HANGRY & ANGRY
“Sadistic Dance” (single)
(JapanFiles.com)
Available as a digital download through JapanFiles.com and ITunes US & Japan
Rating:

This is, admittedly, a quick review because I only have one song to deal with. I hadn’t even thought that Hitomi Yoshizawa & Rika Ishikawa would hit the studio again before coming to America this weekend for SakuraCon, but go they did.

If you liked the Kill Me Kiss Me EP (I certainly did), “Sadistic Dance” is more of the same, basically – which is not a bad thing: a dark-sounding lyric over mostly major-key punk/goth/pop music. The song starts off with an almost snake-charmer-esque lead guitar line, while the body of the song, whose instrumental arrangement is dominated by techno-influenced keyboards with early Jesus & Mary Chain guitar rhythms (without the excess amplifier feedback), is propelled by an almost poppish beat (especially during the choruses). Yossy and Charmy’s vocals, which have never needed any post-production tricks in their entire careers to date, take on an alternate dimension by way of whoever produced the track (JapanFiles didn’t provide any production credits) making an exact copy the duo’s original unprocessed vocal tracks (one of the many creative advantages of hard-disk recording systems like ProTools and Logic, compared to analog reel-to-reel tape), processing that copy with a touch of AutoTune, and then folding it underneath the original vocals so that both the clear and “robotic” vocals sit side-by-side on the track. In an age where some artists are using AutoTune more as a gimmick to hang (or lengthen) a career on, the deliberate side-by-side vocal production on “Sadistic Dance” comes off as a much more creative and honest way of using that particular ProTools plug-in.

Here’s hoping this is a teaser for a new HANGRY&ANGRY album!

Paul at Hello!Blog has done it again with his annual desire to combine his love of Hello! Project with some mad coding skills. This time around, the survey incorporates all of Hello! Project, including the Elder Club, making for what should be some rather interesting results. Here’s the “tall” version of my survey graphic (the long version I’m going to use as the basis for a future header).

Now I get to explain myself again… Read the rest of this entry »

They had to know we were out here. They had to have known how imported copies of the CDs were going across the Pacific Ocean (and elsewhere). They had to know how mp3s were circulating all over the planet. They had to see Western faces popping up at their concerts lately.Their music didn’t just worm their way onto US iTunes by accident. They had to know.

“They”, of course, meaning Morning Musume, their fellow artists in Hello! Project and their agency, Up-Front Works.

As every American J-pop fan who has a laptop and/or a cell phone knows by now. Morning Musume are going to make their American debut as “First Official Guests of Honor” at Anime Expo 2009 in Los Angeles. Ever since Vee relayed the news to me, I have been in OMFG mode. As my work day was concluding, I grabbed my iPod and started to listen to a different, non-Japanese album that I was thinking of before I heard the news, then realized to myself, “What the hell am I doing listening to something other than Morning Musume, today of all days?”

What I wonder right now is, what is the exact purpose of Morning Musume’s visit (besides performing, of course)? Is this a thank you to the diehard cult American audience that has been literally worshiping them from afar for the past several years? Or is there something else going along with this visit that hasn’t been announced yet? (Like, maybe say, an American distribution deal for their music?)Was having JapanFiles.com do the non-Japanese release of the HANGRY&ANGRY EP (involving MoMusu 4^th Gen members Hitomi Yoshizawa and Rika Ishikawa) a sneaky way for UFW to further test the waters, much like I believe the presence of much of MoMusu’s catalog on US iTunes was a first test?

Furthermore, speaking of H&A, was the streamlining of the Elder Club from Hello! Project (keeping them under UFW contract, however) one of the final steps needed by UFW before they started to look into bringing Morning Musume stateside? I don’t think that sounds completely ludicrous – Hello! Project, in a way, is its own entity within Up-Front Works and is, for all intents and purposes, UFW’s bread-and-butter. But what I am getting at is, I don’t believe that Anime Expo’s announcement of today was the result of an overnight decision on UFW’s part. The usual legalities of bringing a foreign performing act – getting work visas, convincing government officials that the act is either in demand or unique (and Morning Musume certainly qualifies as both at this point), and so forth – take time. The frequent travels of the band – both as a whole and as individuals – to Hawaii over the past several years for fan club shows and photobook shoots, no doubt, may have helped with the visa process.  

Since the news is still fresh and I am still fanboying from it as I write this, it’s too early to tell why else Morning Musume would finally be coming here, but I will certainly not be surprised by anything that happens related to this new development from here on in.

Now I’ve got to start making plans for the first weekend of July… 

HANGRY & ANGRY
Kill Me Kiss Me
(Gothuall [Japan]/JapanFiles.com [North America])
Available on CD, iTunes US and Japan, and through JapanFiles.com

Ooof.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when this EP came out, but since this album has pretty much been my regular car music for the past two months, apparently the formula didn’t miss: Take two 4th-gen MoMusu’s, give them some great rock/goth/punk  hybrid tunes, wrap them in a bizarre image inspired by a Japanese boutique’s mascots, issue on CD and mp3, and knock thousands of MoMusu/H!P fans on their asses. “GIZA GIZA” recalls Evanescence somewhat (not as closely as that album track on 1st Goodsal, though), but the rest of the five-song EP has a style all of its own. A bigger independent label like Matador or Merge could give this album a better shot at American success, but JapanFiles.com put their nuts on the line to make sure this album came out simutaneously with its Japanese counterpart and did a better job in that department than The End did with Dir en grey’s new album.

For a Sunday, I was up a bit early already – you can thank the anticipation of Colin Powell endorsing Barack Obama on Meet The Press this morning for that.

After watching Gen. Powell give his endorsement, I grabbed my laptop and started hitting up my usual news and political haunts to see the initial reactions, then started going to my usual other haunts to see what else was going on, to discover this statement from Tsunku:

I have important news to share.

All members of H!P Elder Club, namely Morning Musume OG (Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Abe Natsumi, Yasuda Kei, Yaguchi Mari, Ishikawa Rika, Yoshizawa Hitomi, Tsuji Nozomi, Konno Asami, Ogawa Makoto, Fujimoto Miki), Inaba Atsuko, Satoda Mai(Country Musume), Melon Kinenbi, Maeda Yuki, Matsuura Aya, Miyoshi Erika, Okada Yui and Ongaku Gatas, will be graduating from Hello!Project on 31.3.2009.

Most of these girls have already graduated from Morning Musume and other groups. They have been appearing on stage since their teenage years.

After the 10th year anniversary had passed, they have realized that it is necessary to smash through the stereotypes they have built by now, and find courage to begin a new trip towards their future careers.

Personally, I have big expectations to see their future efforts, and I would like to announce my support for these girls.

I also hope you will keep supporting both current Hello!Project members and the members who are going to graduate.

(Translation from Hello! Online, grammar-nazied here by yours truly)

While there is some initial shock at reading of what seems like a mass purge, with the shock and bits of sadness comes the realization that this had to happen.
Read the rest of this entry »