 The wonderfully weird pop singer Seiko Oomori is back at it again with her latest full-length album "TOKYO BLACK HOLE". A follow-up to her 2014 album "Sennou", "TOKYO BLACK HOLE" has been in the works for some time. With the single "Sacchan no Sexy Curry" being featured on the anime "Food Wars" (and now finding a home right here on this album), Seiko Oomori has been getting a lot more attention as of late. Attention she most certainly deserves. Magic Mirror MV
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 Who? Rei is a singer/songwriter born in Japan in 1993. Growing up in New York City, she was playing classical guitar and blues by the time she was five years old. Now 22, she's a bilingual garage rock and folk singer making waves in both Japan and the United States. She played at SXSW this week, and will be playing a free show at Amoeba Records in San Francisco on MARCH 20TH What? Blues-influenced indie rock and folk. Rei names some of her biggest influences as BECK, tUnE-yArDs, Johnny Winter, and Blind Blake. Her debut EP "BLU" came out in February 2015, and the follow-up EP "UNO" in November of the same year. She plays music in a bunch of styles from gentle bluesy folk to indie garage rock. For Fans Of... BECK, tUnE-yArDs, Jack White, Shonen Knife, TsuShiMaMiRe, Utada Hikaru Official Links  Number Girl was a hugely influential band in their time, but I don't really hear anybody talk about them anymore. They released some incredible indie rock during their short seven-year lifespan. From Sonic Youth to Husker Du, they had a wide range of 80s and 90s rock influence. Today they're looked back on as a major influence on bands like ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, tricot, and Kinoko Teikoku (who pay tribute in their song "Girl Meets NUMBER GIRL"). For this Throwback Thursday I'll be reviewing Number Girl's 1999 debut album "School Girl Bye Bye". "School Girl Bye Bye" opens with one of the band's most well-loved and respected songs. "Omoide in My Head" is almost seven minutes of noisy yet emotionally-driven bliss. The riff is actually catchy just on its own, no vocals required. The vocals themselves are endearingly low-quality, echoing through the air of the band's cheap recording studio. It's a bit like Guided by Voices meets Pixies. Vocalist Shutoku Mukai has an impressive range in his voice, but with a bit of a harsh punk growl to it.  The energy picks up with the next song, "Ooatari no Kisetsu". I LOVE the riff on this song as well. It's all just a bit sloppy, in a good way. I also love the incredible vocals on the chorus. This is one of my favorite songs of the 90s, hands-down. It has this sort of shimmering haze of distorted beauty above it. There's a wall of noise in place of a guitar solo which explains my point quite nicely. "Sentimental Kajou" is a bit math-y, and just a bit off-kilter. The verses here are actually the standout part, with those great lead guitar melodies capturing the spotlight. This song sounds like an early prototype of The Pillows, in a way. I swear that the intro riff on "September Girlfriend" actually gave birth to modern indie rock. The vocals are either drenched in reverb or just really badly mixed, but I adore the tone. I'm trying not to use the phrase "lo-fi" (it doesn't mean what everyone thinks it means) but this song is the very essence of what people generally refer to as "lo-fi". The vocals evolve into a scream at times and it's super powerful. This album is already an emotional rollercoaster. Things slow back down again (ironically) with "Iggy Pop Fan Club". This is a bit more Pixies-esque garage rock. The chorus is beautiful, followed up by what would be a soaring lead solo which gets buried in the mix. It's funny; I usually hold pop music up to high production standards, but I'm enamored by the cheap punk sound of messy underground bands everywhere. "Mizuiro Kakumei" is another piece of summer-tinged garage rock, but this band is nothing like the generic SoCal garage scene of the 2010s. Something about their punk is just a little bit bittersweet. The album is chopped in half by the short instrumental track "Nagisa Nite", then we get "Summer of California '73". This is a bit of a slower one, just kind of chugging along with one riff all the way through. It sets the stage for "Mini Grammer", which explodes right out of the gate. The vocals on this one kind of twist through lazily underneath the urgent instrumentation. The second half is a little bit like Dinosaur jr. with the lazy but endearing guitar solo of a Dead Milkmen song.  "Ware Kiritsu Yuiga Hitori" is a monster which clocks in at almost eight minutes. It's an indie rock epic masquerading as some kind of ballad. There's a ton of emotional depth to be found here, especially on the chorus. Shutoku Mukai's range is unbelieveavly high for the genre he's in. You can hear the strain on his voice in the most raw and sincere way. This would have made the perfect closing song. The closing song they chose instead is right up next. "4 Track Professional" closes out the album on a slightly faster note. The bass really shines through during the pre-chorus here. There's so much energy, I can only imagine what this band sounded like live! There's a certain tone to the vocals that makes me wonder if they would even have been the same band at all. This is a fantastic song, but I still believe it could have switched places with the prior track for a better album flow. That's just my opinion though. For all the experimental noise and math rock gods Number Girl is emulating, there's so much sweetness embedded in these songs that it's a different beast entirely. They have a certain quality that just begs to be explored more deeply, to get all the details hiding in the buzz of the cheap tapes they recorded to. Every detail you can pick out is rewarding in its own right. The band would slowly move towards a slightly (very slightly) higher production quality over the years, but they always tonally remained a group of indie kids in a garage. These indie kids just happened to have some unbelieveable songwriting talent. The first four songs on "School Girl Bye Bye" remain some of my favorite indie rock songs of all time, and the rest of the album is just a perfect listen if you're trying to get that nostalgic 90s hit that nobody else can cure. Number Girl caught the attention of Toshiba-EMI with this album, and their major label debut "School Girl Distortional Addict" came out later the same year. Some day I might get around to reviewing that one, too. I only wish I could have seen Number Girl while they were still around. There's something especially urgent here. This band was important to a lot of people, and they're important to me too. -Justin Number Girl was: Shutoku Mukai - Vocals, Guitar Hisako Tabuchi - Guitar Kentarō Nakao - Bass Ahito Inazawa - Drums School Girl Bye Bye: 1. Omoide in My Head 2. Ooatari no Kisetsu 3. Sentimental Kajou 4. September Girlfriend 5. Iggy Pop Fan Club 6. Mizuiro Kakumei 7. Nagisa Nite 8. Summer of California '73 9. Mini Grammer 10. Ware Kiritsu Yuiga Hitori 11. 4 Track Professional  I think it's safe to say that Boris is one of the most interesting and unique metal bands in the world today. On "Gensho" they collaborate once again with the legendary avante-garde musician Merzbow. There's a bit of a unique edge to "Gensho"; Boris and Merzbow each recorded their own album to be played in tandem with one another. The listener can raise or lower each side to their own taste. The album can be as clean or as drenched in noise as you'd like! The Boris side of the album is made up of re-recorded versions of old songs minus the percussion. Merzbow composed all-new creations for his side. My first dive into this album was with the Boris side at 100% and the Merzbow side at around 30%.  "Farewell" was once the booming introduction to Boris' beloved classic album "Pink". Now it serves as the equally booming intro to "Gensho". Paired with Merzbow's "Planet of the Cows", this song takes on an entirely new form. The twisting feedback from "Planet of the Cows" actually makes up for the lack of percussion in "Farewell" in an interesting way. With the two overlapping albums, I didn't even notice the transition into "Huge" on the Boris side. "Planet of the Cows" is still running. The squealing feedback intensifies while Boris cuts in with some HUGE guitar chords (pun intended). "Huge" was another opening track back in the day, this time for Boris' second album "Amplifier Worship". The Boris song "Resonance" begins at the same time as the second Merzbow composition "Goloka pt. 1". All the sound is coming from Merzbow at this point, from soaring feedback to a marching beat of steel drums. Interestingly enough, "Resonance" is just that. It's just a studio hum which is completely inaudible over the insanity of Merzbow. "Rainbow", from Boris' collaboration album with Michio Kurihara, attempts to break through the chaos with some beautifully harmonious guitar. If you turn Merzbow down just a bit, you can make out the slinking bass and Wata's gentle voice. A massive hit of guitar feedback slides in and becomes somewhat of a solo. The bass carries on even as the feedback abruptly drops out. 
"Sometimes" and "Goloka Pt. 1" build into a wall of sound which shatters to pieces in perfect harmony. Merzbow's "Goloka Pt. 2" starts just as Boris' "Heavy Rain" (off of their most recent album "Noise") starts to peek in. Merzbow's side actually slows down to let Wata's voice seep through for just a minute, before Boris' guitars smash through and leave you breathless. This combination had been released earlier in the year, but hearing them as part of the whole just makes it so much better. "Heavy Rain" is one of my favorite Boris songs hands-down, and this is just more confirmation of that point. I have a recommendation for you: don't ever listen to music as loud as I listen to it. My volume is turned way up, and I think I may actually be dying as I write this. There's no other explanation for the way this song makes me feel.
