Where To Start: Japanese Screamo

     I've had several people mention that they don't really know where to start when getting into Japanese music. I can definitely see how, when faced with hundreds of awesome bands that are equally obscure, it can be a daunting task to get your feet wet. Hopefully I can help out with that, and I'm going to try to do a series of posts that basically aim to gracefully get you, the reader, into some of the best music you'll ever here. The first subject will be my favorite, Japanese Screamo.

     To check out more Screamo, you can browse using the screamo tag.

Please leave feedback on what you want to see with these. I'm sort of shooting in the dark as to what is the best way to help newcomers dive in.

Intro:

     Screamo (or Emotional Hardcore) came to Japan in the early 90's. There are early traces of Japanese people contributing and sending in stuff to Heart Attack magazine, and appearances by Sawpit on the label, Ebullition, and Bonescratch doing splits with foreign bands. The late 90's saw the Tokyo and Sapporo scenes both getting pretty busy. Tokyo had bands like Swipe, Envy, and Kulara; Sapporo had bands like Next Style, The Carnival of Dark-Split, and Black Film Dance. From there, screamo blossomed, spawning small scenes in nearly every large city in Japan. There have been countless bands over the past 20 or so years to play this awesome style, so let's dig in! These four groups represent the four pillars of Japanese screamo to me. Yes there are more! And I'm already sorry that I may or may not have included your favorite band. This is all just my opinion.

Starting Point - Envy:

     Envy is basically the glass through which the rest of the Japanese screamo scene should be view through. They began in 1992 and have had the same members for nearly their entire existence. Their style has been copied and modified countless times and nearly every Japanese screamo band has traces of envy in their sound.

What to listen to:

     Envy dropped their first proper album, From Here to Eternity, in 1998, and the Japanese scene has still not recovered. In my travels, it has consistently been the favorite envy album for most of the Japanese musicians I talk to. It's a very raw album, with gorgeous melodies and tons of passion.
     My favorite album and envy's masterpiece is All The Footprints... released in 2001. This was 11 of the most daring tracks to have ever played. Marvelous compositions, soaring melodies, crushing heaviness. It was everything envy hinted at, fully realized. THIS is what the scene really took from and built on. To me, this is the epitome of Japanese screamo.

Where to get it:

     Envy's catalogue is fairly easy to get. Temporary Residence Limited is there US label, and has re-released most of their back catalogue. MP3 versions are available through Spotify, Amazon, ITunes, and more. TRL just released a jaw-droppingly amazing boxed set of envy's entire recorded output, 14-LP's. It's a bit of an investment, but it will give you everything you need to understand and appreciate this important band.

What to watch:

     Envy @ Sendai Birdland (1998)
     Envy @ Shinjuku Anti-Knock (2002)
     Envy Transfovista DVD (2007)
     Envy @ Kaikoo Popwave Festival, Osaka (2013)

Next - Gauge Means Nothing:

     Gauge Means Nothing started playing in the late 90's. Their first EP came out in 2003, from their label and mine. They are the band that got me into releasing things and energized me to preach the Japanese music gospel. They broke up in 2005, and left behind an EP, split with My Precious, and a last song. They aren't for everyone, and you'll probably either love them or hate them. They take the Japanese screamo sound of envy, and add emo, metal, hardcore, and J-Pop. Their music is always emotional and passionate, and you can tell they are having a blast playing it.

What to listen to:

     Their first EP, The Absent Trail of an Echo..., (which this blog is named after), is the best place to start. There's five songs on there, totaling around 30 minutes of music. Their later stuff gets even more interesting, but there were some changes in songwriters and the personality is different. Check out this EP first.

Where to get it:

     So glad you asked! You can buy copies of The Absent Trail of an Echo... on CD at the MeatCube store.   You can listen to it on MeatCube's bandcamp page. And when you're ready to move on, you can also listen to their split with My Precious, although the CD is out of print.

What to watch:

     Gauge Means Nothing @ Tokyo (2003)
     Gauge Means Nothing - Right Hand PV
     Gauge Means Nothing @ Nishiogikubo Watts (2004)

Next - Killie:

     Killie started playing in the mid-2000's. They pretty much formed as a super group with members from 3cmtour, Cleaner, Anthropic Disease, Sora, and The Black Line Fever. Their image and brutal sound has made them gain popularity fairly quickly. They've released several splits, singles, and EPs to this point, and are working on their first album now. Their sound is based on envy's sound, but add lots of time changes, depressing melodies, and intensity ala Louise Cyphre or Orchid.

