Artist: ??? (Midori)
Song: ?? (Osaru)
From album: ????? (First)
Genre: “Romantic Erotic Chaotic Sentimental Death”
[Buy CD][Website]

Midori is hard to write about. Their sound encompases jazz-noise chaos and sweet ballad. Frontwoman Mariko Gotou screams her guts out, and then squeaks cute little noises, sometimes while writhing on the ground, sometimes while standing on the drumset or the shoulders of the crowd, always with intense presence.

I’ll post some video later so you can see what I mean, but for now, here’s the second song from their album “First”. It’s another album from which choosing a representative track is impossible. If this music churns your butter in the least, so will every song on all their albums. No filler here, all songs are singularly crazy, interesting, and strangely addictive. If you “get it”, then by all means, Get it!

Artist: The Luyas
Song: Cats in a Bag
From album: Faker Death
[Buy CD][Website]

Cats in a Bag is a song by The Luyas with an interesting duality.

There’s the carefree unabashedness of the vocal melody, like a developing daydream or breezy stroll; while behind it the sky is dark with some kind of deep burgeoning. Like gray-black airships inflating in the distance, silhouetted by sunset spears.

It’s a peaceful coexistence between the innocent and the ominous.

The whole CD is really quite good, and full of unique songs. It’s worth buying, to support a band worth keeping an eye on.

Been gone for a while but now we’re back with a vengeance and a new writer, Ian Sit. He is coming on board to help raise our posting frequency as we experiment with a new multi-writer format.

Together we hope to climb to at least one post per week now!

Check out his recent compilation, “Lounge Fight” which should give you a basic idea of his musical tastes.

The tracklist is:(

1) Lobotomy by Ogre You Asshole from Demo
2) Utatane No Hibi (L’ecume des jours) by Luminous Orange from Drop You Vivid Colours
3) Black Joe by Nirgilis from Vuna
4) Antenna by Supercar from Last Scene
5) Irie by Spangle Call Lili Line from Spangle Call Lili Line
6) Num-Ami-Dabutz by Number Girl from Num-heavymetallic
7) Lucky by Bugy Craxone from Sorry, I Will Scream Here
8) Hush and Vane by Condor44 from 00203
9) Ao to Akano sekijou by Niumun from The Beginning Of Everthing
10) Nantonaku by Sleepy.ab from Fantasia
11) Highway – Alternative – by Quruli from Jyoze to tora to sakana tachi
12) Shigatsu Ni Furu Yuki by Sloth Love Chunks from Shikakui Vision
13) Atmosphere by 9mm Parabellum Bullet from Gjallarhorn
14) Light Chair by Shugo Tokumaru from Night Piece
15) Drown by Farida’s Café from Gold
16) Ghost Song by Apogee from Fantastic
17) Waratte Sayonara by Fujifabric from A La Mode

So, without further ado, let’s welcome Ian!

Artist: AIR (the one from Japan)
Song: Liberal
From album: Freedom 99
Genre: Various
[Buy CD][Website]

AIR, among other things, is the musical project of Kurumatani Koji. He has put out something like 15 albums, with genres varying wildly within them; something neither the French band “Air” or the atmosphere itself can claim.

For example, Freedom 99 contains, among others: the Rage Against the Machine-ish rap-fronted, bass-backed “Real Say Juice”, the super-energetic electronica dance song “Selfish”, the brooding industrial piece “6453”, the dark alternative “Native”, the clean jazz-bar song “Unmei ha ikutsu mo aru”, and the pop ballad “Koko de tashika ni”. Wow indeed. Very diverse.

(Also this song called “Liberal”, which I thought was an interesting mash of loud guitar-walled machine and contrasting vocal styles.)

Nicely synchronized ferrofluid manipulation and music. A soothing liquid world of gently bedaggered monoliths.

[Link][Previous ferrofluid]

Inviting photography from Sho Uchida with moments of intense stillness.

[Link]

It’s hard to imagine the amount of work that went into creating these tiny intricate carvings. It must take incredible patience and control. There are some very cool ideas.

[Link]

“Take-away shows” is a fantastic idea, and it’s brilliantly executed. A combination that warms the bosom indeed.

Basically you take high-quality cameras and sound equipment, find a band, and convince them to run away and play a mini-set in some randomly-chosen nearby urban locale. The results are simply fabulous.

For instance: Even if you don’t particularly enjoy The Arcade Fire, how can you resist the charm of an entire 8-piece band playing packed comfortably into a freight elevator. It’s really quite hard to miss the feeling.

There really is something for everybody.

[Link]