With no warning, everything suddenly drops. A bassy electronic beat and Merzbow's glitchy feedback together serve as the introductions for "Akirame Flower" and "Prelude to a Broken Arm", respectively. The duet vocals on "Akirama Flower" are emotional and beautiful. I've actually never heard this song, originally from Boris' split release with nine days wonder. It's a gorgeous and powerful song. The melancholy of the vocals pair well not only with the instrumentation from Boris, but Merzbow's slightly more organized noise as well. This is actually my favorite Merzbow composition of the four as well. 
GENSHO:
Boris: 1. Farewell (originally on Pink) 2. Huge (originally on Amplifier Worship) 3. Resonance 4. Rainbow (originally on Rainbow) 5. Sometimes (My Bloody Valentine cover, originally on Yellow Loveless) 6. Heavy Rain (originally on Noise) 7. Akuma no Uta (originally on Akuma no Uta) 8. Akirame Flower (originally on Golden Dance Classics, split with 9DW) 9. Vomitself (originally on Amplifier Worship) Merzbow: 1. Planet of the Cows 2. Goloka Pt. 1 3. Goloka Pt. 2 4. Prelude to a Broken Arm  What is there to say about the legendary Melt-Banana that hasn't already been said? One of the best punk bands of all time has been making some of most hyperactive and imaginative music since the early 90s, and the fact that they're so unknown should be a crime. Melt-Banana (or MxBx, as they often like to call themselves) has a ton of great albums, including 2013's magnum opus "Fetch", but I'm gonna talk about one a little older than that; ten years older to be exact. "Cell Scape" is an incredibly important noise rock album and I want to give it all the attention it deserves.  "Cell Scape" starts off with an unassuming instrumental intro "Phantasmagoria", but the harsh feedback kicks in for "Shield For Your Eyes, A Beast in the Well on Your Hand". The glitchy, screeching riff sounds almost computer-generated, but guitarist Ichirou Agata is doing this all with just his guitar and about a million pedals. Yasuko Onuki's high-pitched vocals come in and the song just slams into you with an incomparable force. This is what Melt-Banana is all about. "A Dreamer Who is Too Weak to Face up to" is catchy, especially for a pre-Fetch Melt-Banana. There's a lot of noise, but it has an unmistakeable energy and sense of rhythm. On the subject of rhythm, there are no drums on this album; it's all done by drum machine. I, for one, couldn't tell. "Lost Parts Stinging Me So Cold" is one of my favorite classic Melt-Banana songs, a more familiarly-structured song even through the intense feedback and glitchy guitars. Yasuko's "so cooooooooold" isn't exactly "catchy", but somehow really infectious. "Chain-Shot to Have Some Fun" is another one of my favorites by the band, starting with an intensifying wall of sound that explodes into a pummelling thrash. The riff is one of the catchiest things here somehow and is just so unique and ear-splitting at the same time. I love how this band's songs go from the often bare(ish) verses to the often EXTREMELY heavy choruses. There are elements from punk rock, harsh noise, and even heavy metal swimming in the veins of every song. "Like a White Bat in a Box, Dead Matters Go On" starts off with an ear-piercing screech, which becomes even more glitchy and noisy guitar sounds. Past all of that there are a lot of Polysics-esque elements here, plus some more traditional punk rock sounds. This is pure 90s punk in an early-2000s package that got dropped on the curb. At one point Yasuko is singing through what sounds like a broken vocoder and it's like writing a pop song with the sound of nails on a chalkboard. I absolutely hate that sound more than anything, but somehow this song is just... really catchy? I don't know why, but I like it a lot. Next we get "Key is a Fact That a Cat Brings", which has a really awesomely heavy riff. The band jumps back and forth between pitches so high they can probably only be heard by dogs, to sludgy, Melvins-esque hardcore riffs. "A Hunter in the Rain to Cut the Neck Up in the Present Stage" is an absolute mess, which I love. It has barely any structure but it's just so much fun. It's about as hard to follow as its title is hard to remember. There are a lot of intricacies in the noise that are hard to pick out, but can also be rewarding if you do.  The last real song on the album comes in the form of "If it is the Deep Sea, I Can See You There" which features one of the only instances ever of Yasuko actually singing, rather than yelping. Her voice is a bit wavering, but it fits the music perfectly. It's as noisy as any Melt-Banana song and it's great, I love it! This brings us to the closing track, "Outro for Cell-Scape". Back when I first saw this title, I thought it would be similar to "Phantasmagoria" on the other end of this album. Well, not quite. "Outro for Cell-Scape" is a ten-minute-long ambient electronic piece. It has no place on the album whatsoever, but I'm not complaining. It's calming, and maybe that's the point.
