Source: Bounce.com
Nananine releases a third limited edition single through Tower Records on Oct. 13, titled “a must buy II”. The three-song release costs 315 yen (tax included). Then on Nov. 3, the band releases a new EP, expected to contain 6 songs. Tower Records released the band’s previous limited edition single, “a must buy”, and DVD, “a must buy! Live at Stage One”.
Sasagawa Miwa has done something incredible — she’s recorded follow-up albums for at least three artists who haven’t done so for themselves.
Inspired by the hymnals she sang as a Christian school student, Sasagawa writes music that combines traditional Celtic, traditional Japanese and modern pop music in an effortless, singular style.
Her debut album, Jijitsu, calls to mind a number of divergent influences.
On “Taiyoo”, she sings in a soprano as spine-chilling as anything Hajime Chitose can do in her higher ranges.
“Naraba” shows she can edge into Onitsuka Chihiro’s piano balladry without overtly flaunting the echoes of Carole King, another artist to whom Sasagawa is compared.
And “Warai” is perhaps the most successful integration of Scottish waulking songs with Japanese lyrics. It’s the outtake Celtic music scholar Talitha Mackenzie never recorded on any of her albums.
All this name-dropping might seem like Sasagawa apes too many other artists, but she manages to sound completely herself.
The burnished singing of the title track may be reminiscent of Sinéad O’Connor but not for any timbral resemblance — it’s all spiritual.
Spiritual. That’s a good word to describe her music.
Not just for its sacred inspirations but for its secular creativity. Sasagawa Miwa has produced pop music that’s miles ahead of most pop music, and she does so by evoking the distant past.
It doesn’t mean she’s beholden to it.
On “Tsukusu”, heavy guitars demonstrates her ability to rock out. “Hokuro” combines an agitated beat with folk guitars and long drones, while “Doozo” brings together Celtic melodies, electric guitars and simple (tribal, perhaps) drumming.
Jijitsu is one of the most fascinating debuts by an artist in the last year. It’s tough to pry the album off your playlist once it’s there — Sasagawa’s music operates on so many levels, it rewards with each subsequent listen.
It also helps that her less-than-polished vocals delivers some incredible melodies. That rustic quality suits her music well.
Source: Bounce.com
The Back Horn will release a live DVD titled Bakuon Yumeka on Nov. 3. The DVD document’s the band’s one-man live show at the Hiyanoge Concert Hall on July 17, 2004 and includes a scenes from backstage. Also on Nov. 3, The Back Horn releases a new single, “Cobalt Blue”. A limited edition pressing includes another DVD with a live performance of “Yomigaeru Hi” from the same concert.
Source: CD Journal
fra-foa lead singer Mikami Chisako releases her solo debut, Watashi wa Anata no Uchuu, on Nov. 17. On the same day, she also releases a DVD titled Chisako Terebi-jon/Viva la Revolucion. The album finds Mikami experimenting with different genres, from the thunderous rock of fra-foa to more electronic styles as techno and ambient. Her backing band includes Hoppy Kamiyama and Okai Daiji.
The DVD includes video clips of “Fundamental” and “Viva la Revolucion”, two tracks from the album. Footage from live performances, and “visual artist” collaborations are also expected to appear on the DVD.
Mikami will also release a single, “Fundamental/ride”, on Oct. 13.
Just an FYI …
The Road Runner connection on which the audio server for the Musicwhore.org Audiobin resides has a habit of dropping every few minutes in the morning hours, usually between 4-10 a.m. Central time. The connection has about 5 to 10 minutes of uptime before dropping.
Time Warner had sent a maintenance person over about two weeks ago and tweaked the connection. It seemed to help for a few days, but it looks like the intermittent drops are back. I will contact Time Warner again when I can discern another pattern in the outtage times.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
September marks Musicwhore.org’s approximate birthday, and that means a redesign. Aside from the new look — which looks a lot like a UPS truck, now that I think about it — I made a number of changes to the content pages.
The biggest change is the artist directory. When I subsumed the old J~E site back into Musicwhore.org two years ago, I left the directory content as is. Back then, I was still positioning this site as a resource on Japanese bands, and I wanted to emphasize that content.
With this redesign, I’ve expanded the directory to include all artists who have been covered on the site in the past. Most of the directory entries are little more than glorified archive links, but directory entries with more substantive content — profiles, discography, links — have been flagged as Featured Artists.
Now that Movable Type has been powering the site for more than a year, I’ve decided to start leveraging some of its capabilities. I’ve divided the news and reviews sections into individual categories.
I’m making it something of a pre-New Year’s Resolution to write more about classical music, a genre I’ve neglected since graduating from college. I’m also making room for older albums — discs in my collection that deserve some added attention, or catalog items entirely new to me.
A few months back, I started a personal weblog which featured a number of links to music-related news items. I created a channel to cross-post — and perhaps re-tool — some of that content here. To distinguish it from the translated news items posted here regularly, old news items are now filed under the category “News in Translation”.
The site has never had a really good way to communicate down-time, bug discoveries or other announcements, so a Site Admin channel has also been created to keep users informed of anything related to the site’s operation itself.
Here are some other changes which should be more transparent to users:
Why some of these changes?
Four years ago, I started this webzine, thinking it would be something of a personal site making redundant coverage of stuff that’s already reasonably well-known. It was — still is, actually — a vanity site in the worst possible sense, a spot where I could talk about music that mattered to me.
