reminiscing2004

Lol @ Bayblon's Yon sticking out like a sore thumb

Decadence (3) / CANNONBALL (3) / Shock Edge (3) / SUMMIT / Yougenkyou V.A.'s
DuelJewel (2)
BABYLON (3)
Due le quartz (2)
Vidoll (3)
Chemical Pictures (1)
Guy's Family (1)
Nightmare (1)
 
Thanks Rarezhut November auctions! Tune into the stream today to snatch your own

Got a smaller package in with a bunch of goodies~
 

So we got a few pretty cool things in the mail this morning. Some of these will make an appearance on the auction.  
IMAGES INCOMING  https://www.facebook.com/events/356160634744067/

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Excellent, thanks

heaven in her arms will release their 3rd album on March 22nd, 2017.
 
 

heaven in her arms / 白暈
ヘヴン・イン・ハー・アームズ / ハクウン
レーベル：Daymare Recordings
CD: DYMC-278 税抜価格：\2,400+税
2017/3/22 on sale
tracklist:
1.光芒の明時
2.月虹と深潭
3.赦された投身
4.終焉の眩しさ
5.枷
6.円環を綯う
7.幻霧
 

 
 

I know, I know. I just wanted to know. 
 
And alright. I understand what you mean.
 
Thanks for sharing!

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
 
Here's an example of Dutch 'alternative' pop, I guess. In my opinion, it does sound a lot less 'rough' than German, but I think even German can sound good in certain contexts so w/e
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HIBf6vTVPo
 
Unfortunately, as far as I know there's no native language-equivalent to The Novembers or anything like that, most shoegaze-y/dreampop bands tend to play in English, ex. thse guys: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbb0IYngK4g
 
sorry for derailing the thread lmao
 
 

because sometimes technical proficiency isn't the most important reason, and definitely isn't the only reason, why people listen to the music they listen to and fall in love with the bands they fall in love with. this thing we call "taste" is nothing but an amorphous placeholder for an incredibly complex web of factors including instincts and temperament, environmental and psychological factors, linguistic/cultural affiliations, etc. that no amount of theoretical analysis can ever hope to untangle. even in the extremely rare instance that you can find another person who agrees with you on every single point you make about a band both of you mutually enjoy, i'm willing to bet that the basis for your value judgments about the band will still diverge, simply because, if nothing else, you are two different people.
 
if i'm to push this even further: many people seem to think that 'technical proficiency' is a clear-cut term that requires no further explication. that's far from true. while it's the case that fans would be deeply relieved to find their favorite singers hitting the notes they're supposed to hit and their guitarists executing their tremolos and harmonics competently, it's too easy to name instances where artists who do things generally not recognized as 'proficient' actually making a difference. the pianist claudio arrau, when he was still alive, was constantly ridiculed by musicologists and critics for how slowly he plays his beethoven sonatas (check out his "walden" for starters), but he's now posthumously credited with reading beethoven insightfully with an introspection no beethoven specialist had possessed. likewise, in the realm of art, when henri matisse became bound to his wheelchair in the later part of his life and could no longer hold a paintbrush, he began making 'cut-outs' as art (hardly the pinnacle of artistic virtuosity, you would think...), yet on hindsight his technique directly spawned at least three different art movements in the mid-late 20th century. so if there isn't even a ahistorical standard of what qualifies as 'technical proficiency' in the realm of high art where you'd think experts would have come to some sort of agreement after centuries of bickering debate, attempting to hold it up as some governing authority that ought to adjudicate people's tastes in popular music seems to me rather presumptuous.
 
but to quote you again:
 
 
and with this you basically just answered your own question. even though music traverses linguistic boundaries, its cultural influences remain unique. musically that's definitely the case (just look at how prevalent the major 7th chord is in japanese pop, compared to western pop). then there's the issue of language that comes into play. it would take a separate long post for me to defend why some people find lyrics to be important, but suffice to say, a song by definition has words, so unless we are going to pretend that all songs are operatic arias in disguise, it's only to be expected that some prefer how meaning is communicated in one language to another (which again has to do with a whole bunch of linguistic features: syntax, structure of address, sociopragmatics, and so on). you might not find the words in the song to be particularly important to your enjoyment of the music (and ofc there's no reason why you should), but it shouldn't be alarming that there are people who attend to that aspect of the song because it's important to them. there's also the phonetic aspect that some people above have already mentioned.
 