What to listen to:

     Killie's first EP, Want to Escape From the Underground..., is my favorite. It mixes their raw intensity with some amazing melodies. They've moved on to a more broad sound since then, but the brilliance of that EP overshadows their other stuff, for me. The next step is to check out their EP, After all, the opinion.... Two long songs on one side of an LP.

Where to get it:

     Unfortunately, nearly everything Killie has ever released is sold out. You can keep an eye on their Discogs page to see when people sell things second hand. Their 2xCD split with Off Minor is usually the first thing to show up. Otherwise, you can download almost their entire discography from this post here. Hopefully their upcoming album will have more copies produced and be distributed out a bit better.

What to watch:

     Killie @ Arayakushimae Studio LIFE (2005)
     Killie @ Tokyo (2007)
     Killie - Resurrection DVD (2008)
     Killie - Taipei, Taiwan (2013)

Next - Dip Leg:

     Dip Leg started playing in the early 2000's in Okayama, which is kind of in the middle of nowhere. They developed their own offshoot of screamo which built from envy's sound, and added angular guitars and deep, soulful grooves. Their album was the second thing I released, and they released another EP before splitting up. Their sound is very approachable, with warm melodies and perfect instrumentation. Their vocals are high-pitched and may take some getting used to, but meld well with the rest of the music.

What to listen to:

     Their debut album is classic Dip Leg, The Sympathy Without Love. It has 8 songs, and every one is a winner. The album is pretty much another Japanese screamo masterpiece, perfectly conceived and executed.

Where to get it:

     Their album is still available on CD at the MeatCube store. You can also listen to it here. Once you've consumed that, I also posted their followup EP here.

What to watch:

     Dip Leg Live (?)
     Dip Leg - Videos from EP (2006?)

[WeAre]Off! - Final Issue

[WeAre]Off! was an Osaka based zine active in the early 2000's. I only have one issue, but this one is jam packed with some of my favorite bands. Local Kansai acts like I Eat Me, S41, and R3-N7 join Tokyo acts Gauge Means Nothing, After Forever and Neoteny. Pretty great. I'm not able to translate anything into English, but this is still a pretty cool snapshot of the Japanese underground scene circa 2002. Enjoy!

[WeAre]Off! - Final Issue

Best Albums of 2012

Yes, I know 2013 is almost halfway through. I also know I haven't touched this blog in a long time. Whatever. I'm a walking contradiction! Anyways, I recorded this best of 2012 podcast awhile ago and thought I'd post it with my write-up as well. Enjoy!

Best of 2012 Podcast

sora - echo

mother - 1990

tetola93 - 腐敗の一死報国

saisa - Faith In Ordinary

birth - 音楽は変わった

My Top 5 Releases of 2012:

Sora - 灯台の上で待つ
     - I feel almost a responsibility to put this first. Sora split up in December, playing their final show after almost 10 years (I saw one of their first shows in 2003). Before they left us, they recorded a proper album which is the true summit of their monumental climb to perfect their sound. From their beginnings as crucial Japanese screamo, through their delvings into post-screamoish rock, they finally hit at this ultimate sound. Japanese style indie rock, but intense in a way that only epic screamo bands can be. Vocals which are passionate and emotional, but smooth and nice on the ears. I loved this hard when it came out, and on 12/31/12 with no close contenders, I have to call it my Best Album of 2012.

Mother - the Living Dead
     - After a demo in late 2011, Kyoto's Mother release their debut album through Impulse Records and ruin everyone else's hopes of making better music. The vanguard of a newly coagulating Japanese sound, Mother builds on the shoulders of predecessors like Turbostaat and 1000 Travels of Jawaharlal. They dabble in the same genre as Infro and Eye, but this debut album really cements exactly what they are about and where they're going. Fantastic album.

Tetola93/Visyaaa split
     - My first listen of Tetola93 left me in total confusion. Emo-violence? Singing? Thrash? I couldn't wrap my head around this mass of chaos, emotion, and melody that was blaring through my headphones. But it was addictive, like crack. Each song was only the good parts. No lukewarm bridges or lousy verses. Short, sweet, and perfect, I had to re-listen to each song over and over and over. This split in particular is their newest and greatest. Tetola93 is essential; they are the shape of Japanese screamo to come. Visyaaa is good too, but unlucky being paired with another band that overshadows them so much. Tetola93 played their last show in 2012, but our in the process of recording an LP to be released by MeatCubeLabel in 2013.

Saisa - This Empty Space Returns Your Solitude
     - Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I don't mind listening to really good "imitations." So, to get it out of the way, Saisa sounds a lot like Sigur Ros. This is not a bad thing. From there, Saisa develop their own sound from the Sigur Ros-ian mold to deliver some of the most soothing, soaring, peaceful, passionate, heavenly, earthly sounds this side of Tokyo. And they do it all with three people. Keep It Together Records released this, their debut EP, on cassette last year. It's one of those incomprehensible moments where a band that should be playing stadiums is actually completely unheard of. Anyways, this is worth it and was really one of the best things out last year.

PS Burn This Letter - Written There For All
     - Something like 3-5 years in the making (the songs were recorded in 2009 I think), P.S. Burn This Letter's first, final, and only release finally makes it out on 7" & CD-R. This band seemed to be custom made for me. Members of Gauge Means Nothing, Tiala, and Box the Compass. This EP (Single?) sounds exactly like you would expect. Carefully crafted emotional hardcore reminiscent of late-90's, early 2000's Ebullition and Japanese screamo acts. In many ways I've moved on to shorter, faster fare, but these songs take me back and do it so good.

Short List (Good albums worth your time & hard-earned money):
Alt Of The Society - Yobikakerukoegakieteiku
     - Debut EP of this Tokyo act, mixing Envy/Heaven in Her Arms style post-rock screamo with Sora-like, intense singing. Pretty blown away by this and the band keeps getting better in their recently release split with Nonrem. I listened hard.

Birth - Ishiyo
     - Finally, a proper full length from these guys. The heavy grooves really surprised me, adding a new dimension to their 3cm tour influenced sound, and making their songs surprisingly danceable. You know you wnat this.

Stubborn Father x R3-N7
     - A complete surprise for me. I'd only heard one song from Stubborn Father before, so this split was so good to hear. Complex and cerebral grindy, thrashy hardcore. Stubborn Father is a visionary band. On the other side is R3N7's most recent crusty demolition trip. The songs are good, but can get monotonous. Odd to see a band go from screamo to synth-spazz-whatever to crust.

Low-Pass - Trimurti
     - Release on cassette through Keep It Together Records this year, Low-Pass's most recent album is finally accessible to the world. Some of the smartest and smoothest instrumental rock heard in many, many years.

Atata - Tatat
     - I was over the moon when I first listened to this, and it's still an amazing album. The intensity can be exhausting once you've listened to the album for awhile. Still, if you haven't picked this up, you're doing yourself a disservice.

To Overflow Evidence - また空をみるために白紙に描く日々の事
     - The 2011 Japan tsunami hit on the same day these guys were doing some final tracking for this album. While it might not technically be reflected in the recording, there is definitely a strong melancholic optimism shining through this album. A full 11 songs of pure Japanese screamo melodies with mid-tempo drums and some surprises. This was a solid album.

Nitro Mega Prayer - The Reason Of Hers Smile [2003]

Nitro Mega Prayer started releasing stuff back in the early 2000's (the earliest thing I have is from 2002) and went through several phases. I saw them play at Whoopee's in Kyoto while I was studying, and they were in their "emotional metalcore" phase. I wasn't overly impressed by the live show. The music wasn't horrible, but I remember being pretty unimpressed. Later, once I'd returned to the States, I started corresponding with the singer, Nakano, and did a trade or something. Somehow, I got copies of their split with Blue Sky Resemble Sorrow (I'll post that on Friday), and possibly this full length (it was 9 years ago. please forgive my memory).  Between the split and this album, their sound changed dramatically. Most of the members stayed the same between the two releases, but their sound became far more emotional and "screamo", I guess. What's true is that they came up with their own style, which is a weird amalgam of screamo, a little metal, and some pop-punk (the last track on this album is a cover of a NOFX song, and it still kind of sounds like NMP).

So, this album. It's definitely a classic of Japanese screamo. Nitro Mega Prayer played a huge part in the Kansai scene. Nakano worked at Kobe Club Blue Port for awhile and organized a lot of shows (including one I played with GMN, Dip Leg, Nitro Mega Prayer, Yarmulke, and Gamy). But let me be honest, this album is fricking hard for me to listen to. And there is one simple reason why: the bass is completely out of tune for the entire album. I'm sorry, but as a musician who has recorded a good amount, being out of tune is ABSOLUTELY unforgivable. If you're going to pay a chunk of money to record your music, you want your listeners to be able to hear it and enjoy it. Unless you want to be out of tune, you shouldn't be. NMP doesn't want to be out of tune, they just are. The bassist plays with a fret-less bass, and that's where all the out of tune-ness comes from. It's such a shame, because every time I listen to this album, the music is really great. They do sooooo many interesting, original things on here that no one has done before. But then there is that annoying bass that just ruins my enjoyment. Why, Japanese-God-Of-Screamo, why?

Still, this is a great album and only sets you up for the absolutely amazing things that NMP does after this. I won't be posting their following EP and split with Balboa, because you can buy them right now online (click where I linked you to). But, basically Nakano scrapped the whole band and replaced everyone. No more out of tune bass, no more drummer who wasn't so bad but had a weird style, no more guitarists who had some pretty neat ideas. Instead, he added a bunch of dudes, and most influentially, Ponchi from Gauge Means Nothing on guitar. He became the mastermind for the following songs and created some of the best Japanese screamo ever with the band.

When I was practicing the songs in preparation for playing with Gauge Means Nothing for their Malaysia tour, Ponchi sent me one or two songs that they were in the process of writing. He had recorded them all himself with just a metronome providing the tempo. I was completely floored by these songs. They were nowhere near completed, but the level of quality in the songwriting was amazing. It was different, and in some ways a lot better, than what GMN had done before and I was so excited to hear the finished product. In the end, we didn't play them on the tour, and Ponchi shortly left the band so they were never made into finished songs. But, Ponchi kept creating songs and once he got into NMP, the world got to see how amazing his songwriting was.

Here's the kind of music video for one of their newer songs:

Nitro Mega Prayer - The Reason Of Hers Smile

1. オレンジの太陽

2. 探し物

3. 近づけない

4. 窓の外の赤い景色

5. ただそう思うだけ

6. アーチ

7. 繊細すぎる笑顔

8. 運命

9. Lori Myers (NOFX cover)

[Bandcamp] Atari - 2 songs [2012]

I am just not doing great with my schedule this week. Hopefully none of you guys are checking this blog at 12:01pm and getting disappointed by my laziness. If you are, then I'm sorry (ps. get a life).

Today we're going to listen to Gauge Means Noth... oh... um.... Atari. We're going to listen to Atari. Sorry, got a little confused there. Well, when a band lists Gauge Means Nothing (GMN) as their biggest influence, you know you're getting something interesting. To their credit, Atari really nails it. And they nail it in the right sense.

What makes GMN so special and amazing is the refusal to cater to trends, only playing what they want. Other bands will fade with time as their sound is dated and rehashed, but GMN will always stand out as unique as when they were still playing. There won't ever be another GMN, no matter if a band tries or not.

So, we have Atari here, and they definitely sound like GMN. Essentially, if GMN had created a genre then Atari would be in the same genre for sure. There is some similar parts between the two, but I think Atari reflects the spirit of GMN even more than the sound. This is reflected in some of the parts that are almost more grind or d-beat, definitely not what GMN ever did but still feeling similar. It's that mad mixing of genres and moods that made GMN so special and unique, and I think it makes Atari pretty special and unique themselves.

They've put up two songs on their bandcamp that have nice studio recordings, and the songs are pretty badass. There's another song on their myspace, but the new songs on the bandcamp are the best, in my opinion.

Check them out and hopefully the band will be releasing this stuff physically somewhere! Here's a video of them playing recently:

Atari - 2 songs

VA - My Notebook is Full of Scribbles Compilation [2002]

In my memory, which is admittedly shaky these days, this was the first item in my distro. When I found my first sampler CD, I realized it was actually the second. Irregardless, it's always been one of my favorites. I have love, deep in my heart, for good compilations. There are so many bad ones, that good ones stand out like diamonds in a pile of crap. When a compilation is more like a mixtape, then you're in business. While this one (I'm not going to bother typing the full name out, it would end up being about as long as this parenthesis) isn't without its faults, it's really the first appearances from several bands (GMN, After Forever, Enforce, Womb) and seemed to signal a new movement in the Japanese underground that lasted for several years. 

Take Gauge Means Nothing, for instance. There were a few demos before this compilation, and they'd formed in 1997, but this was the beginning of their most prolific line-up (on a side note, any recording before this compilation is gone-gone. Maybe Yuichi has them somewhere and wants to share?). After Forever and Enforce showed their first recordings on this compilation as well. 

The spiritual followup to this compilation was Satire Records "Light Your Way" compilation, named after the zine that Satire Records edited. It featured some of the same bands (After Forever and Enforce) but expanded the selection to include Nitro Mega Prayer, Dip Leg, End All, Five Kinds Square, 1000travels of Jawaharlal and other notable bands from the scene. That compilation feature bands from all over Japan, whereas this one was only Tokyo bands.

Here's a video of Womb from 2003:

VA - My Notebook is Full of Scribbles compilation

1. Womb - Empty Pancake

2. Overgreed - Class Pieces

3. After Forever - The Scale of Sin and Desire

4. Senna - 3 plus 3.

5. Evil Eye Empire - Each Situation Grownd

6. Enforce - 鎖と火炎瓶

7. Gauge Means Nothing - My Glass Reflect Untrue View on My Eyes

8. Senna - I Stam

VA - I've Come For Your Children Summer 2003 Sampler [2003]

Here's a little blast from the past. When I first started the I've Come For Your Children distro in 2003, I put together a sampler CD to give out to people (I'm not sure if I even gave them to anyone). It had a track from every release I was carrying at the time, which is on the inside with prices. It also included a track from the demo of my band at the time, The Baldwin Mass Suicide (of which Matt and I went on to form Cease Upon the Capitol, and Roy joined on Bass later).

VA - I've Come For Your Children Summer 2003 Sampler

1. Gauge Means Nothing - Right Hand

2. Envy - Color of Fetters

3. Torico - In the Air

4. Black Film Dance - Escape

5. Amanda Woodward - Pleine de Grace

6. Enforce - Kusari to Kaembin

7. The Jhai Alai - Wise Old Man

8. Iscariote - Moonbeam and the Dark

9. 324 - Quarter Moon

10. Kulara - Your Own Gain

11. The Baldwin Mass Suicide - First You Broke My Heart, Then You Broke the Hula Girl on My Dashboard Confessional

12. Vanilla - Body Fever

13. The Carnival of Dark-Split - New Normal

14. There is a Light That Never Goes Out - Hijou Jitai

Gauge Means Nothing - The Absent Trail of an Echo and My Future Plagued by Surrender [2003]

Gauge Means Nothing (GMN) is a band that is extremely important to me and played a huge part in my life. When I was studying in Japan in the winter of 2002, Yuichi (bass) was one of my first close friends. I met him at the after party for an envy show in Tokyo. A few months after that GMN came down to Kyoto and played a show, and I was totally blown away. When I came back to the States and heard that they planned to release an EP, I asked if I could release it on vinyl. With the help of my friend Roy, we started the label by releasing "The Absent Trail..."

Here are 5 songs (the track listings for the CD and LP were different by one song each, so there were 4 on each release but 5 total) that bottle up more intensity and passion than most bands could ever dream of having. There's no posturing, no disappointingly pointless filler. Each song is crafted as an individual masterpiece. There's post rock, screamo, hardcore, punk, metal, pop, and rock combined into an intoxicating mixture.

The album was extremely polarizing on release. It received both top scores (even ending up on some favorite lists) and dismally low scores (some distributors refused to even carry it). To me, it seemed like some people got it (and what they got was what was truly important about music) and some people didn't (because they were too caught up on music bullshit).

You'll see more about GMN on this blog for sure. There are a few other releases, videos, promo materials, and some inside info on the release to come later. In the meantime, enjoy these songs and welcome to the blog!

Also, I uploaded a PV that was supposed to be included on the CD version, but never was. Here it is:

Gauge Means Nothing - The Absent Trail of an Echo and My Future Plagued by Surrender

1. pilgrims

2. my glasses reflect an untrue view on my eyes

3. boku wa bikaiin [i'm idealize commissioner]

4. (surely) dyes black

5. right hand