[Bandcamp] T.C.L - Demo 2011 [2011]

Some damn good fast, loud hardcore here. Again, don't ask me for what this sounds like (my brain is fried and inoperable at the moment), but it's really well played, heavy as shit and totally great.

Okay, I'm back (took a week long break). So, this has a lot of the feeling from 324 or some other crusty grind bands. But, they never go quite into the grind and take it more to a NYHC kind of place. Like I said before, heavy and fast. Totally free download, so you're not losing anything from getting down to this.

T.C.L - Demo 2011

1. Burst & Rise

2. Start It Up

3. So Why?

4. Weapon

[Bandcamp] Saisa - 1st EP [2011]

Wow, this was a true find. Jacob from Keep It Together Records sent me these guys. He'll be releasing a tape from them soon, and its going to be great. Saisa have put their first EP up here for free download, and it is a gorgeous thing. When I saw "post-rock" in the description, I was expecting something boring, but Saisa creates some of the most beautiful and heavenly music I've ever heard. The most obvious comparison is Sigur Ros, due to the high vocals and guitar sounds, but the song structures are much more traditional post-rock. It's pretty refreshing and completely unexpected from a small Japanese band. I even hear some envy influences, but mainly envy's more laid-back instrumental stuff and their reverb-y telecaster guitar sounds.

This is just really, really good and you need to get these three songs immediately. I'll update again when KIT has the tape out!

Saisa - 1st EP

1. Faith In Ordinary

2. Little Light Way

3. Lycoris

[Bandcamp] Nature Sounds Society Japan - Sound Travel [2011]

Yeah... this is a weird one. It's not really music, it's really just well recorded environments in different places in Japan. It's not weird in the sense that this stuff doesn't exist all over the place, it's just weird for me to post something like this. Each song title describes where & what is going on in the track. This particular album I have here has a lot of different locations, all of which are really chill. There's free downloads for this and other albums on their bandcamp, so go grab some good sounds to sleep to!

Nature Sounds Society Japan - Sound Travel

1. #2 Birds, Forest Reverb 

2. #4 Birds, Early Morning 

3. #1 Thunder and Hailstone 

4. #3 Small Stream 

5. #5 Stream and Bird

6. #6 Blue-and-white Flycatcher

7. #7 Gentle Ocean Waves

8. #8 Higurashi, Summer in Japan

9. #9 Rain, Totoro Forest

10. #10 Beach and Motorbike

11. Sound Portrait Sampler Vol.1

[Bandcamp] Teratocarcinoma - Coma [2011]

I thought this would fit perfectly in this week. I don't really cover much metal on the blog. Part of that is because I don't know too much about it, but the other part is because there isn't that much underground metal in Japan. I'm sure I'm wrong in saying that, and some Japanese metal know-it-all is going to post on here and tell me how wrong I am (actually, please do). But from where I'm sitting, it sure seems that way. Japan has its share of power metal, but post-metal? Black shoegaze (as I like to call it)? It's pretty slim pickings.

So imagine my surprise when I found teratocarcinoma, who play a pretty depressing form of post-rock infused with black metal. This stuff is really good too. Only one guy is responsible for all the instruments, but it sounds really cohesive and just totally works. It was just the thing to bring dark clouds into my sunny morning. Highly recommended for fans of Deafheaven, Alcest, or Les Discrets.

[Bandcamp] Capture of the Sky - Pre-production EP 2 [2011]

Time to X up, boys and girls, and get your dancing shoes on. It's moshing time! Today we're listening to Capture the Sky, who have so graciously put a bunch of their music up on bandcamp for us (including free downloads!). I won't pretend to know a ton about this stuff. Usually I only listen to Japanese metalcore, because it sounds different from American or European metalcore. Capture the Sky is definitely more American influenced, but I can hear some of my Japanese favorites as well.

The first point of departure for Capture the Sky's melodic metalcore is definitely Hopesfall. Their melodies are very progressive and even their breakdowns have a strong melodic overtone to them. There's no singing, just lots of gang vocals and growling. It also really reminds me of Naiad, and I actually think that's probably the biggest influence, especially on their Demo EP. So, if either of those bands sound good to you, definitely check these guys out. There are three demo/eps up on bandcamp and two have free downloads. That's a nice chunk!

Here's a pretty rad video of them at Shinjuku Anti-Knock:

Capture of the Sky - Pre-production EP 2

1. Small Steps

2. Serene

[Bandcamp] Midnight Parade - Various [2008-2011]

Midnight Parade has definitely been making the rounds. They've released stuff on Say Hello to Never Records, Further Platonix, even showing up on the Love the Fate compilation. So, they've definitely been busy and all, but I have none of these and had never heard them before. So, on top of my normal pleasure at finding a Japanese band with uploaded songs on bandcamp, I finally get to hear a band that has been on all those distro pages for so long.

The songs available on bandcamp are scattered, only one is off a release I could find available. Still, there's 3 studio tracks and 2 live tracks, and you can get a good sense of their sound. They have a bit of a Toe influence with the instrumentation, a little 3cm tour in some of the songs, and something else that I can't think of. Each song is plenty long and goes through lots of different moods before their epic endings. My favorite song of the three is 8cm先の憂鬱, which has a more aggressive tone than the others, and definitely reminds me of 3cm tour, or maybe Birth.

Check them out, and get their releases if you can. Now I have to add them to my list of stuff to buy in those intermittent orders to Japanese distros. Man, wouldn't it be great if there was a distro in the US that was trying to bring over Japanese stuff...

I have to say though, this video below, which was one made for the release of the unripe split, is so frickin' boring. These guys are just standing around, only playing their instruments. No emotion guys? Oh well, the music's good, so that's fine, I guess.

I'm not going to embed all these songs (they're all listed separately), so you can just visit the link below:

Midnight Parade - Various

1. 8cm先の憂鬱

2. Sign of Discommunication

3. Red Light Discor

4. 8cm先の憂鬱 [2011​.​10​.​01 LIVE]

5. Red Light Discor [2011​.​10​.​01 LIVE]

[Bandcamp] Elica - 2 songs [2011]

I'm not an expert on DC-style hardcore. I only dabbled in Minor Threat and Bad Brains. I bought a Fugazi LP from Hot Topic. So, when I say I'm probably not the best person to write about this stuff, I'm just being honest. I'm not even sure I can say this is "DC-style hardcore" or "No Idea" style post-punk. When I listen to it, it reminds me of the times I've listened to that stuff. Unfortunately, those were few and far between.

What I can talk about is how they are fairly unique in the Japanese scene. They hint at the melodic post-hardcore of 1000travels and Infro, but try to stay dissonant through most of their songs. Some of the dissonance and shouted vocals remind me a lot of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. And their general sound owes much to their label-mates, This Time We Will Not Promise And Forgive, whom they cover in another song on their bandcamp. There are probably more influences that I'm not aware of, and possibly even a solid scene that they fit into in Japan (Snuffy Smile Records or Imomushi perhaps?). But, they mostly play with Tokyo screamo bands, so that seems to be where their loyalty lies anyway.

There are two-songs from their new full-length on Bandcamp, which was released in Japan by Oto Records.  You can pick it up from Go Forward Keep Distro (among others). They are friendly to send around the world, so just send an email. Reading the description in the distro, I can see that I wasn't far off from my understanding of the music.

If it sounds like your thing, check it out!

Elica - two songs

1. letter

2. AM 1:00

[Bandcamp] Sete Star Sept - Gero Me [2011]

50 songs, an exercise in desensitization. In many ways, the cover above pretty much sums up Sete Star Sept (SSS) (they do say a picture is worth a thousand words). But, putting a Shintaro Kago drawing on your cover (and a wild one at that) takes some pretty big balls. Kago is on the forefront of the insane manga wave and to liken yourself to his stature means you're pretty much setting yourself up for failure. Luckily, though SSS pulls it together and blows your face off, just like this cover.

Two people and a wall-full of noise. Between two instruments and a voice, they make the grindiest, power-violentiest concoction around. Most two-pieces usually go for fast stuff, but SSS takes it to a whole new level. As this 50-song album can attest, songs will be as fast as they can humanly be played and as short as one second (take that Napalm Death!).

SSS is on tour in the West Coast USA starting this Friday. Below are the show dates, so make it out if you can, or just check them out on the MRR radio show on Friday:

April 27 (Friday): San Francisco, CA
     Maximum Rock and Roll Radio show http://radio.maximumrocknroll.com/
April 28 (Saturday): San Francisco, CA at Parkside
     w/Tragedy, Needles,Permanent Ruin, Stressors
     more info: http://theeparkside.com/event/39664
April 29 (Sunday): Portland, OR at Brickshit House
     w/Transient, Honduran, Worthless Eaters
     more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/407627449249490/
April 30 (Monday): Seattle, WA at Club M
     w/Same Sex Dictator, Sidetracked, Spirit Of Radio, Exogroth
     more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/159298387524190/
May 1 (Tuesday): Arcata, CA at Mex'N'Wow
May 2 (Wednesday): Bakersfield, CA at Munoz Gym
     w/Runamuck, Mobius Dick, Whore Scent
     more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/238768366221759/
May 3 (Thursday): Las Vegas, NV at Yayo Taco
     w/God's America a.k.a. The Seeds Of Rape, Nests, Vihan Rytmi
     more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/159906597464857/
May 4 (Friday): Los Angeles, CA at Rito's house
     w/Suffering Luna, deadissue
May 5 (Saturday): Concord, CA at Greenhouse
     w/Godstomper, Your Enemy, Queffer Sotherland, Striations

Their full-length from last year is available on bandcamp (and amazon and probably iTunes), and the whole thing can be streamed on the site:

Sete Star Sept - Gero Me

1. gero me

2. social insect 

3. all time low

4. schizop hrenia 

5. prayer prayer

6. absolute zero 

7. supporters of euthanasia

8. waiting room

9. endless path 

10. gas chamber executions

11. lethal injection

12. enshrining

13. forty minks

14. water parks

15. lush

16. me lush soft

17. lush end 

18. active immunity

19. u.f.o

20. suck a dummy

21. counter productive

22. scoliosis

23. bein a haze

24. shi talks silence

25. dust bowl

26. windswept

27. vamoose 

28. zip zag

29. mollusc 

30. playing craps

31. system of govemment

32. fill one's stomach

33. sensory aphasia

34. vocal apparatus

35. motion sickness

36. counterattack

37. press restraints

38. fairy forest

39. fuck1

40. fuck2

41. fuck3

42. fuck4

43. fuck5

44. fuck6

45. fuck7

46. fuck8

47. he needs a lesson

48. lesson charge

49. lseeo7

50. multiple personality

Atata - Various Tracks [2010-2011]

It's an 'A'! Do you see it?

Atata is a band. They have ex-members of Holstein, Journal Spy Effort, and Mirror. There are 6 people in the band. You might be thinking that is a lot, and you're right. You might question the need for those extra people, but I think once you hear the unreal sound that Atata makes, you'll understand why 6 people working together can do amazing things. 

Atata is emo 2.0. This doesn't mean they're doing some My Chemical Romance shit. It reminds me of the conversion from Mineral to Gloria Record. In Mineral, you had an amazing sound and song-writing, that was executed minimally and not recorded too good. With The Gloria Record (only talking about the early stuff), it basically was like Mineral got an upgrade with more instruments and more elaborate song structures. It was amazing and so good. But then they turned to shit and I stopped paying attention. Atata does the same (without the shit part, so far) with their former bands. They take the previous sound and upgrade it. If you're unfamiliar with those former bands, they have that angular, Japanese emo sound. If you grabbed the Balloons album yesterday, it sounds similar but much richer.

They've posted 3 songs to download on their site. Sort of like a demo, but all the tracks are individual downloads. The above pic is from their upcoming album, but I'm not sure how those songs will sound. Also, for the below songs, a warning to my readers: They are WAV files, not MP3s, so you'll need a converter unless you're going to burn to a CD. Why they did this, I can't answer. It seems weird to me.

Most importantly, I know you're wondering, how do these song make me feel? Well, I say, they make me feel all warm and tickly inside. The quality of this band is impeccable. The songs are long and small worlds in themselves. Each clocks in around 4-5 minutes, and through multiple instruments, spine-tingling vocals, and complex structures they pick you up and let you down as carefully as a mother. So sweet.

But really, these are songs are worth the huge download and conversion. You can sample them below as Youtube videos. And their album should be out soon, so look out for that in May!

Fury of the Year:

Recito:

General Headquarters:

LEF!!! DUB!!!:

Download Atata Songs here.

[Bandcamp] Malegoat - To Face the Music [2011]

The beginnings of albums are like all first impressions. That's why another long intro or some spoken word shit is going to make me lose it. Luckily, I can just pop in Malegoat and forget everything. A smile on my face within 5 seconds always speaks highly of a band, in my opinion, and I think Malegoat got a smile in 3. That's gotta mean something, right?

So, I'm going to organize this little talk-about (I don't want to call it a review, cause that requires me to write a certain way) into maybe three main points, the first already being said. The second point is about Japanese bands singing in English. It can ruin a band sometimes. I usually just tune it out when Husking Bee or Staple start trying to pronounce some sort of mangled lyric. I believe in singing in your own language (even though I totally break that and try to do vocals in different languages myself). But Malegoat may pass my silly barrier keeping the non-English speakers from singing in English. It just wouldn't be the same if they didn't. The pronunciation is almost perfect, but the phrasing IS perfect. The vocals are really one of the best things about this. So often with jangly emo bands like this, the vocals are not quite on key, and it just ruins the experience for me. Malegoat's vocals are always on point and go with the music perfectly. You have my permission.

