togz

THE NOVEMBERS

http://the-novembers.com/
https://www.facebook.com/THENOVEMBERS
https://twitter.com/the_novembers
 

Discography Albums
2008年06月04日 picnic
2010年03月10日 Misstopia
2011年08月03日 To (melt into)
2013年11月30日 zeitgeist
2014年10月15日 Rhapsody in beauty
EP
2007年11月07日 THE NOVEMBERS
2009年03月18日 paraphilia
2012年11月07日 GIFT
2013年05月15日 Fourth wall
Singles
2011年08月03日 (Two) into holy
2014年05月14日 今日も生きたね
Videos:




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This thread is necessary. Any other fans? ;3

As some of you may know, My BACTERIA HEAT IsLAND is basically my super band because of SKULL and Tenten. 
My favorite member is Daisuke, and I've been following him and the rest of SKULL since 2004. Because this is my favorite band right now, I decided to do a drawing of each member, my first being Daisuke~
 

woooooooooo~ poop.

I recently did a listening session with CAT5 and we revisited this album together, and while i can't fully speak for CAT5 I do have to say i definitely hear the influences of their previous work in this. There was even a few tracks that screamed NIL or Stacked Rubbish... and even a few that screamed out DIM. Personally after DIM their music went south for me and I jumped on the gazehate wagon, however I'm going to hope off the wagon for this album because i feel that the production was on point and while some (about 2) songs didn't cut it for me, the overall album had a great flow. I think to be able to combine so many scattered sounds in to a way that flows nicely and sets a specific atmosphere is a great accomplishment, and an impressive one at that. 

I think this album deserves at least an 8, but based on personal preference I'm going with a 9.

aw thank you~

2014 has yielded yet another year of wonderful music, and here's my usual self-indulgent run-down of the albums and EPs I enjoyed most.
My tone this year is a bit more personal and subjective than I tried to be in 2013, and my list isn't as long either.
Thanks for checking it out nonetheless.






CAT5's Favorite Japanese Releases of 2014






clepsydra by chouchou merged syrups.
 
Sample: 橙鳴る

    clepsydra took me by complete surprise after last year's thoroughly disappointing
debut "since". chouchou merged syrups. aren't just following cinema staff's
blueprint on how to play emo rooted indie-rock/pop anymore,
they're actually making it their own this time.


Passage of Time by Cloud nine(9)
 
Sample: Passage of Time

 lop abuse on somebody was, for me, one of the most promising young
post/math-rock bands out of Japan. But since they've disbanded their
guitarist has gone on to join Cloud nine(9), which has, again, become
 one of the most promising young Japanese post/math-rock bands.
Surely this is fate. Oh, and it's completely free over @ bandcamp


HEADACHE AND HEARTBURN by CONCERT
 
Sample: 曖昧さ回避

This release took me completely off guard and would have completely slipped 
 under my radar if not for a good friend of mine. CONCERT's sound seems to
draw heavily off of 70's soft-rock and psychedelia while employing quirky and
forward-thinking production. I imagine this is what a collaboration between 
lamp and cornelius might sound like.


BRIGHT TIME by EGO-WRAPPIN'
 
Sample: 太陽哀歌

 EGO-WRAPPIN's last full-length album Steal a Person's Heart was an underwhelming
effort, fraught with various musical style except the one they do best. So it's great
to hear them return to their jazzy roots on the BRIGHT TIME EP. But with only
4 tracks and the entire thing recorded in mono, it's such a tease.


JariBu by JariBu Afrobeat Arkestra
 
Sample: Wild Pansy

   I'm only aware of three different Afrobeat bands from Japan, and each year it
   seems like these bands take turns outdoing each other - 2012 was the year
  of KINGDOM☆AFROCKS, 2013 was REGGAELATION INDEPENDANCE,
  and so 2014 inevitably falls back to the JariBu Afrobeat Arkestra. They've locked
the grooves down this year and delivered their finest album yet.


homephone TE by macaroom
 
Sample: Kingdom

Another obscure recommendation from a friend that would have surely slipped my
radar. macaroom creates dreamy ambient-pop and homephone TE is an
intoxicatingly immersive album from start to finish. There are, however, 2 tracks 
sung entirely in Croatian that might raise an eyebrow at first.


