New plenty MV!

This new song is from their 2nd ep which will come out on the 25th. I liked this song immediately; I think there are lots of good things coming this way for this band.

Chara

Chara is a pretty prolific and popular alternative J-pop singer. She's been around since the early 1990s and still going. The most outstanding part of her act is definitely her voice. Sometimes I find it hard to listen to depending on my mood, but you can't deny her unique whispery style.

Also of note she was married to (one of my favourite actors) Tadanobu Asano for fourteen years. She has also done some film work herself and currently hosts a TV Show Ongaku Baka. Keep an eye for her 2011 release Dark Candy.

Yusuke Chiba and Blue Spring Review

A common way people get into music of another culture or language is through movies and television. Most Japanese animes and dramas will feature an artist in either the beginning or end credits and if the show itself is popular, the song will usually be just as popular as well. I don't watch either, but even in Japanese movies you will find a wealth of music. The first instance of this for me occurred when I watched a film called Blue Spring (Aoi Haru) by Toshiaki Toyoda. Toyoda likes to use his favourite bands in his soundtracks, and in this case he used a band called Thee Michelle Gun Elephant. Well I will tell you it was love at first listen.

     The movie concerns a group of teenage Japanese boys attending a low-rate, gang-run highschool. Ryuhei Matsuda plays the main character, Kujo, who wins the title of head boss by playing the "clapping game" you can see demonstrated in the trailer. There is a lot of dirty fighting in the movie, murder and some humour. But the bigger items this film is about is dreams. These boys have no future within the confines of the concrete walls. They are set to live their lives as hard labourers, bums, gangsters or else, in jail. One older boy chased his dream of professional baseball, but in losing a game he loses it all and instead turns to the only thing he knows: gang life. Kujo and his best friend Aoki struggle together in the last term of school to come to terms with the possibilities that forgo them. In the end the two end up butting heads, but I won't ruin the ending. I watched this movie when I myself was nearing the end of my highschool education. I was filled with the same questions, thoughts and dreams, but luckily I am privileged to have had more options than the boys in this film. Still, I related to them and this film defined me for a long time. It caught on to the hopelessness of the future, the struggle to cope with our destinies and the lonely existence that is teenagehood. Naturally, the music only redoubled me feelings towards this film.

     Thee Michelle Gun Elephant is one of my favourite bands. I don't have number one favourites of anything, even colour, but TMGE is easily in my top three. Yusuke Chiba was the lead singer for this group which has been disbanded for a while now. But Chiba succeeded with two other bands Rosso and then The Birthday, both of which have a very similar if not identical sound to each other and its predecessor. All the songs are good. The writing is so simple yet so moving; there is really no other rock music that sounds purer than this. And Chiba's vocals are always so gritty and powerful no matter what sound is backing him. Just from the clip of the film in Blue Spring which plays Akage no Kelly (the Redhead Kelly) I still get that tugging feeling inside.  Here is a clip from ROSSO:

And The Birthday:

Halcali

Halcali are a Japanese female hip-hop duo, their naming being a combo of the members respective names Halca (Haruka) and Yucali (Yukari). They rap and sing together over ballads and dance songs, often with funny, weird and creative backing music. Their style of rapping might sound weird at first, particularly if you're used to American-style rap, but their catchiness quickly grabs you. My favourite album from them is Cyborg Oretachi (I wasn't terribly impressed with Tokyo Groove, their newest one) which I listen to every once in a while with pure joy. And obviously their videos reflect their fun style:

     And how can you not have fun with a song called "It's PARTY TIME!"? And don't tell me you've never wanted to do this in a grocery store:

9mm Parabellum Bullet

 

 This is a band that you will probably like right away if you're a rock fan. The word this band screams at me is ENERGY. Their songs are fast, complicated, interesting, powerful and full of energy. They have a new album due for June 15 of this year, and their last record, Revolutionary, was just awesome. My favourite track from it was definitely Inochi no Zenmai/命ノゼンマイ:

 Which has an absolutely epic ending, so wait for it. I'll be happily awaiting Movement for when it comes out!

plenty

I cannot read Japanese, and Google translate has done nothing for me. This band is so small known so I can't really find much English material about them. Google says that the song means "Gin, sing for me." Now, knowing the Japanese that could totally be the name of a song, BUT I doubt it. But the info is in the video description if you're interested. I found this band a while ago, thanks to BounDEEtube on Youtube, and their songs grew on me. And kept growing on me till I was a bit swollen. However, only just NOW have I found their album! So I've yet to give it a proper listen, but it's good so far. Only..this song isn't on it? Hmph.
      From what I can gather, they're in the same league as andymori in terms of their indie cred, and I'm pretty sure their fanbase has grown and is growing quite well. So let me just say, this video does weird things to me. I don't know what about it, but it makes me feel odd. I adore the androgynous beauty of the singer, the foggy atmosphere, the play of light and shadow. Also the song is great (give it more than one listen, if you can). All together it just gives me chills, but that could be my sentimental nature. It makes me miss Japan, that's for sure.
     I think what I love about a lot of Japanese music, particularly the rock/indie rock is that the musicians are not afraid to use weird or complex chord structures. You can see it demonstrated here especially in the chorus - even the baseline is quite interesting too. That extra technical musicianship just makes the song meatier for me and will almost always make me a fan.

http://www.plenty-web.net/

Clammbon

Technically this song is a remix by Nujabes of a Clammbon song - so it's a good thing. Nujabes is amazing (R.I.P.) and check out his stuff. But this post will focus on Clammbon, another amazing alternative pop band from Japan. I think this group has a lot of character in their sound. At times it's jazzy, at others just pop, rock, techno and altogether fusion. The singer is also very unique as well (though personally I can only listen so long myself). They've got a large discography with lots of different sounds throughout, so it's worth an exploration.

Quruli

I love Quruli. I...could listen to them for ages. Only now am I getting off my lazy butt and...years after having a bunch of their music am I combing through to make sure I have it all. And I don't. Bad fan. What I do have of theirs, I loveee. Every track, I tells ya. So invest in Quruli. There's not much to say about them. They're quite successful, one of the top pop bands in Japan. The sound is nothing spectacular in and of itself - simple guitars, drums, singing, etc. But there is magic to their work, I think. Just the right emotions, solid songwriting, carefree singing and technical instrumentation: it all works so well.
     I haven't bothered to watch many of their videos, but from what I see they're fun too! I'll post another good one below, but make sure you listen to much more than this!

Chitose Hajime/元ちとせ & Kousuke Atari/中 孝介

Chitose comes from Amami Oshima, which is responsible for the style of singing you will notice about her, as it is particular to that region. She uses various falsetto effects to achieve this sound; I don't know what a proper term for it would be, but I simply call it "fluting." This song is Kataritsugu Kotou and was the first song I heard from her and fell in love. Her voice is just stunning - a true instrument.
     Kousuke sings in virtually the same fashion as she. I joke that he is the male version of her, though he is not as popular (but deserves to be!). His voice is just as finely tuned, and definitely has a smooth texture that makes me melt. Here is his song "Hana."

Mika Nakashima/中島美嘉

The song and video I have uploaded here is "Over Load" which is a decent song, but definitely not her absolute best. I'm using it because most of her music seems to have been removed from Youtube (so...yeah). Her most famous track is probably "Yuki no Hana" which is a damn good ballad that I still enjoy from time to time. I love all the songs she did for her movie "Nana" a couple years ago.
     Well, let's introduce her properly. Mika is a pretty well-known J-pop artist. I latched on to her right away when I was first learning about Japanese music. When you first dig into another culture's music, you're most likely to come across pop, pop and pop. So having alternative pop artists like Mika are great gateway artists for better stuff (not that pop is necessarily bad). Mika's earlier stuff definitely had more jazz, reggae and big band influence which I also liked, but she has evolved with lots of different pop sounds and harder rock sounds. She's a bit weird at times, especially in her aesthetic, and she is also so very beautiful. In Nana, she wasn't too bad an actress either. So if you're interested in J-pop and wanted someone a bit meatier, please check out more of her!

