Artist: Number Girl
Song: Zegen Vs Undercover
From album: Sappukei
Genre: Id-Rock
[Buy this Album][Website][Keikaku Profile]

Number Girl is an absolute indie force.

It’s simultaneously tragic and liberating that some of the most profound experiences in life either require, or engender, a paradigm shift. They aren’t accessible to everyone, just those accidentally on the cusp. It’s my opinion that Number Girl, like Downy, and much underground music, has a similar, if not parallel requirement. To fully appreciate this [very great] album/band, you may need to acquire or bring with you a disillusionment with the pretenses of human conduct, and a willingness to burrow down into hotter, darker, and more membranous strata.

Good times.

Artist: Hikaru Tanimoto ?????
Song: Thanks to Music!!
From album: Thanks to Music!!
Genre: Guitaristry
[Buy CD][Website]

This Hikaru Tanimoto fellow seems to be riding his song like a furry dog-dragon thing à la The Neverending Story (It’s the innocent glee and over-excitement that evokes the comparison.). He seems almost too joyful and excited to be playing it himself; yet, empirical evidence suggests that he really is.

At first it’s hard to believe that all the sounds are coming from one kid and one guitar. You hear it pouring out in thick layers like cake-batter, and he’s upending the bowl, licking his lips. He seems giddy with almost surprised love for each note that appears as he flys by them. It’s a joy so devoid of self-consciousness, a delight, not in the fact that he plays music, but in the idea that music itself exists.

I thought it refreshing.

Artist: Rocket K
Song: Super Drunken Christmas
From album: DEPARTURE OF THE GROOOVIE DRUNKER
Genre: PunkDistortion
[Buy CD][Website]

I’m going to post this in the past so that it seems more date-appropriate, better late than never eh.

I hope everyone had a nice holiday and new year and all that. Mine was good, though busy and probably not super drunken enough… ah well.

So I searched my library for something season-esque and this is what I came up with. It’s Rocket K, it’s super distorted, super drunken, and probably somewhat super Christmas in its own way.

Artist: Peterpan Complex
Song: You Know I Love You
Genre: Kpops
From album: Transistor
[Buy CD][Website]

This song by Peterpan Complex sounds like a younger and korean version of muse meets radiohead sung from a more optimistic outlook, and played through rose-coloured speakers.

He insists that you know that he loves you, but does he believe it himself? Is he clinging to what he knows out of a fear of change or disappointment? Is he advocating his love in denial of its triviality when, deep down inside, a feeling of transience is tearing him apart?

Well, I don’t think there’s any reason to think so. Then again, there’s no reason to discard the possibility.

Also: merry Christmas eve! You know I love you.

Artist: Envy
Song: Left Hand?????
From album: All The Footprints You’ve Ever Left And The Fear Expecting
Genre: Epic-core
[Buy CD][Website]

This is Envy, whom I have mentioned previously. This image is from the same photographer, another dynamic slice. I’m not sure what to say about such a staple of Japanese melodic-abyssal-shoegaze-core except that they are worthy of the often carelessly-slung descriptor, “epic.”

Not just in adjective form, but in the original noun form as well. In historical epics all the feelings and understandings of a culture, all their thoughts about the world and mankind were condensed, redacted, and molded into a narrative structure that attempted to approximate the outlook of the society. It seems that much the same object and process are evident in Envy’s records. Tumult and anguish show their faces, but so do awe and quiet serenity and a proliferation of emotion that seems to evidence a near-total self-investment.

Previously I mentioned that Toe‘s photographer Yoshiharu Ota was exceptionally good. Then Martine told me that he was brother to the singer of the band Envy, which I’ve long enjoyed. So now, I found more of his stuff and indeed, continue to be impressed.

In his band photography especially, he manages to extract moments of particularly potent visual lyricism from the maelstrom of a live show, and presents them in single slices of radiant time. The more I look at them, the more I realize that they don’t “feel” silent. Or rather, their stark silence belies, in shocking contrast, an atmosphere with sound at its core. It’s impossible to imagine the scenes without inferring a feeling of aural energy permeating that place and time; everything is drenched with it.

Check out his website, “scape for us” and blog for more of Yoshiharu Ota and his excellent work.

[Link][2][3]

Artist: Radwimps
Song: ???????????????????
From album: ??????????????
Genre: Poppunkcore
[Buy CD][Website]

I don’t have much time on me, but here, have a fun video of a little girl destroying a city with a whiffle ball bat. Her energetic, catchy soundtrack could very well fit in on one of our “edgy” American radio stations.

Artist: Apogee
Song: ???? (Yakan Hikou [Night Flight])
From album: ????
[Buy CD][Website]

This video “Night Flight” blends Apogee’s silky synthpop with a nicely edited milieu of cosmical and mythological yet whimsical imagery; and to quite a charming effect.

Not much pop catches my ear these days, but this song and video have something special. The album link is to their first full album “fantastic” which has a newer version of the song. The original is from their single of the same name.