When I sent a friend of mine a copy of J~E II, Musicwhore.org’s homemade compilation of Japanese rock, he had the followng to say about Bleach:
there’s one in particular (track 5, believe) that hurt my ears the first time i heard it, but now its wayward screams and tinny guitars ala-System-Of-A-Down are oddly captivating
Yup.
Bleach is a straight-ahead, take-no-prisoners punk band. No rap. No pop (with maybe the exception of “Koe”). Just ear-crushing guitars, a pair of screaming vocals and a drummer that can kick your posterior into next week.
(Not to be confused with the American Christian rock band of the same name, although probably more like the Nirvana album of the same name.)
After Japan Nite 2001 Sampler was passed around at this year’s SXSW festival, Bleach was perhaps the most anticipated band on the bill. When the Okinawa, Japan, trio played, they were amazing, but too many long pauses between numbers undermined the band’s set.
Of course, Bleach had half an hour to fill, and the band’s first album, Kibakuzai (or “Detonator”), contains only eight tracks and clocks in at a quick 22 minutes, but even those 22 minutes are packed with a rare kind of intensity.
On “Santa Claus” and “Kakumei Ryoushuudann”, Bleach veers from double-time rage to choatic noise to buzzsaw riffs all within two minutes. “Kobuta 28 Gou” and “Koe” are the closest things Bleach reaches to hooks, which basically means there are fewer barrages of noise.
By the end of Kibakuzai, listeners feel like they just got the workout of their lives. Folks who miss Super Junky Monkey when Mutsumi passed away may find themselves gravitating toward Bleach’s fist-hammering sound.
Back in the late 1980s, Sony bought CBS Records hoping to use the near century-old label as a leverage to breaking Japanese artists in the U.S.
In 1990, the label introduced Matsuda Seiko — simply called Seiko — to the States, pairing her up with then It-boy Donnie Wahlburg of New Kids on the Block for a duet.
The album tanked, and Sony retreated.
But a few years later, Shonen Knife and Pizzicato Five made in-roads to America’s indie scene, achieving a kind of success that puzzled the folks back home.
And when Sony released a pair of hotly-received promotional discs at the SXSW festival, the company decided it was time to brave the U.S. market again.
Enter Japan For Sale, the commercial version of said promotional discs.
The tone of the compilation is thoroughly indie, with DJs and electronica artists occupying the most air time. All kinds of music are represented on the disc nonetheless.
In the rock category, Dog Hair Dressers offer Redd Kross-like power pop, while The Brilliant Green serves up a more Byrds-inspired alternative rock.
Hip-hop has its emmisaries in YKZ and DJ Krush, the former pairing up with the Beatnuts, the latter sticking closer to home with rapper Twigy and idol-singer-turned-R&B-chanteuse ACO.
Polysics attempts to channel DEVO through Nine Inch Nails, while Yoshinori Sunahara, Denki Groove, Boom Boom Satelites and Chappie (who is really Pizzicato Five’s Yasuhara Konishi) fill out the rest of the disc with thundering beats and electronic effects.
For the most part, Japan for Sale is devoid of anything hinting at Matsuda Seiko and her aborted attempt to crack the U.S.
Even the token idol pop track from Puffy AmiYumi isn’t typical — it’s an ABBA-meets-Beatles confection delivered with tooth-rotting sweetness.
As an album, Japan for Sale offers a diverse program in which none of the tracks feel forced. DJ Krush doesn’t feel out of place with the cheerleading chants of Chappie or the Cranberries-meets-Radiohead moodiness of FEED.
In short, Japan for Sale is a good introduction to the second largest music market in the world. Perhaps Sony will be a bit more successful in its bid for American audience this time around.
Of all the people responsible for Duran Duran’s more moodier music, John Taylor seemed like the most unlikely candidate.
The founding member who listed Chic as an influence and who participated in the more rockier Duran Duran side group, the Power Station, Taylor seemed more like the guy who gave the band its slick, dance floor-friendly groove than informing its more Cure-like moments.
Oddly enough, Duran Duran lost a bit of its moodiness when Taylor left the group in 1997, and even more so, that dark quality showed up on the bass guitarist’s solo works.
Techno For Two picks up where his self-titled debut album for Japan’s Avex Trax left off, improving the hooks and cleaning up Taylor’s deadpan vocal.