5 - 1 + 1 = by mothercoat
 
Sample: trickster

mothercoat....consistently creative, and yet consistently underrated. They've
been around for over a decade and yet somehow their music seems to
get lost amongst international Japanese-indie fans - old and new. 5 - 1 + 1 =
is a reference to the changes in their band lineup, and each track is a
distinct reflection of those changes (track 1 - with old guitarist, track 2
without guitarist, track 3 with new guitarist). But three tracks simply 
isn't enough, so I can't wait to hear what else they've got in store.


my letter by my letter
 
Sample: ルーザー！

A friend of mine shared this band's demo with me back in 2011, and while
I remember diggin' it, I'd completely forgotten they existed by this year. I'm
glad they were finally able to get around to releasing an album, though.
Bands like シャムキャッツ and ミツメ released solid records this year, but
my letter takes the cake as my easy-going indie-rock album of the year. 
Lots of great guitar interplay and you can't beat the combo of male/female vocals.


Elephant by orcaorca
 
Sample: Clockwork Lovers

orcaorca is the instrumental outing of 2 members from the electronic
group ChouChou (no, not chouchou merged syrups. ha) Glitchy, electro-acoustic
bliss that weaves itself seamlessly in and out of ambient soundscapes 
and minimal-tehcno pulsation.


Koko by Satomimagae
 
Sample: Mikkai

I don't often hear music like this out of the modern J-folk world, so
Satomimagae was an instant love for me. Her music has an exceedingly
dense melancholic atmosphere and conjures up images of both
depression and desolation. Fantastic album recorded with the perfect 
amount of intimate rawness.


Rhapsody in beauty by THE NOVEMBERS
 
Sample: Blood Music.1985

Rhapsody in beauty is yet another testament to THE NOVEMBER's continued
growth and further accentuates their artistic proclivities. It's a dynamic album-
from abrasive shoegaze, dark grunge, to angelic acoustic numbers and more.
THE NOVEMBERS are clearly inspired and HAVE been for the past few
years. Even if it's taken them about 6 years, they've completely won me 
over as a fan and are now one of my all-time favorites.


CAO by アルカラ
 
Sample: 愚痴ばっかりのローレロレロ

arukara have been on fire since 2009, but this is by far my favorite album
from them yet. The band's sound, which combines all of the hookiness and
buoyancy of pop music with the multifaceted indie-rock ingenuity of an 
early 9mm parabellum bullet, has been refined to perfection.


IMAGINARY MONO-FICTION by ヒトリエ
 
Sample: 生きたがりの娘

I've long thought that some vocaloids had cool backing music, but being
that I can't stand vocaloids, it was always an unfortunate arrangement for me.
Thankfully, vocaloid producer wowaka took his colorful ideas and translated
them into an actual band. The results have been splendid thus far. For me, 
the jury is still out on their first full-length, but this mini definitely delivers.


ふつうのしあわせ by ふつうのしあわせ
 
Sample: キャプテンにはなれない

I saw this band described somewhere as bloodthirsty butchers meets
PANICSMILE and thought that was an apt description. Especially the
comparison to the latter. ふつうのしあわせ or "Ordinary Happy" play
wonderfully spastic, disharmonic post-punk with a trumpet thrown in 
for good measure, cuz why the hell not?


攻撃的国民的音楽 by 八十八ヶ所巡礼
 
Sample: -超感覚的宇宙-

 If you've been following my "best-Of" lists over the past few years, then
you've probably noticed that 88kasyo junrei's albums have made an appearance
every time. I'm biased as fuck and I can't help it. Their formula is like a
nonstop barrage of endorphins on my musical pleasure zones - heaps of
melody, quirky and eccentric songwriting, unhinged yet groovy
instrumentation, just the right amount of excessive noodling...so, yeah. There ya go.

(not) NUCLEAR LOVE (or affection) by 印象派
 
Sample: ライ! ライ! ライ!

