Jigsaw9

Nice newcomer band! They actually caught my ear because of the vocals, haha. And then the instrumentals are competent and nice too. Of course, it's early to judge but their first two singles gave them a really promising start imo. Can't wait to see what they can offer us through a full album... I just hope they have enough steam to make it exciting, seeing how young of a group they are (unlike, say, MEJIBRAY did with their first full-length).

Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas has announced on their official site that bassist Kei has passed away on 12th January at midnight, due to acute heart failure. His funeral was held on 15th, with only his family and close relatives. The band's upcoming tour, events and album are indefinitely postponed. They will continue activities sometime in the future. The members have posted their comments on the OHP apparently, but the site cannot be reached currently (I'm assuming there's an influx of traffic due to the news). R.I.P.

Yeah, ギラギラ is pretty fun! Otherwise I think 憧憬、睡蓮と向日葵 might be my least favorite c-g mini album next to 'turn-1'. It was lacking the weird crazy shit for my taste (tho I can understand that there's not much room for more out-there stuff when your album theme is 'summer' ).

I've had a dusty old Hungarian copy of Les Mots (The Words) by Jean-Paul Sartre so I thought why not read it. It's basically an autobiographical book focusing on his childhood. Can't say I'm thoroughly impressed but it has its moments. I'm about halfway through, but losing steam a bit.

Never forget this absolute gem. I think I might still have this video lying around an old external HD somewhere, lol.

Yay, awesome! I hope we'll get to hear some samples or an advance track/vid soon~

Hmmmm, looking only at full-length albums, it would be something like this for me: Pre-hiatus: Dai 6 > Dai 5 > Dai 7 > 8 Post-hiatus: 12 > 13 > 10 > 11 > 14 (it's so hard to treat these two eras as equal, cuz I'm reaaally partial to their stuff before the hiatus because of all the nostalgia... But if I was forced to do an overall top 5, it would kinda be: Dai 6 > Dai 5 > 12 > 13 > Dai 7) If I was counting the two Saikyouiku collections too, then those would be right up there after Dai 6 or 5 tho. Out of the mini albums, I think Dai 4 is my favorite... and I agree, the "1" remake mini was kinda unnecessary as a whole, but it actually has a really cool/crazy version of "Guillotine" imo!

I'm curious to see how this turns out... tho at this point it's more 'car crash' curiosity, not genuine one. ;(((

@CELESTIAL CIEL What is this story about the webshop? I'm curious. @sads123 That's so cool that you got to go see them live so many times!! That setlist looks mighty fine too. Also it's pretty cool how they seem to incorporate extra musicians these days into their gigs, as opposed to having tons of playback stuff (tho I imagine they still have that too).

I like how their OHP is just one big .png image. Classy!

Been rocking some Vidollz again, in no small part thanks to the renewed activity in this thread! And I just gotta realize, time and time again, their later stuff is just not for me... after all these years I've actually narrowed down my listening to just their 2002-2004 stuff, but damnnnn that's totally enough for me, those tracks slay HARD!

Just happened to find a pic of some of Shuuji's stash while recording the latest album. Some interesting stuff in there~

WE MUST PROTECT HIM AT ALL COSTS. ;w; ♥

^ Well okay, I didn't include Shin cuz he was like a member for 1.5 years or so. But yeah, worth mentioning that he sings on the band's first two demo tapes released in early 1994. One of my favorite songs from this period:

Yessss ♥ More vk bands need to film music vids in junkyards, lol.

Heyo, welcome! Good to see another old-school Nagoya fan here~

For Shuuji's 'inspiration', check out XA-VAT's "VAT-DANCE" vs Prince's "Batdance." ... and for a bit more blatant one by Ao, check this and you'll prolly know the 'gari song (from "12"):

Couldn't find this, so I might have just imagined it, lol. Aaaanyway, I did write up a few artist names that were mentioned as inspirational to certain songs in interviews. In one interview concerning the "13" album they mentioned: Foetus, Einstürzende Neubauten, SPK, ZIGGY, BOØWY, Bauhaus, Christian Death, Asakawa Maki, GASTUNK... and generally '80s J-pop and jazz. In a recent interview on "14", they name-dropped: The Cure, TM NETWORK, SOFT BALLET, The Chemical Brothers, New Order/Peter Hook, The Damned. And ofc we know Shuuji and Ao are big Prince fans, seeing how they were """inspired""" by him in some tracks...