For me personally aside from otherwise "relaxing" flow and other phonetic mumblejumble it was also about unorthodox vocal-arrangement combinations in otherwise rather casual genres (who would think that fitting baritone/nasal-ish vox with symphonic/power metal would work well as a case in point?) AND allow me to recap myself:
 
 
(Carm's note: you gotta thank folks like Beatles and earlier black Jazz musician figures for playing around with this progression - as we speak, gospel music often plays around with same chording ideas, funny huh?)
 
Skip the intro and check the ending - there's a huge pool of subtopics related to this subject Friedman was discussing what I would call "Japanese progression". Not saying this would be literally EVERYWHERE (e.g. my standom for Pura merely started out from Britpop fanboying and affinity for special phonetic stuff) but I could honestly say nowadays that this pretty much separates my "palatable japanese taste" from "palatable western (my culture) taste".
 
 
Speaking of some western figures usually slamming us into "deluded, closed-minded listeners" because of such affinity - lemme counter this with my own take: Japanese way of conveying otherwise "western" genres helped me to look and keep my *EAR* on nuances I usually either missed or never paid attention to in otherwise very "familiar, palatable" english/mother tongue-based music.  But then again, that is if you allow yourself to evolve with your tastes per se (whether you "progress" in your taste or not is not dependent on whether you represent the "weeb" culture or otherwise "palatable" culture). I could go on and on about this variety of examples that reformed my musical aficionado self into more "curious" one but that would be just pure thread derailing.
 
So to summarize in a bit more coherent way, two things: 1) "unorthodox, yet oddly palatable" approach in regards to flow, pop songwriting 2) "Same, familiar basis but different interpretation and nuances". I might express my thoughts rather oddly as some may point it out but I am hands down sure at least some "matured " (not to belittle younger generations ofc) J-music listeners get what I am saying...
 
 

Ahoy there!
I was observing this forum since... Yea, let's say: long time. I used to be interested in J-rock and visual scene. It was couple of years ago, but I'm still listening sometimes Schwarz Stein, Kaya, Versailles or Moi Dix Mois. And, of course, tried to be up-to-date with the news from J-scene.
I registered here obviously to meet some new interesting people and to master my English. It would be awesome to discuss with those, who also like meritoric chats and aren't sexual deviants and are interested only in certain parts of human's body 
So... Hi!

Hi everyone. I say "thanks for existing" because it's really neat for me to see so many people together who share my interests. It's totally out of my comfort zone to go about and do this as I am a "suffer in silence" type, but I thought it was about time I try to reach out and get more involved in this music scene, maybe make a friend or two with similar interests. But if not it's okay, I just like reading what you all have to say anyway. I am from a tiny town in the South of the US, so I haven't gotten the chance to see  many bands live or meet people who even like this kind of music. I've been listening for about 10 years, though I stopped a few years ago after Vidoll disbanded (my favorite band back in 2011, though now I see it was just because my teen self was infatuated with Jui, lol.  still am tho)  and I have been listening again since last April when I saw The GazettE live. I've never tried to socialize online with other VK fans until now, I don't really know why. But here I am! I like everything from oldies like Luna Sea, Buck-Tick, Malice Mizer, Aliene Ma'riage, Baiser, to bands like DaizyStripper, Matnerou Opera, etc!  ! Ive recently gotten back into the scene and I'm discovering the potential of newer bands like Arlequin, xaa-xaa, Jiluka, HOLLOWGRAM, and beyond. If you have any recommendations I'd love them as well. Well thanks for reading and I'll try to make my voice heard here! Nice to meet you all. 

Really going to miss them  <3 

FUCK.
 
Well... at least I'll be able to complete the map T_T
Ugh, I'm gonna miss their artsy/scribble artwork and quirky lyrics. 

Very unexpected and unfortunate  they will be missed </3

Aw damn, sad to hear. They had some real potential. I do hope the members move onto other projects!

so fast!  

Damn, watching this made me realize just how out of touch I've gotten with the VK scene lately, I only really like Liphlich and The Gallo out of all of the bands in here.  Most of this stuff feels incredibly derivative, like at least half the bands sound like they're covering the same song with swapped-out vocalists. Is this really what's popular nowadays? If that's the case,  I'm kind of glad I started exploring sounds from other countries lmao..
 