Finally, nothing will stop me in my tracks like a trumpet in an emo song. Halfway through this album, they throw in an instrumental track and lace it with soothing trumpet. It just feels so American Football that they get a free pass to finish the album with some white-boy juggalo trash. For a period of two years, I went to bed with American Football every single night. Their sound has totally brainwashed me. I remember when I was listening to this album for the first time. I was paying attention to something else, but when that trumpet sounded, it was like a dinner bell. It totally soothed me, reminding me of high school. And that's what this music is about for me. It's the sound that I remember from high school, updated to be fresh and awesome.

That's about it. I love this. Keep It Together Records released the cassette in the States, so frickin' get it!

Malegoat - To Face the Music

1. Matured Sense

2. Change With Our Time

3. Expression

4. Your Lie

5. Ignore

6. Time Passes

7. Tidying

8. My Blues

[Bandcamp] Sto Cosi Cosi [2011]

Vocalists' styles aren't always so sound changing for me. You've got some vocalists who sort of blend into the music, others who borderline ruin the music. But I don't find many vocalists who really take a band to the next level. When I heard Sto Cosi Cosi for the first time, the music was good. Really good actually, but when the vocals started up, with that scream that ends with a high shriek, I was hooked. It reminds me a lot of Minoru from Tiala/FiveKindsSquare, but it's a bit younger sounding. It really adds an intensity and rawness to the music that just fits so perfectly.

Sto Cosi Cosi is a weird fucking name. I through they straight made up some letters until Google informed me that it is an Italian phrase meaning "I'm so so." That might not be a surprise to any of you Italian speakers, but my Italian stops at food names. Regardless, I didn't expect a band with that name to sound so harsh. There is a "genre" in Japanese music called "Chaotic." It's usually a catchall for discordant hardcore and screamo. It's rare that a band in the "Chaotic" genre is actually chaotic, but I think Sto Cosi Cosi fits there better than most. For me, Junk Hardcore makes a lot of sense. Even though it was never attributed to such bands, it makes me think of Ink & Dagger, Antioch Arrow, and Swing Kids. The music is kind of played messily, but it adheres to a weird sound all of it's own. Sto Cosi Cosi fits in that genre too. They are "Chaotic" and "Junky" and they have "Tiala" vocals. Yes, that sounds right. My description has made me happy.

So, here are three live-ish songs, probably recorded with one mic in their practice room. For the uninformed, studio can mean practice studio or recording studio. Most Japanese don't have garages to play in, so they have to rent practice studios. There, you learned something today. You're welcome.

Oh yeah, and they're looking for a drummer. So get on that. [Update: They found a drummer!]

Sto Cosi Cosi Bandcamp

NNI Postrock Compliation - Vols. I & II [2011-2012]

The divide between the underground music scene in Japan and the doujin music scene seems pretty large. Obviously, I'm only observing from a distance so I can't really tell. But the bands from either scene never play together (even though most doujin artists never play out anywhere), and their pages are never linked to each others. The doujin scene is really focused around internet releases and selling their stuff at Comiket, the underground scene live shows and distros. I listen to both scenes, as I can find info on them. Wherever the music comes from, if it resonates with me, I'll listen to it.

With all that being said, now I have to sort of contradict myself. What I'm posting today, I only found because of a link between the scenes. The band none but air (yeah, it sounds a lot like some it air, which is why I got excited) played a show with some underground bands I pay attention to (document not found & elica). I looked them up, liked their sound, and found that they appeared on a post-rock compilation (post-rock not being my favorite genre anymore after millions of bands have murdered long intros in the face). The compilation was full of bands I'd never heard of, so I gave it a chance and it was surprisingly solid. And there were more than one, there were two compilations! It looks like this NNI group is doing these as some sort of collaboration between musicians and artists.

Anyways, the downloads are free and the music is good. Most every band sounds different than each other, and some don't quite fit into the post-rock mold (is that techno I hear?), but free is as cheap as you can get.

NNI Records Compilation page

夕景の窓 - NNI Postrock Compilation #1

1. Melanche[n]try - アイオンの微睡

2. つこ - 蝶の軌跡

3. ぽんぽんがぽんぽん - Am I sleeping?

4. LOMO - To mute the World

5. カトウタイキ - dreamy wonder

6. ネツ - トイボックス、または白塗りのマティエールが机に突っ伏すまで

7. SE2 - アンジュロと真夜中

8. Fairy Penguin - 演劇少女

9. mellow out - Lights

暁の窓 - NNI Postrock Compilation #2

1. エヌオシ - 仮眠の季節におけるボクたちの挨拶

2. X2N - Musica

3. Al-Kamar - 閉塞と虚空

4. iida - riot in me

5. 110428 - juvenile

6. 6ta - Insider in the minor

7. tuaiki - We go without our will

8. none but air - 閉鎖された鍵穴の理由と終わり

9. 奈加野ｸﾞﾘﾌｫﾝ - さよならに咲く