Aion

Okay, pretty good mid-season finale. Finally a new location but too bad it won't be here untill February

Hmmz, I was kinda out of the loop for some months this year, so I kinda missed out on a lot. Besides that, I also had to purchase a new laptop in that period and had to stuff all of my music from my old HDD to the new one, so I'm not really sure on which things I discovered this year or prior to it. Of what I listened to this year, it's a lot of stuff I was already familiar with before 2013, like the cabs, kinoko teikoku, shibata, eri-nyo, shibata satoko. roth bart baron etc Anyway, for the stuff I'm positive I've discovered this year, these are the one that topped my list うみのて (uminote) Not really something that stands out, but it has some real nice tunes to it, despite the weak vocals from time to time =) 惑星アブノーマル (WAKUSEI ABNORMAL) Yeah, these girls are AWESOME =). Their debut album was of the charts, and I am curious for their new album, but I guess it's hard to beat their previous one, but then again, I am fine with something that's only 75% of their debut =) Sugardrop Well, actually I discovered them in 2012, but it wasn't till March 2013 I actually got an album by them. Without doubt one of the shoegaze bands I discovered this year, let alone the last couple of years Shelling Best dreampop album released this year, period 月と電池 (yamiagari) Really sweet electropop さよなら、また今度ね (sayonara, mata kondo ne) Really playfull band with catchy tunes. They have to work on their vocals, but overal one of the most listened to bands for me this year. Forgetting a ton, but those are the ones I can think of right now

Still addicted to Hearthstone. Try to play at least 4/5 games a day of this xD

been a while but finally an episode I enjoyed watching. Without doubt the best so far this episode...

Maybe it would also be an option to have a first nominee-round, in which users can nominate winners, and then have an ultimate voting round in which users can vote amongst the top 5 nominees... Less categories (best single, best album, best dvd, best live-performance, best overall, and that ofcourse divided in VK/non-VK as this is primarily a VK-forum still) and not all those person-related awards, like who changed for the worst, best looks, which artist you've spend the most money on etc

oh, gief nao, NAO!!!! damn, they gonna deliver again, as they did with almost all they've put out so far

It's not that GELLERS is really like his solo-stuff, but you can hear the Shugo-influences for sure. Niw, send you a message with their two releases

No... Really liked their first releases, but really, this sounds like shit imo. Too much electronic for my taste, might check it out, but don't have high hopes for this one either...

Shugo Tokumaru has a lot of folk-influences, so yeah, it definitely counts in my book. Maybe you also might like GELLERS if you like Shugo. He is one of the members in GELLERS, and their sound is a mixture of genres, like pop, folk, experimental... I like it anyway =) Oono Yuuki is also one of my favorites, and has worked with many of my favorites, like mmm/Maria Hato and oh shu

MH's OFFICIAL JAPANESE FOLK THREAD! Well, yeah, there's an indie thread, which is also awesome, it's mostly featured with indie-rock while other artists might be overlooked. But yeah, Folk. It's a genre I started to appreciate in the last few years (read, since 2009 iirc). Anyway, I'm not talking about the traditional Japenese music but more singer/songwriter related etc. For example, Japanese versions of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Mumford & Sons and the likes. Don't know how much appreciated it is on Monochrome Heaven, but it should get more appreciation as Japan has a very lively folk-community. I've been listening less to it the last few months but I really want to get more intoo it. As such I've been relying on my older favorites and I hope I get some new recommendations like them in this thread. As for my favorites, a short list 安藤明子 (Ando Akiko) (was also one half of くすぐる (kusuguru), but apparently that project stopped already) 柴田聡子 (Shibata Satoko) 無限マイナス (Mugenminus) 王舟 (oh shu) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSOg0BwUaU 洞 (shibata, and yes, I know it spells hora) This is just a small list of my favourites, which have been on my list forever by now. Got tons more, and might share them more in the future. And now your favorites!

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FUCK YES without doubt one of the better bands out there. Almost everything by them has been ace, but they keep on getting better with every release

wooohoo new another sunnyday albu... *reads albumtitle* oh.. wait... not so interested all of a sudden No really, their previous album were enjoyable and had their good times, but really... calling your album YOLO... sample sounds nice though =)

No, just no... Tags are to place everything together within a genre... A bandname is more logic that way than a year or bitrate, but for that there's a search bar on top... For example, I like the new release by Dir en Grey (like lolwut), I want releases that are similar, genre wise, and thus I can click on a genre that's listed under it. If it's tagged with 2013, I get ALL releases of that year, even if it is Morning Musume for example... Same goes for tagging with labels... Especially in the case of major bands, the type of bands can vary enormously (?) within labels itself... Bitrate, releasetype, release year should be mentioned in the thread title, not in the tags...

ok, point wise 1: YES, a definitive yes. Even if it is blatantly one genre, you can also add female vocalist / male vocalist to it or whatever. Just keep it civil and don't give it tons of tags... I mostly give my threads like 3-5 tags (f.e. rock, garage, indie, male vocalist OR alternative pop, synthpop, major, female vocalist) 2: I prefer an open system (hate dropdown menu's that have a shitload of options), but there is probably noway of auto-correct right? For a better version than the closed system should be better... 3: tags should be genre or music-specific items. Not bandmembers, bandnames, labelnames or whatever bullshit some people use... If I want to search for label-specific or band-specific things, there's a search bar on top... tags should be for recommendations imo... 4: GOOD POINT~!!!! 5: Nope, as I said earlier, tags hould be genre or music-specific items. Everybody can get different emotions with the same album. Especially if it's in a different language. Some bands sing very happy about horrific events. for example vamos a la playa. A very happy song, but not untill recently I knew the actually meaning, which is the aftermath of a nuclear war... So should it be funny? happy? summer-y? comical? My €0.02

loved his previous 3 releases. Curious how different the album version of night bazaar will sound compared to the EP-one

sweet

Nice =) Still one of the better Japanese live performances I've seen =)

Ah great, loved IN RAINBOW TOKYO

Ah, less songs than their previous xD. Looking forward to it, love their sound

nice, they had a great first album indeed =)

The Kilk-bands are so fucking awesome. Love to hear the songs by Aureole, hydrant house purport rife on sleepy, number0 and speaker gain teardrop-tracks =)

oh, one of the best albums EVER =)

Some more nice stuff I just found out yesterday. YukaD is the vocalist/guitarist of the already disbanded ostooandell, which was a really good alternative pop-band active between 2005-2011 (iirc), anyway, in May this year she released her first solo-album. Haven't had the change to pick it up/listen to it yet, but listening to this gem, it should be something awesome. I love these kind of artists. She also improved her voice pretty much over the years. Her voice did fit ostooandell back in the day, but as a solo artist, she is way better than she used to be

oh nice =)