Tracks such as “6,000 Miles”, “Immortal” and “Mister J” leave lasting impressions with their memorable chorus and by-the-numbers guitar-keys-drum machine arrangements.
Other tracks, such as “Tight”, “The Other Side of the Sun” and “Out of the Blues” revel in atmospheric effects and driving beats but not without hammering in a some buzzing guitar riffs here and there.
After indulging a jones for punk music in the mid-1990s, Taylor has boomeranged back to the electro-rock mix on which his original group built an entire 20-year career. Remarkably, he sounds nothing like Duran Duran.
If anything, Taylor has struck the same kind of balance between rock and electronica that would-be labelmates Supercar, Dr.StrangeLove and Quruli have achieved.
Taylor would probably make some really good music if he teamed up with Takamune Negishi from Dr.StrangeLove. He still has a hard time carrying a tune, but this time around, it doesn’t interfere with the songwriting.
On the surface, Techno for Two sounds like a synthesizer-driven album, but at its core, it’s a rock album.
The English duo’s alternately sparse and lush arrangements, coupled with Nicola Hitchhock’s breathy vocals, make for some really nice, unintrusive listening.
Even when Hitchhock’s whisper barely registers above Saul Freeman’s oceans of synthesizers, Mandalay manages to bring everything together for the chorus, hooking listeners into the group’s ethereal sound.
“Not Seventeen” opens the album, and it’s nice. “Like Her” follows, and it too is nice. “Beautiful” offers more of the same, and it’s nice like the others.
Then “Deep Love” dabbles in a bit of Julee Cruise territory, and, well, it’s nice.
One track leads to the next, and to the next, and to the next, and after each track, it’s just … nice.
In other words, Solace doesn’t deviate from its basic aesthetic, and after a while, the entire album sounds like one long song.
By the time the album concludes with a cover of Phoebe Snow’s “I Don’t Want the Night to End,” Solace feels like it overstayed its welcome.
Even Enya, an artist who’s recorded one album numerous times, knows the value of giving a work some sense of an arc.
Granted, Solace is really a Stateside repackaging of Mandalay’s U.K. releases, and in that sense, the album contains very little filler. Freeman is also an incredibly deft instrumentalist, making the most minimal of textures feel incredibly full.
At times, Solace calls to mind Sarah McLachlan at the very start of her career. Other times, it recalls Craig Armstrong’s beautiful The Space Between Us.
But you have to be a pretty avid fan of very ethereal, soothing, dance-beat driven music to really appreciate Solace. Mandalay are incredibly good at what they do, but their single-minded adherance to their sound comes across as a bit too stubborn.
Put Back to the Mono Kero! on your stereo, and it’s hard to believe that four years ago, eX-Girl didn’t know how to play their instruments.
A bit of that amateurism still lives on in the band’s music, but with producer-collaborator Hoppy Kamiyama guiding Chihiro, Kirilo and Fuzuki to more complex musical terrain, eX-Girl has become an unlikely candidate for bringing high art closer to pop art.
A far cry from the noise-fest of the Japanese trio’s debut Heppoku Pou, Back to the Mono Kero! shows eX-Girl at its tightest and wildest.
One moment, the Girls are growling, the next, they’re affecting operatic singing.
On such tracks as “Wipe Out”, “Gween-Kong-Gee” and “Zero Gravity”, they pound their instruments like mochi dough on a New Year’s Day. On other tracks, such as “Tozka”, “Solid States Kerok n’ Roll” and the group’s rousing cover of M’s “Pop Muzik”, they rock out with straight-forward riffs that never quite stay in line.
Compared to the band’s other albums — Back to the Mono Kero! is their fourth — this one has the most structured songs and the most likeable melodies.
Not to say eX-Girl has started writing typical songs — far from it.
Instead, eX-Girl performs with a sense of direction. They’re not just making noise for noise’s sake — there’s a method to all the madness, and it makes for an enjoyable, dischordant listen.
Take, for instance, the album’s opener, “Waving Scientist @ Frog King.” Chihiro’s dirty guitar work drives the song, but in between Fuzuki’s complex rhythms and the trio’s sweet harmonizing, the song becomes an epic piece. “Waving Scientist @ Frog King” makes “Bohmemian Rhapsody” look like “Chopsticks.”