There's still a handful of active bands/musicians whose projects I follow, and there's a pretty large number of inactive groups whose music I still really enjoy. Unfortunately, the types of sounds I'm looking for these days are just simply not well-represented in the VK scene. I'm not sure if this is a case of """"muh maturity""" or not, but I feel like this is something that may eventually happen to anyone who chooses to keep exploring different avenues instead of remaining down w/ their musical oneitis
 
Also, if I had €5 for every time someone opened a thread like this, I'd have enough money to singlehandedly revive the VK scene by now : ^ )
 

I mean... it's meant for the edgy azien teenager consumption; we, adult people, had ayabie same time ten years ago ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
that being said, either that person has a very narrow taste in VK, or the scene in general tends to replicate the same formula, sucking stemming off a certain trend, but I couldn't even make it through ten minutes of that video straight tbh.
I liked the rides in revellion sample, but not enough to check their other stuff asap; also apparently mejibray is not as awful as my former perception of them, pentagon is not the musical cancer I expected - more like terminal aggressive tuberculosis, and matenrou opera song is neat, I need to catch up on them.
 
everything else is very derivative, I just don't see any appeal in that.
 
getting back on the subject, bands/core members I used to like have either disbanded or are on break so far, but I'm happy with the ~temporal projects~ and a small handful of scene newcomers; this will likely change for better by middle of this year already with new bands/new releases getting announced for the autumn.
if everything else fails, I'll just ironically stan zicross until they get kaisan'd due to creative differences tbh.
 
I can relate to this too. there was a certain moment around 2007 when lots of established indie acts got signed to universal and immediately started chugging out literally shittest-tier records they could've come up
 
(I think avex took universal's crown later, once the former gave up on vk in favor of reselling kpop.)
 
 
oh and btw
 
if that's the video you're talking about, it's slightly more diverse than the one you've actually posted here.
I liked the vexent sample, but the fact they included nokubura, A9 and probably every PV diaura had out this year is quite indicative of their questionable taste.

I understand that this is a returning topic, sorry.
 
I just don't see how an adult can enjoy this stuff: 

This comes from an old hardcore fan, maybe its just growing up?
Well, cheers. 

I fell out of the Visual Kei scene in 2010 because all of my favorite present bands were disbanding or going to shit. I fell back into Visual Kei in the last two years because of a discovery/re-appreciation for all of the gold in the late 90s and early 2000s.
 
While I don't have anything present or new to look forward to, I keep finding new things I love from the past. All of my favorite bands I discovered in 2016 were ones that disbanded 15 years ago! And despite that, they make me feel like I've really gotten into VK again.

thats no way to talk to the admin of nihon ongaku11 !11]!!!!

恋-れん-(Ren) releases free sampler CD for their latest album "LAST FIRST LOVE" for international fans.
 

 
Tracklist:
01 Sign...～Unplugged～ (Sample Ver.)
02 シロノヤクソク (Full Ver.)
03 哀愁思ひ出”雪”日記 (Sample Ver.)
04 Little Circus (Sample Ver.)
 
The sampler is being made available through RarezHut to gauge interest in an international release of their album "LAST FIRST LOVE".
For more details, and to get a free copy: http://www.rarezhut.net/ren
 

Ryutaro´s first solo tour 「デも/demo」 came to an end, it has been announced that a live documentary DVD will be released this Spring: It will contain behind the scenes footage of all 3 shows (Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo), plus the final live held at Shinagawa Stellar Ball on January 23rd. Setlist of the Shinagawa Stellar Ball show:
 
● Part 1 (acoustic versions)
 
01.浮融 (Fuyuu)
02.猫夢 (Nekoyume)
03.鍵時計 (Kagidokei)
04.また、堕月さま (Mata, otsukisama)
05.魔似事 (Manegoto)
06.恋ト幻 (Rentogen)
 
● Part 2 w/ the support band DEMONSTRATIONs
 
01.幻形テープ (Genkeitêpu)
02.魔似事 (Manegoto)
03.猫夢 (Nekoyume)
04.鍵時計 (Kagidokei)
05.また、堕月さま (Mata, otsukisama)
06.うフふ (Ufufu)
07.恋ト幻 (Rentogen)
08.浮融 (Fuyuu)
 
EN1  
01.鍵時計 (Kagidokei)
02.恋ト幻 (Rentogen)
 
 EN2
01.浮融 (Fuyuu) acoustic
02.魔似事 (Manegoto) acoustic
 
 
Thanks to info Romantique Kurage - ロマンチック海月 -

Hopefully due to VK-related causes, of course.

I fell out of the Visual Kei scene in 2010 because all of my favorite present bands were disbanding or going to shit. I fell back into Visual Kei in the last two years because of a discovery/re-appreciation for all of the gold in the late 90s and early 2000s.
 
While I don't have anything present or new to look forward to, I keep finding new things I love from the past. All of my favorite bands I discovered in 2016 were ones that disbanded 15 years ago! And despite that, they make me feel like I've really gotten into VK again.