There's nothing particularly outstanding about inshowha, but they make 
extremely well produced and catchy jpop. It also helps that their image/gimmick
neither overshadows nor detracts from their actual music, so the duo exudes
a kind of earnest charm. I was also pretty surprised at how well crafted this
mini album was. It flows perfectly from one track to the next and you can
tell actual thought was put into the songwriting. This isn't a release of 
sloppily glued together singles or filler tracks. Quality Jpop right here.

NO UNDERGROUND by 撃鉄
 
Sample: やっちゃおう

Gekitetsu's first full album expands on the sound they became known for on
their first 2 EPs - vivacious post-punk chock full of singy-shouty vocals,
discordant, angular guitar riffs, heady basslines, and nu-wave-y drumming.
These guys are always a blast to listen to and definitely worth a try if you're
into the coarser side of Japanese indie.

I'm jelly

My best medium is video and music so I thought I'd post some of my work here.
Here's my most recent work. Finished just this morning!
 
Falling into Winter


 
Fall has passed and Winter is now here to stay.
I wanted to capture the essence of these seasons using my home as the setting. 
Because, after all, isn't home the place we all gather to enjoy this time of year?
 
All video was shot and edited by me.
All music was written and recorded by me.
The food, however, was not made by me.

Tetsuya, Probably doing Kouryuu or Tenten next.
 
anyway you can now find my drawing tumblr, by recommendation of Aferni, here

As some of you may know, My BACTERIA HEAT IsLAND is basically my super band because of SKULL and Tenten. 
My favorite member is Daisuke, and I've been following him and the rest of SKULL since 2004. Because this is my favorite band right now, I decided to do a drawing of each member, my first being Daisuke~
 

woooooooooo~ poop.

I classify as asexual. 
I can't do the whole pointless sex, and the thought of someone even touching me if we don't have a strong emotional bond makes me anxious and sick to my stomach. This can unfortunately extend as far as even receiving a hug from someone I don't feel close enough to. Sex in general is a scary thing and for me has a lot to do with performance (in majority of society's eyes) and my confidence isn't very high. Not only that but I mean... I'm not one to be an ass and say no sex before marriage, that's not what I'm getting at. There has to absolutely be a high emotional connection before even considering things like that. Because I was unable to explain these sorts of reclusive behaviors to friends before, I have been walked out on in several occasions. 

I don't cuddle with friends, I'll only hug a handful of people i'm close to because it's out of unconditional love, and I most certainly can't do casual sex. 
Not to say I haven't done these things, I only know I dislike them from experience in the event. I pushed myself in to awkward situations because these people had me convinced I was being uptight, and then walked out on me when I still stuck to my tendencies. With that said, I do have a sex drive, but it's not like... let me bang anything that walks. You can call me picky.

work in very super progress... this is basically... 2% done honestly. : | I have so much more work on her hair to do, plus I still have to shade the skin for real, but you know GOTTA DRAW THE REST OF THE THING FIRST. 

I kinda draw all over the place. I'm like man I'm tired of drawing let me color.  and then i'm like... FUCK WHERE'D MY BASE COLOR GO... then i'm like time to improvise. 
 
anyway please enjoy this poop.

I got a tablet less than a year ago and I mean i've doodled some things on it but never really finished anything or even went to the extents of shading and coloring, so please forgive me for the terrible shading and what not (although it's probably more of my lack in the arts department more so than my knowledge of tablet efforts)

Here is poop.
 
[click for poop]

Problem is, I allocated so much of my total love for myself that I can't be bothered to try loving someone else.
 
 
Q: How does a relationship start?
A: When two people ascertain their mutual love.
 
Q: What is love?
A: Feeling good from showing affection and doing things for someone you're attached to.
 
Love and relationships are way, way, wayyy sugarcoated and glorified.
You feel happy by loving someone when that love means hurting others for the sake of the one you like?
I must say, I don't find that nice at all. Loving people isn't my thing.
Let's stop love.
For the sake of equality.
 
Jokes aside, my indifference attitude towards people is probably the reason I've never gotten into a relationships. Maybe I should try changing myself.
...But on second thought, it's too much of a bother.
Since I have yet to face any grave crisis from not having a partner in the 17 years I've lived, let me procrastinate.
Staying single is best.

