Kulara is the best. As I've already written, I botched my chance to see them live. Luckily, there are some amazing videos of them online. This CD collects two of their EPs together. Essentially, it's the last recordings they ever made. There are some earlier things that are collected on their discography, but this is the Kulara stuff that I know the most. Enjoy!
Not a lot of info exists on Fugüe. Even when this release was announced, I was kind of confused by the pick. You're doing a series, and your first two bands are envy and TIALTNGO. Who should you have on the next one? My picks would be nine days wonder, bluebeard, kulara, maybe black film dance or end all. But Fugüe? Who the fuck are they? I knew Overmars, and dug their debut album, but the Japanese pick on this was confusing.
On getting the release and listening, Fugüe is pretty good. They play a really noisy, stoner metal variant that fits nicely with Overmars' own epic doom. The bands are a surprisingly good match, and if the whole point of the series was to do something like: hardcore, emo, stoner doom, then I guess the whole thing makes sense. Still, I wish the series would've included the 1000travels/Aghast split that came out the next year. It would've been that cherry on top.
No videos I could find of Fugue. Here's one of Overmars. Have a good weekend!
Chapter 2, better than the first? It's hard to beat envy (for me), but these TIALTNGO songs are the best in their short history. They just perfected the sound they were going for at the last moment, it's a shame that they didn't keep going. What's disappointing is the Vanilla tracks. Their debut album on Salvation was quite good, but these songs are boring and fail to impress.
My only story of TIALTNGO is a sad one that goes with the Kulara one. I was at an envy show in Tokyo and sat in the green room, talking to people while both bands played. So pissed at myself, still.
TIALTNGO went on to form Z, who I never cared much for. A better band to reference is their pre-TIALTNGO band, Swipe, who were really good. Gahh.... I don't have anything else to say. Enjoy this shit!
This is back when Envy could still be considered underground. Yeah, their shows still sold out all over Japan. Yes, they were sort of big time. But, they weren't on Temporary Residence yet. Not that Temporary Residence is a major label, but they're definitely bigger than HG Fact (not better, tho). These songs were after All the Footprints..., but were still better than anything on A Dead Sinking Story.
The release was sort of to commemorate the Japanese split tour of Envy and Iscariote in 2002, but they also toured together in Europe in 2001. Iscariote featured Fafa on vocals, the proprietor of Molaire Industries aka. Waiting For An Angel (they released a ton of fine Japanese stuff including Envy's first exposure outside of Japan). I was actually at the last show on that tour in 2002 at Shinjuku Anti-Knock. I didn't know any of the guys at the time, but I'd later develop a friendship with Fafa through label business.
The Our Dreams Walking Their Way series is basically about Japanese and French bands splitting a release. The conceptual art is done by Nicotcha, and every release has a color theme and is gorgeous. It's funny that I carried all of these releases in my distro and could barely sell them, but now they are almost collector's items. Ah... how times change.
Here's a video I shot of Envy at their show together. And then a random one from Iscariote:
