HANGRY & ANGRY
“Sadistic Dance” (single)
(JapanFiles.com)
Available as a digital download through JapanFiles.com and ITunes US & Japan
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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!

Now I get to explain myself again…

1. Reina Tanaka – Yeah, was there ever any other doubt? This hasn’t changed. Not just my favorite MoMusu, not just my favorite H!Per, but my favorite J-idol, period. Beautiful voice, beautiful face, nice rack, nice butt… fuggedaboutit.

2. Koharu Kusumi – My geinou adopted daughter, and the young woman responsible for three of the most twisted albums in the Hello! Project canon to date, was #3 on last year’s MoMusu poll. Curiously, she was listed twice on Paul’s new poll as both a MoMusu and 1/3 of MilkyWay, so for shits and giggles I went with her MilkyWay outfit, since her tenure voicing Kirarin Revolution is coming to an end (along with the series itself) soon – and also because I seem to be cuing up “Anataboshi” quite a bit lately.

3. Mari Yaguchi - It’s about fucking time Mari hit the studio for the first time in four years and recorded something. My copy of the new single came in today, although I’ve been spinning a leak on my iPod since I caught wind of it (my impatience strikes again, buffered by my conscience saying that since I already bought the record, it’s OK.)

4. Hitomi Yoshizawa and 5. Rika Ishikawa - Placed here mainly because the HANGRY&ANGRY EP has been a frequent visitor to my iPod and CD player. Not to mention I liked Ongaku Gatas and Viyuden. And no, I’m not putting Yossy in this spot just because Reina placed 4th in Vee’s own survey last week.

6. Miyabi Natsuyaki – 1/7 of Berryz Koubou, 1/3 of Buono! and Aa! Responsible via her shirt on the Yuke Yuke Monkey Dance single for the name of this blog. H!Per most likely to make like Mike Watt or Jah Wobble. Shares a birthday with Elvis Costello. 

7. Airi Suzuki - 1/7 of C-ute, 1/3 of Buono! and Aa! H!Per most likely to make like Johnny Ramone or Ron Asheton. Responsible for those great high notes in “Maasara Blue Jeans”. 

8. Yuki Maeda - I’m probably going to be one of the few people voting for the Elder Club’s resident enka singer, but I don’t give a fuck. Yuki set off my interest in enka music long before a fellow Pennsylvanian flew to Japan and gave the genre a kick in the ass. Here’s hoping her future singing career brings her a longevity that equals, if not rivals, Sayuri Ishikawa’s and Yuriko Futaba’s. 

9. Kaori Iida - We still love you, Johnson. Please make another solo album soon. 

10. Nozomi Tsuji - Ah, Nono, if only things were different (read: If only Naoki Yamazaki wasn’t such a stick-in-the-mud prude)… Someone at UFW should dust off the master recording of W3: Faithful and, if not give it a legit release right away, at least force one by leaking the goddamn thing online. 

“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.

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.

Most of these artists haven’t done much on the recording side of things in at least a year, so their forthcoming departures from the unit aren’t too surprising. Yuko Nakazawa hasn’t done a single since last year’s “Danna Sama” or released an album since 2004’s Dai 2 Shou ~Tsuyogari~. Natsumi Abe, although as of this writing has another single due to come out on December 12th, hasn’t released a single in over a year, and her last non-single-length release was the 25 ~Vingt-Cinq~ EP back in March of 2007.

Much of the list hasn’t had much activity in recent years, at least not when it comes to studio recordings. Kaori Iida and Nozomi Tsuji haven’t done any recording in years – Kaori was strangely silent as a recording artist after releasing two post-Morning Musume albums in 2004, save for the MoMusu 10nen unit. Nono hasn’t been near a studio since W3:Faithful and its advance single were first sent to the mastering studio, only for the entire master tape to end up going the way of The Beach Boys’ original version of SMiLE. Their recent transition into motherhood and wedlock is barely a factor in their studio inactivity given that both became Morning MILFs only last year.

The presence of Yuki Maeda on the list sucks. I liked all of her singles (they frequently come up in rotation on an enka playlist I have in iTunes) and would have liked to see at least two full length albums or at least a singles collection from her by now. I hope she’ll have a long post-H!P career as an enka singer that can match Sayuri Ishikawa’s and Yuriko Futaba’s.

Melon Kinenbi’s inclusion on the list is also a shame, given that they’re the only Hello! Project unit that has never had a personnel change in its entire existence. So much for that distinction (unless they are able to keep the band name for a post-H!P career).

The presence of much of Ongaku Gatas on the list is a major shock – especially since Hitomi Yoshizawa and Rika Ishikawa are going to be part of the HANGRY&ANGRY project (unless that’s part of a transition for them already). It seems like yesterday that Asami Konno, after graduating from Hello! Project entirely in 2006, suddenly returned first in a cameo appearance at the graduation of Country Musume’s Asami Kimura and Minua Saitou, and then returned to H!P to participate in Gatas Brilliantes and Ongaku Gatas. I also wonder how Mai Satoda feels about this, given that Ongaku Gatas gave her a seemingly permanent home for her talents after the implosion of Country Musume.

I am of mixed feelings on Miki Fujimoto’s presence on the list. I liked her post-MoMusu solo single (I think I was one of the few, if not the only one, who wrote about it in the IW blogosphere) but its likely she seems more happy as an actress now. We’ll see.

I don’t think anyone expected Rika’s bandmates in the recently disbanded Viyuden, Erika Miyoshi and Yui Okada, to get the axe so soon after the band broke up. What the fuck, UFA, Erika and Yui were just two pairs of tits to you after Viyuden’s last tour ended?

At least all of the above were to see the inside of a recording studio. Mari Yaguchi should have also had a couple of solo albums out by now, but she has become more of a TV personality and has only done one recording (an appearance on the B-side of Berryz Koubou’s first 7nin single) since her sudden departure from Morning Musume in 2005. Kei Yasuda should have also been more active as a singer (her only post-MoMusu appearances as a singer on records were on the last Folk Songs album, and on “ALL FOR ONE & ONE FOR ALL” with H!P All Stars), but at least she’s been touring as part of Natsumi Abe’s live band in recent years as a saxophonist and keyboardist (those MoMusu OG bonds must run deep!). Makoto Ogawa didn’t even get to do anything ouside of a HaroMoni@ cameo since her return from college!

Aya Matsuura’s inclusion on the list is and isn’t surprising. While she has continued to record, in recent months (and years) she has been open about her desire to go in a different direction musically – as if her live-in-studio set Naked Songs, last year’s Double Rainbow and her recent solo singles from that period were not already an indication.

No doubt, many of these Elder Club members will continue to have careers after their departure from Hello! Project. Graduating from H!P does not necessarily mean a departure from Up-Front Works itself (keep Tsunku’s statement about smashing stereotypes in mind), since there are a slew of UFW artists that have never been part of Hello! Project. Some are already active, so I’m sure we will still hear from them. I look forward to seeing how they fare from April of 2009, although I have to admit that in a couple of cases I shouldn’t exactly hold my breath waiting for new music from a few of them. I’m sure Hello! Online will continue to follow news about these artists as they have already done with Ai Kago and Maki Goto’s post-H!P careers. And if this purge means a greater quality focus on Morning Musume, Berryz Koubou and C-ute in the immediate and distant future, so be it.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Apologies to Metallica for the paraphrase of their 1993 live album’s title… maybe. I’m still waiting for one from Metallica for the aptly-named Load and Re-Load albums, unless Death Magnetic is supposed to be one.)