 A-to-J Connections recently realized that we were a bit overdue for a new KOTO interview and as chance would have it, this would be our fifth interview with her and it would take place just prior to her special Fifth Anniversary Concert! If you don't know who KOTO is, let's give you all a very brief recap. We first officially caught up with KOTO early in 2016 with an interview and a live report that can be found HERE and HERE respectively. Just a few short weeks later we were lucky enough to catch up with her in Taiwan where she held her first overseas live! That interview was split into two parts and can be found HERE and HERE. A few months after that we arranged another interview that followed the release of her single "Butoh Yugi" which can be found HERE. LASTLY, we caught up with KOTO in October 2017, circa the release of her "Kotoraberingu" (Kotraveling) single and you can find that one HERE. Basically, you can learn all about KOTO in all those articles!
Since then, a lot of developments have occured! She had a successful crowdfunding campaign for a new album and MV in April 2018 and followed that success up by announcing her major debut, and the creation of a new label just for her called "KOTORA", through Universal Music Japan! November 2018 would see the first album from her in two years with the release of "Bye Bye Teens Lullaby" and she'd also release an MV for one of its songs, "Tiger Fighter Cyber Fighter"! As already mentioned, she recently celebrated her fifth anniversary and has even expanded into other things such as creating choreography for other idols! Basically, there's a lot to say, but let's move onto to the interview!  With an upcoming appearance at Katsucon in Maryland, and a lot of word of mouth, we were lucky enough to recently catch up to Visual Kei band LANTANA and ask them a few questions regarding their formation, their inspirations, their upcoming overseas appearance, and more! If you're a fan of Visual Kei that comes with a tinge of melodic rock that isn't afraid to get loud, and even dark, then this is a band you're going to want to check out!
LANTANA first began their activities in July of 2015 and in December of the same year released their first mini album and held a Tohoku region tour. In February of 2016, they held their first sponsored event. With their next sponsored events held consecutively in June, July, and August. LANTANA released their 1st single in 2017 and it was followed by their second in May with their first oneman event that July. In February of 2019, LANTANA will perform at Katsucon for the event’s 25th anniversary in National Harbor, MD. Here is the Patreon preview version of our interview with Shibuya Kaho! We ran into some problems with the way this is viewable on YouTube so we're going to re-render it with different color correction, but this will remain Patron exclusive until next weekend!
Thanks again for the support!  We've been hearing a lot about ACME lately and we were lucky enough to see CHISA this past July at Anime Expo in Los Angeles during his appearance at the Fashion Show. When given the opportunity to interview the entire band we jumped at it and now we bring it to you! Hot off the release of their first full-length album, "Zesshou Ouka", ACME's unique sound, look, and concept are sure to draw you in. Don't take our word for it though, check out the interview and then follow some links to their MVs and more to see just what makes them stand apart in a somewhat crowded scene!
 Always looking to branch out in regards to the artists that we interview we jumped at the opportunity to interview 叫號(Kyuho) of Mandmans Esprit. This interview is a bit different in that it not only is a bit removed from what we usually cover, but also in terms of some of the answers we were given. Anyhow, it surely is a unique one so be sure to check it out!
Madmans Esprit is a post/progressive black metal, visual kei project based in both Seoul, Korea and Berlin, Germany. Influenced by DIR EN GREY, Opeth, Radiohead, ms. isohp romatem, Human Traces, and more, they bring their unique sound to the world and will be releasing their latest album "무의식의 의식화" (Muisikui Uisikhwa) this October. |
Archives
July 2024
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
© 2014-2024 A-to-J Connections. All Rights Reserved.