Cell-Scape may not be Melt-Banana's BEST album, but it is AMONG their best; definitely top 5, if nothing else. Top three, even. 13 years later, it's still just as surprising, experimental, and just absolutely insane as ever. Melt-Banana is a staple of Japanese underground music, and remains one of the best punk bands in the world to this day. Favorites: Lost Parts Stinging Me So Cold, Chain-Shot to Have Some Fun, Like a White Bat..., Key is a Fact..., If is is the Deep Sea... -Justin Cell Scape: 01. Phantasmagoria 02. Shield for Your Eyes, a Beast in the Well on Your Hand 03. A Dreamer Who is Too Weak to Face Up to 04. Lost Parts Stinging Me So Cold 05. Chain-Shot to Have Some Fun 06. Like a White Bat in a Box, Dead Matters Go On 07. Key is a Fact That a Cat Brings 08. A Hunter in the Rain to Cut the Neck Up in the Present Stage 09. If it is the Deep Sea, I Can See You There 10. Outro for Cell-Scape Melt-Banana Is: Yasuko Onuki Ichirou Agata For More Information: Website: http://www.melt-banana.net/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melt-Banana/192954987398661 Twitter: https://twitter.com/melt_banana/  POLYSICS is an internationally loved electro-punk band formed in 1997. "What's This???" is their... well... They have a lot of albums, let's call this the 20th. Before I take a look at this album, I have to admit that I haven't listened to anything POLYSICS has done in the last eight or so years. That's about six albums worth of material I'm missing, at least. Not that I'm a professional on the rest of their discography, but anyway. POLYSICS is a great band and this is a new album by them. I'm gonna talk about it.  After the intro track "Introduction!" (there have been a lot of those lately, huh?) we get into the REAL first song, "SUN ELECTRIC". I love the pre-chorus punk breakdown, and the vocoder-ridden chorus is just lovely. Even more important is the next track, the perfectly unstructured "Alps Lun Lun". The verses are super fun and loose, and the chorus is incredibly catchy. Out of nowhere, the song slows down before exploding into chaos again. If I had any doubts that POLYSICS would still be amazing almost 20 years later, this song smashed those doubts into the ground. The energy stays up with the next song "Funny Attitude" with some rap-inspired vocals and a little bit of video game synths and, once again, an amazing chorus. POLYSICS definitely has a penchant for amazing choruses. At this point I'm taking a look at the track listing; there are 19 songs on this album. How can POLYSICS possibly keep this up? I think I might actually go track-by-track here, just to follow the album's progession. The next song is "8 Beat Division", which is pretty much all the things I said about the other songs. The chorus melody is as expected, amazing. Still this early on I'm already running out of things to say. "Nail" has some awesomely deep BUCK-TICK-inspired vocals over some slightly harder rock, culminating in a high-pitched chorus not unlike a Melt-Banana song (I mean not THAT high, but there's some similarity there). "Dig Down!" jumps from hyperactive techno punk to... slightly slower hyperactive techno punk? I love the high energy of this album (and of POLYSICS in general), but I wouldn't say no to a nice slow song around here to catch my breath.  And you know what? The next song, "Shunkashuutou", might be about as slow as POLYSICS can get. It has a great bassy groove going and it's nice and danceable without being too much of an anxiety attack. It also has the old catchy chorus, because POLYSICS. It actually is a nice breath of fresh air from an album I've been loving but has also worn me out by this point. The next song, "Take Away", does exactly that. We're back to hyperactive techno punk with another great vocoder-infused verse. It's fun, but does get a little boring halfway through. "Be A Human" would probably be pretty fun live, and maybe even a good closing track. It's been 10 songs now; this is a full-length album and we're only halfway done. "Flying V" is slightly slower, but like a POLYSICS version of slightly slower, so it's still a bit hyper. The opening to "Robot Mime Mime" sounds like we're about to start playing Mortal Kombat or something. It has some really cute synths though and this song is actually revitalizing my interest in the album where I was starting to get tired. Finally we're back to something the last couple songs were missing: THE CATCHY CHORUS! Surprisingly, those don't get old. "1.2.3.4" starts off thankfully calm, sounding like a slowed-down version of a song out of DOOM. The vocals are pretty cute, and it's not too crazy. It picks up in a pretty natural way about halfway through, and it's really a nice song. It has a little more structure than what we've been hearing, even if it's super repetetive.  From the intro bass on "Dopple Gokko", I actually thought this was a Melt-Banana song at first. It's not. Somebody sounds like a robotic chicken during the chorus? I don't know what's happening. It's kinda fun. I'm getting tired, but we're down to the last five songs now. "Hurry Up" is great! It might actually be, heaven forbid... the POLYSICS version of a ballad??? It has some summer song synths (you'll understand if you listen to it) and the vocals are drenched in vocoder the whole way through. It's actually a pretty song too, I like this one a lot. "Vow Vow" is fun with a catchy chorus. "299" is fun with a catchy chorus. "Tempo Tempo Tempo" is fun, with... is there a chorus on this song? There's some kind of breakdown that's for sure. The tempo changes a lot; clever name. Get it? "Goody-Goody" is the last song. The last song! And you know, I'm pretty worn out, but this has actually been a really amazing album so far. Yeah, it has those points where I get a little bit tired, but there are 19 songs on it so that's to be expected. as for "Goody-Goody", well, it's fun. It has a catchy chorus. You know what though? I love it. The melody is so great here, I just can't possibly not love it. And that's how I feel about this whole album. This is a long album. I mean, this is a LONG album. A really, really long album. It's understandable if it's a little hard to get through; I had some trouble too. But in the end, it's not a bad album at all. The other band this year who released an album longer than they should have was Gesu no Kiwami Otome, and they absolutely DID NOT pull it off; it was some of their worst work of their career. POLYSICS pulled it off quite nicely. I love "What's This???", flaws and all. It actually has some of my new favorite POLYSICS songs on it. All that's left now is to wait for the US tour I desperately hope is coming with this album.