I like sheep kei, cat knows.

DANGER CRUE new artist - AKi(シド(SID)) song "FREAK SHOW" has been available for listening through YouTube, and his new album "ARISE" will be released at 2015/01/28 (11 songs, 3,240yen)
 

omg we basically live in the same area then wuuuuut

lol you can stay at my place and we can all go do the photography thing in seattle. Since I'm from that area too... kinda...

Honestly... I don't really favor one sub genre/style. The reason is because my interests in visual kei have spread so far on different sides of the spectrum. Some bands are obviously one sub genre/style and some you don't know or they are in limbo between two different genres. So I don't really care for these kinds of labels, though they do help when explaining a timeline of VK, but i think it's gotten way  way way too complex and the sub genres/styles are just creating more reasons for people to be anal and closed minded because a band doesn't fall with in their favored category. 

My fav sub genre/style is the "IF IT SOUNDS GOOD I LIKE IT" genre. 
 
Edit: And as for the visual aspect of it, not just sound, generally if a band has a solid theme, quality promotional pictures (or appears to have), and they look pretty nifty, I'll probably assume they're worth checking out, but a bands look/style doesn't really effect my choice to like them or continue listening to them.

Day 3 - Girugamesh - Gravitation

Release Date: 2014-09-24
Label: Danger Crue
Genre: Rock/Metal
Impressions by @Ito

Impressions by

Sample song:

Buy the album:
CDJapan | YesAsia | iTunes

Gravitation was the best thing I've heard from girugamesh in a while now. I was kind of expecting more of the same from them and it was nice to hear them branching out a little bit and  getting kind of heavy again. And it spawned Ryo making those hilarious "covers". That was one of the most entertaining things I've experienced in jrock all year. lol.

I don't really know any sub-genre's except, oshare kei. I just picked the ones that had bands I liked next to them lol.
 
I am curious, where does Lycaon and Mejibray fall under?

If looks were enough to make a subgenre then scenekidmetalcore would be a thing, along with death metal bands from the late 80's that started wearing sneakers and shorts. I don't think the fact that visual kei happens to have extravagant looks plays such a fundamental role here that it's separate from aforementioned, when the music is so similar all the time. 
 
 
For example ff black metal adopts some slight shoegaze influence I hardly think that's reason enough to make some sort of a subgenre. But grindcore however is a "crossover" genre and the reason it deserves a separate label is because it functions totally different from other metal genres. These bands played metal with blazing speeds, hardcore structures and had punk ethics and marketing different from most other metal bands. When a visual kei band starts wearing different kinds of hats and maybe a nu-metal riff here and there, then I think we are going overboard if that suddenly warrants a new subgenre.
 
 
Again if bands being a little different from one another warrants new genres then god damn. All these visual kei bands today have the same song structures, operate faithful to the same visual kei clitches, market themselves the same way, have the same labels and ethics. How it is today is just evolution, some bands innovated and the rest followed suit. My point is that the visual kei musical tradition is so strong, the evolution so consistent with no band outrageously breaking the mold and scene so tight and that I think a million subgenres aren't warranted. Other genres do just fine without hospitalwhatever kei subgenre. 

Usually these developments taking place can be tracked and then it counts as natural development within the scene. No such thing as purity and such was never claimed. 
 
 
Rock music is the origin and visual kei is the quirk. Bands sounding a little bit different doesn't warrant a million subgenres, whereas the differences between goth scene post-punk did warrant the added goth for distinction, because there is a substantial difference.  If people really want to set visual kei into some categories then the earlier era poll is the best way to go about it. 
 
 
Here do you mean subgenres within modern metal, punk and indie rock? There's a rather clear cut difference between 70's punk and hardcore that followed, and indie rock is pretty much a very large umberella term that seems to vary in meaning depending on who said it and some of the subgenres within "modern metal" have great actually musical differences incorporating different types of song structures and influences. Fucking nagoya kei has the same insistence on cyclic pop song structures, hair metal heritage soloing and visual kei choruses as all other visual kei, not to mention the visual kei culture of marketing, doing shows,releasing and general ethos are very much the same. The difference in the sound is merely little tinkering with the aesthetic and this can usually be attributed to the members and labels these bands happen to share, because they tend to do that; early "nagoya" bands sound totally different from the later ones for this reason and they just all end up being visual kei that just happens to be from the same city. If having Kuroyume influence is enough to have you classified as Nagoya then bloody hell that's like most of bijuaru. 
 
