electric piano for Mukai to pound. (See the live DVD Sawayaka na Ensoo.)

Still, it’s sad to think Sapporo Omoide In My Head is the last album this quartet may ever release. Number Girl is — was one of the loudest, tightest bands on the planet. The fireworks Mukai, Tabuchi, Nakao and Inazawa produced was palpatable as it was special.

Cross your fingers for a reunion sometime down the line.

Gang of four, Japanese style

Number Girl may have recorded some incredible albums, but the band cuts its teeth in live shows.

Jump on a file sharing network, and more than likely, fans will be trading audience recordings of Number Girl concerts.

Back in 2001, Number Girl tied fans over between albums by releasing two live products — a DVD titled Sawayakaneso and a cassette tape titled Kiroku Series.

Kiroku Series is only available at the band’s gigs, which is a shame — the performances captured here practically blow the quartet’s 1999 live album, Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai, out of the water.

Number Girl is nothing if not precise. Ahito Inazawa is perhaps the best drummer to come around since Smashing Pumpkins’ Jimmy Chamberlain graced a kit. He and bassist Nakao Kentaro 27-sai are locked in tight over the twin-guitar attack of Tabuchi Hisako and vocalist/songwriter Mukai Shutoku.

When all four of them tear into the opening of “Omoide in My Head” or hammer away at the pounding rhythm of “Drunk Afternoon”, it’s revelatory.

Those comparrisons to Gang of Four aren’t all far off.

When Number Girl released Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai, it had only two albums of material to draw from. Essentially, it was School Girl Distortional Addict live.

Kiroku Series still limits itself to the band’s major label work, but the set list feels more diverse.

That’s because there’s more to draw from, such as single-only songs “Drunk Afternoon”, “Haikara Gurui” and “Destruction Baby”, a metal song turned Police-like dub for this recording.

But the real treat is the band’s 10-minute rendition of “Zazenbeats Kemonostyle”, a song Number Girl contributed to a movie soundtrack.

The original song had a quirky rhythm and seemed to meander a bit. Performed live, “Zazenbeats Kemonostyle” transforms into a hulking wall of sound, with Mukai screaming himself hoarse. It’s an impassioned reading, one so riveting, 10 minutes seems too short.

The existence of that track alone makes the tape’s limited availability almost criminal. However much it’s uncool to advocate file sharing, this performance justifies the effort to find the entire album online.

Maybe one day Kiroku Series will be released on a wider scale. Let’s hope Number Girl doesn’t top itself with an ever better live recording.

Fat chance that’ll happen.

Praise weird heavy metal

Given his uncanny ability to layer singable melodies over dissonant chords, Number Girl leader Mukai Shutoku could have gone in one of two directions: more accessible or more weird.

On Num-Heavymetallic, he’s definitely chosen the latter route.

Right from the start — with the title track opening the album — all is not normal. Guitarist Tabuchi Hisako grounds the track with an eerie arpeggio, over which drummer Ahito Inazawa plays a spare, dub beat. Inazawa also sings on the track, his voice wrung through an arsenal of effects.

“Inuzini” is no less weird, with shifting tempo and meter and muddy effects being the order of the day. The band even quotes one of its own songs, “Urban Guitar Sayonara”, at the end.

Hints of Number Girl’s experimental tendencies showed up on the pre-release single, “Num-Ami-Dabutz” — the chorus has a disco beat, a first for a Number Girl song.

(Trivial interjection: “Num-Ami-Dabutz” is a play on the phrase “namu amida Butsu”, which means “praise the Buddah”. That must mean the album’s title translates to “praise heavy metal”.)

By the middle of the album, Number Girl goes back to being the hyper-energetic punk band of its previous work, but not without a few tweaks to its fast-is-more work ethic.

“Cibbico-san” starts off with the double-time intensity that gave “Teppu Surudoku Natte” some guts, but half way through, the band switches tempo and changes the character of the song. Aside from Tabuchi’s reverb-heavy noodling, the song’s second half sounds almost pop.

“Tombo the electric bloodred” is so loud, digital clipping occurs at points in the track. Clipping is the digital studio equivalent of scratching nails on a chalkboard, but smack dab in the middle of a Number Girl song, it sounds almost downright appropriate.