Japan Week!

I have decided, in appreciation for my seemingly undying love of Japanese music, that this week is Japan week! I'll make about two posts a day for some artists I'd like to cover. Hurrah, let's begin!

Sherine - Ala Baly (On my mind)

Arabic music might seem a bit intimidating to listen to. First of all if you don't speak Arabic you probably don't read it, and unlike the Cyrillic alphabet, it's not a script that can be picked up quite easily. But thankfully there is a lot of Romanized access to Arabic music, so long as you learn a few "numbers" that are incorporated.
     Arabic pop is fun. It's usually emotional and dramatic, but still enough easy listening to get into comfortably. A good example is Sherine. She's not my favourite Arabic singer, but her pop songs are definitely a joy for me. I simply chose this song because it's got an English translation, but as with most pop her songs are mainly about love and loss.

     I have the album "Habeat" and it is a very good pop record. Good for some dance and some ballads. Enjoy!

Катя Chilly (Katya Chilly) - Молодая (Molodaya)

(http://pivni.livejournal.com/)

 To introduce Katya Chilly, let's remark on what genres wiki has to represent her: Folk, New Age, Dance, Pop, Rock, and Jazz. What does that sound like? Well, I suppose Katya is another one of those genre-defying artists that I love. She comes from the Ukraine and sings in Ukrainian as well (which is a little different as many Ukraine artists uproot to Russia and sing in Russian). The most striking thing about Katya's music is her voice. She often sings in a very high, operatic style which greatly contrasts the sometimes folk, pop, rock, whatever music beneath. She also sings other songs in a more traditional style (very reminiscent of Bulgarian folk singers like Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares). From what I know, she is pretty well known in the Ukraine, mainly beginning from her collaboration with a very popular Uk. band (whose name escapes me). She apparently has released quite a few albums, none of which I own (maybe I ought to go try looking again, as her popularity seems to have grown since I last researched her) but I do have one of her singles Pivni ("Roosters"), which I absolutely love and really demonstrates her unique style. I think something also ought to be said of her songwriting style which is also very commendable.

Another one of her songs that I really love is Молодая or "Young."

I have the lyrics and a proper translation:


Ой петрівняя зозуленько, ой!        (Oy petrivnyaya zozulenko, oy!)
Oh cuckoo bird, oh (she refers to the bird which is singing on a particular day which is a religious holiday if I am not mistaken)
Та не літай рано по діброві, ой!        (Ta ne litay rano po dibrovi, oy!)
Do not flit in the grove in the morning
Такая... молодая...        (Takaya... Molodaya)
So.... young

Та не куй рано по діброві, ой!        (Ta ne kuy rano po dibrovi, oy!)
And do not coo in the grove in the morning, oh!
Не збуди мене, мене молодої, ой!        (Ne zbudi mene, mene molodoyi, oy!)
Do not wake my young self up, oh!
Бо єсть у мене кращі тебе, ой!        (Bo est' u mene kraschi tebe, oy!)
Because I have better than you, oh!
Що збудять мене раніш тебе, ой!         (Scho zbudyat' mene ranish tebe, oy!)
Who will wake me earlier than you, oh!

Молодая! молода-я! молодая!
Young! I am young !! Young!

Here also is a remix of her song Krashen Vecher. Her singing live of the original is also worth checking out on Youtube.