 
Are they on a visual kei label? Do they share members with visual kei bands? Do they market themselves as visual kei? If none of the above are checked then calling it nagoya kei is fucking stupid and whoever says it is a blithering idiot. 
 
 
 
Ooh aah. As if this were so prevalent here and nowhere else that it warrants a subgenre of it's own. Granted, nagoya just might be the most acceptable out of all of these
 
Looking different doesn't warrant your own genre god damn it. There are huge differences between subgenres in metal like metalcore, black metal, heavy metal and those differences are massive. Diaura looks, sounds and functions like a ton of other visual kei bands therefore not warranting a inane distinction that some westerner came up with in her bedroom in Arkansas. 
 
  It's just done smarter anywhere else. Distinctions of sounds in Techno are usually done with cities, labels and eras and they are always consistent. Hip hop does this also by locale and era, then further distinction can be done by naming influences. There's no anywhere elese subgenre like whatever hospital kei that includes a whopping two fucking bands. Also that eroguro is a load of bollocks when the supposed originators have very sparingly had erotic or grotesque themes aside from a handful of songs, and then the two bands mentioned after it have fuckall to do with caligari either aside from being friends with the band.      
How long have you been in the scene, just asking? You seem to have missed all the wank when people try to pigeon hole ( as you put it! ) bands into these vapid subgenres or even make new ones out of thin air! Yet rarely one sees the same energy put into finding the most seminal releases in visual kei and the general knowledge of the origins of the sound visual kei is piss poor, so only if. 

These supposed subgenres really have to be the most redundant things ever invented, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of these were just the concoctions of the western internet fanbase very much distant from the actual scene where the fads and developments of visual kei actually take place. 
 
The reason why I think these are super inane and pointless is the fact that all of these bands more or less share the same - unique I would say - musical heritage that kind of makes it obvious that they all come from the same place, but just from different eras. The sheer amount of issues, inconsistencies and differing opinions just makes this insistence on categorising bands within visual kei into various subgenres  a rather pointless exercise because one could hardly ever arrive to an even a half-certain conclusion, no? There is a considerable amount of aesthetic wiggle room possible within the framework of visual kei and that's makes it more or less impossible to label most bands such and such.
 
For example what do you do when Diaura looks somewhat oshare in one shoot and then a little kote in the next? Are we forced to invent a new redundant subgenre based mostly on visuals whenever a band takes cues from different periods and bands within visual kei? Far too many bands could never be set into any of these genres as they had their themes and music fluctuate on a far too broad of a spectrum.
 
Unlike what some here would argue and have foolishly argued in the past, every single band in the history of music can be set to a genre or more specifically, a musical movement. Nothing happens in a vacuum existing outside of the musical tradition of the world. It's just that things aren't as strict as some would make it. Not every quirk makes something so unique and special that it requires a label of its own. Many things are simply just rock music, but then they might also be a part of a certain scene happening in some part of the world where a lot of the rock bands share specific quirks from the same specific tradition. Visual kei I'd say is one of these scenes. Even if a band adopts some metal riffage for aesthetic and keeps their visual kei trappings intact, it's still bloody visual kei. 
 
Things like this lead me to think that all these nonsensical labels and misinformation only work to deter the discussion from more fruitful avenues, like say for example tracing the musical development of visual kei as a whole. What important musical developments took place within the scene and what took place out of it? Can the supposed post-punk influence of visual kei be traced and pointed out? What bands were the first to incorporate riffs from contemporary western metal music, what were the roles of some seminal bands like Kuroyume in shaping the sound and aesthetic and so on. Mite hab been rather off topic but there you go. 

I'm not even sure why I voted, since I don't pay much attention to shit like this. I just recognized some names of bands I like lol. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