-Justin Favorites: SUN ELECTRIC, Alps Lun Lun, Shunkashuutou, Be A Human, Robot Mime Mime, 1.2.3.4, Hurry Up, Goody-Goody POLYSICS Is: HAYASHI - Guitar, Vocals, Programming FUMI - Bass, Synthesizer, Vocals YANO - Drums For More Information: Website: http://www.polysics.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/POLYSICS/260419960659129  Perfume will be ending their COSMIC EXPLORER national tour in the US this summer! The dates are as follows: 8/25/2016-The Wiltern(Los Angeles) 8/28/2016-The Warfield(San Francisco) 8/30/2016-The Vic Theatre(Chicago) 9/3-4/2016- Hammerstein Ballroom (New York) You can pre-order their new album COSMIC EXPLORER at: http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/person/325277 Perfume is: A~Chan (Ayaka Nishiwaki) Kashiyuka (Yuka Kashino) Nocchi (Ayano Omoto) Follow Perfume On: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Perfume.global/?fref=ts Twitter: https://twitter.com/perfume_um Official Site: http://www.perfume-web.jp/   Silent Siren is a rock band who make incredibly idol-like pop rock. "S" is their 4th album, following up last year's "Silent Siren". This band was honestly not on my radar at all, but there was a lot of hype surrounding this release. After a ton of suggestions, I decided to take a look at "S". I'm really glad that I did! The first song on the album is "Cherry Bomb", and what an introduction! As the first song I've ever heard from the group, I'm not disappointed in the slightest. It's catchy, almost too catchy, and just so sweet. It has a super cute refrain of "cherry cherry bomb" all through the song, and you really could mistake it for an idol song if it wasn't for the rock instrumentation backing it all up. Love it. "milk boy" is another song that caught my attention right off the bat, with the band showing a little bit of pop punk influence with some nice power chords filling out the track. The chorus is really great too, and there's a part in the bridge where they delve into a sort of circus or carnival style sound. The first ballad-like song of the album comes right after in the form of "Happy Marriage". It's a cheerfully upbeat song, but just slow enough to call a ballad.
Some other standout points are the amazing bass lines in "Love install", the ACTUAL ballads "hikari", "alarm", and "nukumor", and the group chorus vocals in "C.A.F.E." The closing song here is a cover of ZONE's "secret base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~", another ballad covered here in good form. It's the longest song on the album, at just under six minutes long. It's slow and pretty, a calming end to an exciting album. I probably would have chosen "C.A.F.E." as the ending song, personally, but I like their version "secret base" enough anyway.
I love this album! As someone who had never heard Silent Siren, I'm really glad "S" came out when it did. "Cherry Bomb" is already among my favorite songs of the year, and I'm sure this album will be among my favorites as well. Highly recommended. Favorites: Cherry Bomb, milk boy, Happy Marriage, Yoshida-san Track List: 1) Cherry Bomb 2) Hachigatsu no Yoru 3) milk boy 4) Happy Marriage 5) Love install 6) hikari 7) Yoshida-san 8) Leila 9) alarm 10) nukumor 11) C.A.F.E. 12) Slow Morning 13) secret base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~ Silent Siren Is: Suu – Vocals, Guitar Hinanchu – Drums Ainyan – Bass Yukarun – Keyboard For More Information: Website: http://silent-siren.com/ Blog: http://ameblo.jp/silentsirenblog/ |
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