The Irrepressibles (with film: Tous les Matins du Monde)

     Do you like your pop music a little more baroque? Then you probably love/will love The Irrepressibles. This is a a ten-piece orchestra band from England. The lead singer, composer, and orchestrator is Jamie McDermott. Listening to his voice, I'm automatically reminded of Patrick Wolf and Antony & the Johnsons (a good thing.) I have the critically-acclaimed Mirror Mirror album and love it, as almost anything with good orchestral influence will have me on my knees. My favourite song by far is The Tide:

I first discovered the band thanks to coilhouse (http://coilhouse.net/) where lots of great music and alternative art-related things are posted. Safe to say, this band was an insta-love. My obsession with baroque stems back to the days of my young self learning classical repertoire on the piano, but was recently renewed with the French film Tous les Matins du Monde (All the Mornings in the World) which depicts the life of late 17th early 18th century violist and composer Marin Marais and his mentor Monsier de Sainte-Colombe.

The music of this film is absolutely enchanting (well it is not original to the film, obviously). My pick from the lot would be Le Badinage:

Consequently this film also made me lustful for violas. They have all the elegance and pointedness of a violin, with the deeper silkiness of a cello. And I love how in between the phrases it sounds like inhalation.

(Depardieu as the elderly Marais)

The Trailer:

and you can read up about the film here (very interesting!).
Images from wiki and google.

Yıldız Tilbe - Anma Arkadaş

I chose the video above for visual effect because it is the music video, but I recommend playing the video below if you want a better quality (by far) listen:

     I'm trying not to post too much Turkish music here as I want to preserve variety, but it was impossible to ignore this song when I heard it. In truth I have a lot of Tilbe's albums, and even the one that this song is from, but I'm an avid user of the "shuffle" option on my mp3 player which means sometimes I don't hear all the tracks of a given album. So I only just heard this today and was pretty much wowed. From what I can gather the title means "Commemoration of a friend" but I haven't looked at the actual lyrics. No, I am wowed by the awesome instrumentation! This is why I love Turkish music: the chord progression is quite simple and very typical of Turkish songs, but there's this wonderful rock kick to it that I love. The sound to me is very reminiscent of 60s rock-pop tunes, but the added violins and Tilbe's voice make it a little more modern and unique. I wouldn't think to listen to a Tilbe song with electric guitars in it, but here I can really see how her voice works well with it's kind of gravelly quality.  Tilbe has a tendency to be one of those weepy singers (she is not the queen of this, note; the queen of the weepy voice is Umut Ayürek) but her voice is totally in the right mode here. Love it.

Einstürzende Neubauten - Stella Maris

     If this song doesn't take your breath away you may as well quit this tab and never return. Now, I know German is quite a divisive language (at least in my experience). People call it abrasive and guttural, ugly, etc. I take no stock in that personally, but of course I am amazed by most languages and their respective beauties. German sounds like the pit-patter of rain splashing into puddles on the street; it's so full in the mouth and satisfying to speak and hear. Like Arabic. Anyhow, even if the language itself might turn you off, Einstürzende Neubauten (translated "Collapsing New Buildings") ought not to be ignored if you're a fan of world music in any sense or rock, avant-garde, industrial/post-industrial  music in any sense for that matter. I don't know just how popular this band is now, let alone in their hey-day, but I'm guessing they're pretty well known for an alternative, post-industrial band. I don't have much music from them, but I have this song and the album it's from and they are definitely a treasure. They experiment a lot with their sound, especially known for incorporating home-made or home-tweaked instruments. This song is just amazing as it climaxes over and over with the streaming electric guitar pulling you up with it. I love the deep male and pointed female voices first alternating and then coming together at the end. Was that a pun?

I was also pleasantly surprised when I sat down to watch one of my now-favourite documentaries "Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul" (directed by one of my favourite Turkish directors Fatih Akın) was presented by Alexander Hacke, the bassist, guitarist and vocalist for this band. As well, isn't Blixa Bargeld the best name you've ever heard? Anyhow, I know some of their albums are difficult to find, but get what you can. They're still present today, had hoped to stop in America in late 2010, so we'll get in the future.