With Back to the Mono Kero!, eX-Girl has definitely arrived. They’re not just a cute trio of Japanese women banging on instruments (condescending as that obviously sounds). They’re talented musicians giving punk music high aspirations.
Do you remember R.E.M.’s previous album Up? If you answered yes, give yourself a biscuit — I admire someone who could stay awake for that album.
Like a good manager, Bertis Downs put a really good pre-release spin on Up, evoking the magic words “Automatic for the People” to get people’s attention. (Me? Automatic for the People was all right, but it’s not the ground-breaking album for which critics wet themselves.)
When Downs described Reveal as “lush” in this most recent round of pre-release hype, it almost served as a warning for everyone who had to overdose on caffiene to get through Up.
So. Reveal? Any good?
Yes. Thank your personal dieties, but yes, it’s good.
And it doesn’t require multiple listens — hell, even very attentive listens — for Reveal to grab hold.
All the sonic experiments that informed Up are still around, but this time, they serve as garnish, not centerpiece, to the songs.
R.E.M. have gone back to writing hooks. Michael Stipe has gone back to singing melodies. Peter Buck even straps on a guitar from time to time, even making it sound jangly.
But Downs was right — this album is quite lush. Thick strings, layers of harmony, a glockenspiel here and there — Reveal sounds like the aural equivalent of some really elaborate bedding displays at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Very cozy. Very warm.
Any stand-out tracks? Not really. Or at least not on the level of, say, “Nightswimming” or “Electrolite”.
But some do come close. “All the Way to Reno (You’re Going to Be a Star)” will leave you singing the core line of the chorus. Same thing applies to “I’ll Take the Rain”.
“I’ve Been High” sounds like the cousin to “Everybody Hurts,” and the album’s first single, “Imitation of Life”, is a great return to the band’s more uptempo milleu.
So yes. It’s safe to like R.E.M. again. Get Reveal, and leave the stimulants behind.
Five years ago, Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs garnered all the praise it deserved.
On that album, Colvin covered a spectrum of moods, hopping from quiet piano ballads to up-front rockers and back again. A Few Small Repairs always seemed to hint at coming apart but never did.
Colvin and long-time collaborator John Leventhal made an album that was a hard act to follow.
On A Whole New You, Colvin keeps the mood pretty mellow. The album’s opener, the haunting “Matter of Minutes,” pretty much establishes the tenor for the remainder of the disc.
Leventhal has seen fit to drench the album in a sea of ethereal effects. No track seems to be free from a shimmering electric piano or a guitar tremolo quietly rippling in the background.
With a bit more reverb, “Bonefields”, “Another Plane Went Down” and “Mr. Levon” could have come straight from an Angelo Badalamanti movie score.
Certainly, Colvin picks up the pace now and again with the album’s title track and “Bound to You”, this album’s version of “Get Out of This House.”
But for the most part, A Whole New You is a decidedly quiet affair.
That doesn’t answer the question: is A Few Small Repairs such a tough act for A Whole New You to follow?
Absolutely not.
Colvin and Leventhal, who co-wrote the album, have still managed to gather a collection of listener-friendly adult pop.
It’s not hard for “Roger Wilco”, “Another Plane Went Down Today” or “One Small Year” to nudge themselves into a listener’s subconscious.
Beautiful, gorgeous, lovely — all the pretty and polite adjectives apply to A Whole New You, and the target market of triple-A radio will more than likely find themselves using these words.
And for some of us who like our music a bit more grotesque, A Whole New You is still a nice listen.
Between its debut album Fiesta! and its latest offering Wanderland, Missile Girl Scoot went through a personell change.
Guitarist Tatsuya and bass guitarist Saitaro departed shortly after the release of Fiesta!. Remaining members Junn, U-Rie and Yosuke filled the vacancies with Gak on guitars and Keita on bass.
On Fiesta!, various members of the band were credited with writing the music for the album, an impressive collection of metal-rap as hook-filled as it was head-banging.
Would Missile Girl Scoot be able to repeat the creative success of its debut with new members?
With Tatsuya, Missile Girl Scoot had an axegrinder with a clean sound and a penchant for making even the most tried and true power chord sound absolutely new.
Gak, in other words, had some pretty big shoes to fill.
On Wanderland, the results are certainly more varied, even a bit more daring.
“Don’t Rely On Me” starts off with a jazz-pop guitar, over which Junn growls at a former love. At the chorus, Gak switches to an electric, and a punk beat comes crashing in.
“Everytime it Rains” calls to mind Grover Washington Jr.’s “Just the Two of Us”, only with a beefy rock interlude.
“The Winding Road” is straight-forward reggae-rock, while “Get Back” sports a thundering shuffle beat.
Wanderland is pretty much all over the place, veering back and forth between rap, punk, rock, metal and everything else.
But does it all hold together? Not really.
Wanderland unfortunately doesn’t possess the immediate likeability of Fiesta!. The hooks, while good at grabbing, don’t quite keep a hold.
Still, Missile Girl Scoot gets excellent marks for flexing more mature musical muscle. Bring back the hooks, and you’ve got a band with the potential to really kick some posterior.
Heart Bazaar’s name should probably be “Heart Bizzare.”
Certainly the band’s music isn’t as strange as, say, eX-Girl or John Zorn, but Heart Bazaar’s take on alt-rock conventions isn’t exactly mainstream.
On the surface, Heart Bazaar is all about grungey guitars, melodic bass lines and straight-forward rock beats, all fronted by the bittersweet, husky voice of Ishii Satsuki.
But penetrate the layers of guitar distortion, and there’s some sugary, bouncy, jazzy pop lying underneath.
Heart Bazaar’s debut album, Saihate, collects 52 minutes’ worth of this odd combination.
On the one hand, listeners might have the urge to pogo to such tracks as “Collector” or “Saihate no Uta.” But on other tracks, in particular “Sodium Hi” and “Kitkaze to Taiyou,” dramatic strings coexist somewhat uncomfortably with wailing guitars.
If the louder elements of these songs were stripped away, what remains would be dramatic climaxes and gloriously pompous choruses.
Ishii sings with a child-like inflection, but the rough timbre of her voice feels more well-worn, as if she learned how to scream before she started to sing.
And while guitarist Suzuki Akihito loves to pile on the layers of effects, the cellos and organs underneath belie the band’s more rock leanings.
Heart Bazaar is almost maniacal in its conflicting sound. They’re loud but optimistic, upbeat but chaotic, saccharine but bitter.
Does the combination work?
It’s actually pretty hit and miss. Some tracks strike the right balance, but others sound like it should be dark when they’re light and vice versa. In other words, it can get a bit confusing.
But it’s that disorientation that makes Saihate a challenging listen.
Cocco must be thrilled she’s leaving the music business. The usually intense Japanese singer finishes her career with her brightest album ever.
Barely 10 months after releasing the loud, grunge-y Rapunzel, Cocco returns with Sangrose, an album heavy on sweeping ballads and quiet songs.
Even the album’s opener, “Sango to Hana to” (“Coral and the flowers”), is driven mostly by acoustic guitars, a departure from previously harsh starters such as “Kemono Michi” (Rapunzel) or “Kubi” (bougainvillia).
And while the album does contain a number of requisite headbangers — “Wagamama na Te” (“Selfish Hand”) contains the simplest and hardest riff on a Cocco album — most of Sangrose stays in the lower portion of the volume knob.
The minimalistic “Utsukushii Hibi” (“Beautiful Days”) builds gradually but never rises beyond a loud whisper. “Fuuka Fuusou” (“Funeral of Weathering”) resembles “Raining” with its grandiose chorus and dramatic strings.
Just when you think Cocco can’t deliver another terrific single, she does. Cocco’s most intriguing entry in this mostly ballad-driven album is “Hane ~lay down my arms~”. She practically soars on the song’s chorus.
Sangrose veers violently between its introspective moments and its more out-going tracks. The short, sweet interlude “Still” is followed by a rousing, cheerleader-like anthem of “Dream’s a dream.”
Conversely, the dark “Hoshi ni Negai Wo” (“Wish Upon a Star”) is followed by a gorgeous piano ballad, “Tamagotsuki no Koro” (“Around April”).
Cocco delivers some beautiful music, but not all of it is necessarily pretty. Rapunzel and bougainvillia can get downright savage. Sangrose, however, is an incredibly pretty album that just so happens to be quite beautiful.
Although Cocco announced her retirement from music in late February, the young singer isn’t exactly an aging rock star. Should she never stage a comeback, Sangrose still serves as a remarkable conclusion to a career filled with plenty of creative highs.