^ Good to see Mako came out for his yearly awkward photo appearance, haha.

I'm going by the Japanese wiki via Google Translator, so don't take this word for word, buuut... Ao's favorite artists apparently, based on some interviews: Inoue Yousui, Morita Douji, Asakawa Maki, Yamasaki Hako, Horie Jun, Murashita Kouzou (most of these are old singer-songwriters), Southern All Stars, Bauhaus, The Cure ("Boys Don't Cry" specifically), author Yokomizo Seishi (especially his "Kindaichi Kousuke" detective novel series), author/director Terayama Shuuji, author Edogawa Ranpo. I vaguely remember an interview online a few years back, either at the time of the release of "12" or "13" where some specific inspirational albums were listed. I'll try to find those too~

^ Oh dang, sounds scary! Hoping him a speedy and effective recovery~

cali≠gari cali≠gari began activities in 1993 helmed by guitarist Sakurai Ao, bringing a mixture of post-punk, art rock and new wave into visual kei. Named after the 1920 German expressionist horror movie "Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari", they are considered as one of the early 'eroguro' bands. They started releasing music in 1994 and after various lineup changes (most notably replacing their vocalist Shuuji for another vocalist named Shuuji) their major label debut finally came in 2002... only for them to go on hiatus a year later. The band restarted activities in 2009 and started playing gigs and releasing new music again. In the past few years they had short pauses, but are more or less active. After coming back from hiatus they released a string of albums through major labels while also maintining their own indies label Misshitsu Neurose (headed by Ao) for special interim releases. As of the release of their album "14" they have unexpectedly gone back to being an indies band. The cali≠gari guys have various side-projects and other bands, too, running simultaneously. Most recently Shuuji has GOATBED, Ao plays in ヘクトウ (Hector) and sporadically performs with LAB. THE BASEMENT (f.k.a. lab.), and Kenjirou has had an on-again off-again solo career. Shuuji, Ao, Kenjirou and Makoto also used to have a visual kei parody alterego band called La' royque de zavy. Current members: - 石井秀仁 (Ishii Shuuji): vocals, guitar, programming - 桜井青 (Sakurai Ao): guitar, vocals - 村井研次郎 (Murai Kenjirou): bass Notable former members: - 秀児 (Shuuji): vocals 1996-2000 - 武井誠 (Takei Makoto): drums 1999-2014 I know there are other Garists here, so I thought I'd make an artist thread finally to discuss random stuff. For one, I was completely surprised that the band went back to being indies full-time. Apparently this sudden change was the reason for the delays with the production of the latest album (there are more details in this interview). Well, it shouldn't make that much of a difference I guess since they already released almost everything through Misshitsu Neurose except for the albums and DVDs, but still... Anyway, how are you guys liking the new album? I'm hooked on it, although I feel it isn't as great as "13" was. There is some really cool stuff going on in tracks 1-6, but then the excitement kinda dips for me. The last 2 tracks are okay again. Especially the last one is interesting imo, I don't think I've heard this type of song from cali≠gari before (the atmosphere almost reminds me a bit of BUCK-TICK). Also, random trivia: apparently the short song "飛燕騒曲" is only comprised of various samples and ambient noises, only the bass guitar is played 'live' (even the guitar parts are sampled from another song on the album). Thought that was fun.

Whoah, cool! (even if only live-limited)

I wasn't on the Karma Stan Train so I came into listening to these guys with more or less an unbiased mind (I listened to my share of AvelCain back in the day but they didn't wow me, they were not bad but instantly forgettable for me). So yeah, for some reason it's taking me a bit of effort to get used to the vocals in this context but this is pretty cool shit. I love the old-schoolish sound, almost like hearing some unreleased B-sides from "feminism"-era Kuroyume. I still have to listen to their mini album more to see where I stand, but for now I'm considerably enjoying it! Great start!

Special website has been opened for the upcoming album "光る曠野" (Hikaru kouya): http://morrie.jp/shiningwilderness/ It will be first available on 4th March at the tour final, and general sale will start on 2019/04/19. The exact tracklist is unknown at this point, but the album will contain 11 tracks, including the following titles: 神髄 (Shinzui), Melancholia Ⅲ, Danger Game, Angelic Night, Crusader On the website they mention a 2CD version (album + instrumental) but I'm not sure whether this means that all editions will come this way, or if there will be two versions (regular and double-disc). edit: @Kiyoharu is God I think it'd be worth re-writing the thread title now that we know the official title.