Jigsaw9

Went to my favorite venue in Budapest, the A38 boat last night for a gig with a very special atmosphere. The Devil's Trade (a.k.a. Dávid Makó) opened the night with this Americana-influenced blues/folk singer-songwriter tendencies. I really dug his debut album, so I was curious to see him live finally, and he delivered. Just an acoustic guitar and his powerful voice, excellent moody feeling. He whipped out his banjo for a song or two as well, which was amazing. I don't know how 'authentic' this music is to American ears (he occasionally does renditions of Hungarian folk songs too btw), but in any case it really evoked a sort of deep, ancient atmosphere. Very nice. The main attraction of the evening, however, was King Dude and his small band of merry (or moody?) men. This dude (heh) is really something! Some of the most viciously depressing and cathartic music I've ever heard live, but the guy keeps joking away with the audience between songs, really entertaining guy all in all. At times he reminded me of a cross between Nick Cave, Michael Gira and Tom Waits, sprinkled with a big dose of the occult and macabre. Also, he insisted on trying the country's traditional fruit brandy, so he got a few shots of that, plus some whiskey along the way. He was kinda drunk towards the end, but played his sad and dark bluesy tunes impeccably. Unfortunately, the other guitarist's equipment somehow got busted just before the last song, so they couldn't have a grand closing number - instead, the King played two random songs for us just by himself, guitar & vocals. It was an unexpected but touching end to the night. Great show all around! (not my photos, obviously)

Here: https://play.google.com/store/music/album/MISSA_Beelzebub?id=Bth3642w3o4esm6uollsrkkreiy Nothing special, just a jumble of tough-guy kei tropes.

You know the drill. ;< February was a pretty uneventful and lax month for me musically. There were some nice releases tho. MeteoroiD - BULLETBOX / A pretty cool album, even if it's just a best of. I've listened to these guys on-and-off after they made a transition from boring pop-rock to kvlt kei-ish territory, and this release is pretty much a perfect treasure trove of that latter era. So it's essentially a darker-coloured affair but also quite melodic and catchy, with nice guitar play and some clever (albeit standard-ish) compositions. A nice surprise. Gehennah - Too Loud to Live, Too Drunk to Die / With a title like that, this record already wins some bonus points! Thankfully the music is kickass too, with a dirty booze-filled punch to the ears. Gehennah do their usual brand of hellish, Motörhead-influenced black-thrash attack with even a bit more rock'n'roll flair than before, making the whole thing sound pleasantly groovy and also powerful as fvck. Hell yeah! Venetian Snares - Traditional Synthesizer Music / Apparently Mr. Funk recorded the entirety of this album 'live' in his studio, which seems like quite a feat considering the towering mass of old-school equipment he has on hand. This album showcases a less chaotic and neurotic side of Venetian Snares, with awesome vintage-sounding synths coupled with some tasty breakbeats (but not overdone to insanity). A pleasant listen. Honorable mentions Fuath - I / A one-man black metal project sounding like a one-man black metal project. Awesome wintery atmosphere. Seth Bogart - Seth Bogart / Quirky & queer pop with a nostalgic neon-glazed sound. Some real hooks in there! Barren - Void / A progressive mixture of various aggressive metal and hardcore stylings. Not bad.

Whoah, Zepp Tokyo is quite a big venue! At least compared to random livehouses random indies-vk bands are playing imo. Nice!

Oooh nice! Looking forward to hearing what they have to offer~

oooh cool!

Nice pics! They evoke a kinda 2004-2006 indies-vk vibe.

^ That was actually only a temporary thing a few years back, it seems now they're shipping outside Japan too (if you scroll down, there are English-language instructions on how).

Well I guess it kinda makes sense, since deadman also did the same once, and it worked pretty well... so I hope they're gonna really change things up with this release too.

VERY nice and high-quality visual kei record, surpassing their debut imo (which was already pretty cool to begin with, tho nothing extra-special). This is pretty much what I expect to hear from a band in 2016: a good variety between older and newer influences, not hamming it up too much, but still packing a punch while standing out from the crowd. Not to mention, the songs are real solid too, for the most part. This will be on my 'best of the year' list for sure.

lol! I mean, awww...

I did like it more than their debut album! I wouldn't say 'a lot', but it was a solid release, I still stand by that. Since then, they've been doing stuff that's just too lifeless and haphazardly-put together for me (or at least that's how they seem). Not that these qualities weren't present before, it's just a case of them delivering songs on these singles that don't grab me personally, that's all. That's one of the sucky things about following MEJI' (for me), cuz you never know when they'll drop another release that's pretty cool or listenable. So that's partly why I still kinda try to check them out from time to time. To those saying 'move on', well, that's a bit hard when you've been following and loving a band literally from day one, and you were so invested in them that you bought almost every release up to a point. 'Moving on' doesn't happen at the snap of the finger, pls consider this. But okay, I'll try to refrain from giving my honest opinion in the future, after all, that's not what online forums are for...oh wait.

Sounds nice.

...oh.

It's truly incredible what this band has become in these past years. Incredibly messy and pointless.

Interesting with all those PV spots... I wonder if he will release the full versions later on a different release, or are they just supposed to be that way as part of the concept for "SOLOIST special film".

Joke's on them - I've been simulating loving them for years now!

lmao, this guy is unbelievable... btw just for info:

awww, may he get better soon~ ;w;

Song snippets sound fun!

wooo, another single! Nice.

Love ittttt

Great thread! My knowledge of Japanese authors is pretty limited, cuz the Hungarian market for them is rather small (to say the least) and sporadic... On the other hand, I rarely venture to buy some random expensive book from abroad just to try, so...yeahhhh. Anyway, some of the things I've enjoyed so far: - Abe Kobo: The Box Man (if David Lynch was a Jp writer in the '60s-'70s, this is what he would write) - Akutagawa Ryunosuke: random short stories (some pretty haunting stuff towards the end of his life) - Koji Suzuki: Ring (not much to say here, it was cool) - Osamu Dazai: No Longer Human (if you've seen the anime adaptation you know what to expect - the book is better tho) - Takeshi Kitano: Boy (yeah, that Kitano. can't remember much about this, other than it was nice) Also, I must confess I haven't read anything by Haruki Murakami that I really liked. After Dark was kinda decent, Kafka on the Shore wasn't bad either, but too long and drawn-out (and it completely lost my interest at the ending). I have the Wind-up Bird Chronicle and 1Q84 at home too, but haven't had the willpower to start either of them yet, lol.

niiiiiiiiiiice I hope the setlist will surface. (tho it'll prolly just be the 3 bands' songs I assume)