“Fu-Si-Gi” trods along at a hulking pace, with thick, atonal chords punctuating the song, but at the end, Number Girl gets thrown down a hill, the song hurtling to a blur of a conclusion.

Dub seems to be a favorite rhythm for Mukai and Inazawa this time around.

The drummer is the most prominent accompanist on the reasonably mellow “delayed brain”, following the singer’s phrases with thoughtfully timed fills.

“Frustration in my blood” calls to mind the Police in the way the song alternates from a half-time reggae-like beat to a double-time punk beat.

Through all the twists and turns, Number Girl still delivers a passionate performance. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the album’s closer, “Kuromegachi na Shoojo”. Mukai practically screams himself apart. He and Cocco ought to hang out.

Num-Heavymetallic has a lot of neat, brainy things going on to make listeners scratch their heads and pay close attention. But in the end, it’s Number Girl’s ability to put on a riverting show that draws listeners in.

For all the weirdness on the album, it’s still about four people making music in the end.

The Hard Bulletin

There was something charming about the booming, lo-fi production of Number Girl’s earlier albums, but on its latest album, Sappukei, the Japanese punk quartet teams up with the Flaming Lips’ producer David Fridmann.

Fridmann has boosted the group’s rhythm section, cleaned up the guitar effects and flitered Mukai Shutoku’s banshee vocals through a number of effects processors.

At first, it’s hard to listen to Number Girl with such a polished sound. It almost goes against the total visceral experience of School Girl Distortional Addict or even Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai, the band’s live album.

At the same time, it’s great to hear a Number Girl album blaring out of a stereo the way it ought to.

But enough of all this audiophile stuff — is the album any good?

Mukai’s songwriting has becomed a bit more sophisticated. Either that, Fridmann’s effects have given Mukai’s songs a different shade of loud. The hooks of such songs as “Sasu-You” or “Tattoo Ari” aren’t as immediate as, say, “Iggy Pop Fan Club” or “Young Girl Seventeen Sexually Knowing.”

On “Urban Guitar Sayonara,” Fridmann’s more orchestral touches — as evidenced on the Lips’ The Soft Bulletin — get in the way. The piano hook and a timpani roll are nice, but that atonal sax has to go.

After a week of listening to Sappukei, many of its song start seeping into the subconscious, and an album that gave the first impression of losing something vital to Number Girl’s essence in fact turns out to be a clarified version of the same.

Sure, the guitars don’t whack a listener in the ears like on the old albums, but your blood will pump no less when guitarists Mukai and Tabuchi Hisako tear through riffs on “Abstract Truth,” “Brutal Man,” “Brutal Number Girl” or “U-Rei.”

Number Girl is still one of the hardest rocking bands on the planet, and on Sappukei, it’s still all there.

File under: live

Clocking in at 35 minutes, Number Girl’s second album, School Girl Distortional Addict, left listeners craving for more of the Japanese quartet’s wall of noise.

Clocking in at a few seconds more than hour, the group’s live album, Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai, leaves listeners unable to digest any more Number Girl afterward.

Number Girl’s ear-crushing sound is so intense, more than an hour of listening gets quite exhausting. The band pummels its audiences with one barrage of distortional hooks after another. Mukai Shutoku’s throat-damaging scream is the most musical wail to come across a pair of stereo speakers since Kurt Cobain.

Distortional Addict, which was recorded and produced by Mukai, is something of a high quality, lo-fi production. Mukai managed to capture the chest-pounding power of the group’s sound without sacrificing any of its rough edges.

Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai adds the missing element in that recording — audience feedback. Number Girl is a band best experienced live (with a pair of really good earplugs, no less), and Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai allows listeners outside of Japan a chance to live that experience.

A good number of the album’s tracks features songs from Distortional Addict, but a few gems from the band’s indie days are included. “Iggy Pop Fan Club” sounds like an appropriate song for its namesake. “Samurai,” one of the group’s most performed songs, finally gets recorded. And “Super Young” closes out the disc with a hypnotic, minimalistic hook.

Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai is the album Number Girl was destined to make, by virtue of the fact they’re one of the best live acts in music today.