Itaewon Freedom

     How 'bout something a little more light-hearted? I loved this song and video as soon as I heard it. It's fun to dance to and just plain hilarious. J.Y.P. (Park Jin-Young) is a very well-known producer and singer in South Korea. His style is hip-hop, pop mix. His company JYP Entertainment is very successful, producing such acts as Wondergirls, 2AM and 2PM and Miss A.

I love Korea, I want to and plan to live there eventually. I love the language, the food, the people, the culture in general. But what to say about its music? It's a smaller industry, so there is not nearly enough variety as there is in Japan which is only across the water. In fact, any successful Korean group transplants to Japan eventually, simply by necessity to actually profit. So the Korean music industry (thought experiencing success overall in Asia grace a the Hallyu wave) is limited. Want rock music? You'll have to dig. Even "alternative" or "indie" Korean bands are copies of copies. What really reigns on the charts is pop music. So you're probably going to have luck finding good hip-hop and rappers (there are many great Korean rap and hip-hop artists) or else resign to enjoy sugary, tooth-rotting K-pop.

As for this song, it's on the good side of K-pop. It incorporates lots of hip-hop elements, but is definitely presented as tongue-in-cheek. A kind of campy, 90s revival tune with tons of attitude. The song is talking about 이태원 (Itaewon) a district of Seoul known as the foreigner's haven. Hence all the foreigners in the video.
And yes, I DO know Namsan Tower! I loved it there, in fact!

Океан Ельзи

     "Elza's Ocean" one of, if not the most successful Ukrainian bands. Here they sing "Відпусти" a better known song, a little older. I can not get a good translation on the lyrics. From what I garner it's about someone who cannot be yours. You can tell it's a very sad song, of course. I really love the singer's voice. A lot of the rock they make is a bit mainstream sounding to me like something I could easily hear on the radio here, but the singer's gravelly voice makes me like it especially. You can see my Russian favourite Zemfira covering the song in the side bar. I will definitely be posting about her one day.
Here is also another song I like by them, a bit newer too.

Hadi Git - İlkay Akkaya

     Turkey will be a frequent stop. To being with it's a pretty big music industry so in considering any music being made in that continent, Turkey has to come up. Big or small, there is no doubt that Turkish music is just beautiful. The language is beautiful, the instrumentation, folk/traditional elements, chord progressions, style of singing, etc., etc. I could go on for days.

But today is just a simple day enjoying a good song "Hadi Git" by İlkay Akkaya, a title that simply means "Let's Go". Don't know much about this singer or anything. It popped up on my feed and I dig it. That's all there really ought to be to music, don't you think? I'm obsessed with folk fusion songs write now. Obviously the best place to go for those are Turkish, Bulgarian and Arabic music. The percussion is what gets me most. In this song, it's pretty strong, too. You begin with traditional folk percussion and eventually graduate to a more dance-synth, Western sound. It's probably got your head bobbing either way. One thing I'm a little wary of by now in Turkish music is the weepy voice. It's probably more prominent in female singers, but it affects male singers too. I understand that it's part of the style, part of the emotion, even, but after so long I just say I like it. This woman is not really so bad for the weepy sound, but she's definitely got it. I'll complain more later, I'm sure.

Manifesto

I am by no means an authority on music. Or on anything for that matter. I'm only in the process of getting a degree as of now, and it's got nought to do with music.
No, I'm not trying to educate the world on...the world either. I'm just writing about the things I love in music and adding a bit of commentary where I can. This is about exploring, reaching out, feeling around, copping a feel, squeezing, seeing if it's for you, if not zip up.

This blog is a ticket around the world to taste popular music current or no being or having been made from various nations. Some might be YOUR OWN home, who knows! I definitely have my favourites. I'm picky and biased. I'll try to be as objective as possible, I promise.