Then in 2000, I discovered Japanese bands performing rock music as good — and sometimes better — than the stuff being produced in the US market. Considering the challenge English-speakers face in finding information about Japanese bands, I focused my attention to making this site a bridge.
To reach that point, I created a work schedule that insured regular content updates. Don’t know if you noticed, but new reviews are run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It’s reached the point where I’m writing an average of 9 reviews a month.
It’s worn me down.
Now that the site has reached a point where its archives are indeed quite deep, I want to bring it back to something a bit more broad-minded than advocating Japanese rock. I may even be open to allowing voices other than mine on the site.
At the same time, I want to ditch that work schedule I established years ago. It’s resulted in some filler content, and when I go back to read it, I wonder, “Why did I write that in the first place?”
I’m hoping these changes, while embracing the true breadth of the site, will actually allow me to work a bit more smartly and maybe more personally.
Japanese content will still be a major component to Musicwhore.org, and I hope to maintain the level of quality to which readers are accustomed.
But I felt I needed to decide what this site was going to be — an exclusive English-language source for Japanese music, or a place for music critique of a more personal nature.
I’m going with the latter route to see how well that goes. Thank you for reading this far.
Source: Bounce.com
Hatakeyama Miyuki and DSK reunite as Port of Notes to release a new album in October. Titled Evening Glow, the new album is the pair’s first since releasing Duet With Birds three years ago. Guest musicians on the album include Matsutoya Yumi (who collaborates with Port of Notes for the first time), Matsunaga Takayoshi, Sakada Gaku (Polaris) and Horikawa “Bobo” Hiroyuki. Uchida Naoyuki (Dry & Heavy) engineered the album. A limited edition first pressing of Evening Glows also includes an 8cm CD containing “Dead Angel (Naoyuki Uchida dub)” and “Walk Through Happiness (instrumental)”.
Source: Bounce.com
Onitsuka Chihiro will release a new single, titled “Sodatsu Zosoo”, on Oct. 27. It’s her first new single since releasing “Watashi to Waltz wo”, which was used as the theme song for the drama Trick. Onitsuka changed labels in that time, and “Sodatsu Zosoo” will be her first release on A&M.
Truth be told, Oceanlane is really not remarkable.
The duo’s music falls easily into that over-extended, catch-all tag of “emo”.
The melodies on the band’s debut, On my way back home, hit all the right peaks and valleys for earnestness and sincerity. The backing vocals harmonize for that right dosage of sweet. The guitars ring during the verses, buzz at the choruses.
“Everlasting Scene”, the album’s opener, is what a watered-down Smashing Pumpkins may have sounded like if James Iha were in charge.
On my way back home is so blatantly targeted for a specific audience, it’s almost amazing it’s not theme music for a show on the WB.
If that happened, Oceanlane would be the first Japanese rock band to accomplish that feat.
Oceanlane may sound like yet another in a long line of American emo bands, were it not for the fact the duo are actually based in Japan.
All of the band’s songs are sung in English by Hajime, who shows no hint of an accent.
And while Oceanlane may sound rather predictable, the band does receive some major credits.
Hajime’s singing, for one, isn’t as annoyingly whiny as most music branded “emo”. There’s still a nasal quality requisite for this kind of music, but it’s not as preciously grating.
And even if Oceanlane’s songwriting won’t give Quruli or Art-School any sleepless nights, the duo still offer up a batch better than most.
Wiseass remarks about Smashing Pumpkins aside, “Everlasting Gaze” is actually a decent sugary pop song, and I always liked James Iha anyway. “Sign” makes a great choice as a pre-release single.
Bandmate Kay takes a turn on vocals on “Broken Wings”, and if you listen close, you can hear a hint of his accent.
On my way back home aims for a specific aesthetic and hits it on the mark. Oceanlane does what it does well, even if it’s not exactly earth-shattering.
From a songwriting standpoint, Tsubakiya Shijuuso does some amazing stuff.
The trio is a rock band more than willing to make bass lines growls and to double up guitars. But there’s room for blues and soul in its riffs.
They don’t shy away from dividing meters in unexpected places, nor do they shun the power of a pulsating power chord.
They’re willing to play between each other, interlocking seemingly incongruent parts, but they know when to bring it back together.
Above all, they’re not afraid to make their melodies sound Japanese.
And yet there’s something missing from Tsubakiya Shijuuso’s music, something vital to push the band’s music from competent to amazing.
It’s this: the willingness to sound “dumb”.
On his work with girl groups from the ’60s, Phil Spector would often ask listeners sampling a new studio work, “Is it dumb enough?”
That is, does this music have a quality that can reach anyone anywhere?
Tsubakiya Shijushoo’s music fits squarely with the adjective “smart”, often at the expense of hooks.
Each of the examples stated above have correlating tracks on the band’s debut album, Shinkoo Naru Shoozo.
Growling bass line? “Shuuressha”. Odd metric divisions? “Issetsuna”. Interlock parts? “Gurasutama”. Japanese melody? “Shun-yo”.
But try singing along with any of those songs — let alone recall their melodies away from a playback device — and it gets challenging.
“Nare no Hate” is the closest thing to a single on the album, and it’s the only one.
Singer Nakada Yuuji has an appealing voice, and the rhythm section of bassist Nakada Takashige and drummer Kotera Ryoota can navigate some thorny terrain.
Tight playing and smart songs make Tsubakiya Shijuuso an incredible band, but if the trio can slum it a bit, it could be revelatory.