Obscure Visual Kei bands

[psychonnect_rozen 585]

One band I managed to find is a band called ALPHONSTEIN which lasted for a short while in 2001. They have only released one demo tape which can be seen here.

The only info I found on the members was that four out of the five members were part of another short lived band called EricSia. The vocalist REIHA and guitarist REN are the only one's declared "retired" on the VK wiki. The rest of the band we have very little info on but it's likeley they also retired as they were not in any other band's after ALPHONSTEIN

 

I'd be glad to know any more info on this band as I can't find a download link to their 2001 demo tape and only one song is known to exist which can be viewed here.

EDIT: Just listened to their demo tape. It's alright

Edited July 10, 2019 by psychonnect_rozen

[sleepy coffee 1476]

idk how obscure i consider them since people on here seem to like em quite a bit but crucifixion would probably be my favorite "obscure" band

 

Edited June 30, 2019 by chipathy

[Seelentau 884]

If it's on YouTube, can it really be considered obscure?

[Gesu 1537]

There was a band actually called Obscure, and they certainly lived up to their name. They were the band Lay and 4ge formed with singer/guitarist Nobara after Fatima disbanded, and they were stupidly difficult to find. The fact that they barely released anything didn't help much, either.

[Himeaimichu 1535]

While Yuuga himself is definitely not obscure, his solo project's PVs are rare, and very low budget and home made.

(Also, wtf is with the part where he raps about Toilets?)

 

[secret_no_03 959]

There's literally no footage of these guys anywhere I can find, but I was such a big fan in 2005.

 

 

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

ALPHON§TEIN's vocalist was in Canzel and for some reason keeps naming songs "allegro" in the bands he's in. Quite a change in direction, comparatively.

 

 

 He appears to be in a band called "Ichiteri" at the moment https://vk.gy/artists/ichiteri/ AFAIK, the vkei wiki isn't really well maintained. Take what you find there with a grain of salt  

 

 

Edited June 30, 2019 by Peace Heavy mk II

[Masato 365]

Isn't every vk band except Golden Bomber obscure? 🧟‍♂️

[Tokage 5930]

27 minutes ago, secret_no_03 said:

There's literally no footage of these guys anywhere I can find, but I was such a big fan in 2005.

 

 

i'm pretty sure they even had an official YT with some live digest or smth last time i checked tho??? maybe it was some other side-project or something

[secret_no_03 959]

5 minutes ago, Tokage said:

i'm pretty sure they even had an official YT with some live digest or smth last time i checked tho??? maybe it was some other side-project or something

Found it, had to use the Japanese name. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYPt0onv5frTzIhIV3eE8GQ

 

[Himeaimichu 1535]

Parasite Lucia was a band with only 3 songs (and only one that I can actually find online. I uploaded this by just searching the name Lizarection into an mp3 site lmao.) that for their time, managed to get at least some attention, as they played at Shibuya On Air East, a relatively large venue, at one point. That same live date was also before they released this song, which was on a omnibus with some other popular indies acts, namely Mercuro and Lar~Mia.

I personally think that live was probably played due to connections Saki had, since his band before this, Ruinous, had a featuring on an omnibus that included the likes of Neurotic Doll and Cali Gari. Sadly, these connections wouldn't prove to be very useful, as the most popularity he ever got was some minor notoriety in Cuartet, but multiple issues held that band back from ever succeeding.

Vocalist Saki would later sing for Kar+te=Zyanose, and then Cuartet. Aika would also play in Cuartet, and later become an associate of Igarashi Tomozo, playing in his bands Black:List and Triggah, those as far as I know, he's retired now. Last I heard of Aika, he was staff at Tomozo's now defunct Dual Core Sound.

 

While none of the other band members would go onto do anything, their bassist Reiya was gonna be a member in a project by drummer Hizumi Ryo from Archfiend, Fatal Current, and Anesthesia, but the project never commenced. Hizumi would later play drums for Saki's band OUTRAGE, but that was a special project that only lasted 6 months.

[IGM_Oficial 1964]

Someone posted the discography of a band called MariaMenstruation, because it's totally... obscure. The only things known about them are the names of the releases and their songs. Their music is just horrible.

 

Also, I had no idea the packaging of Alphonstein's tape was that well made.

Edited June 30, 2019 by IGM_Oficial

[suji 8317]

MANDRAGORA is (unironically) one of my favorite bands (please don't make fun of me) and yet I know basically nothing about the actual peeps behind it, besides a few CDs they released or participated in. Their old-as-fuck website doesn't tell me anything as it's filled with gibberish that's typical for a older system to not display Japanese characters. They've also been active for 10+ years so that's cool I guess.

 

 

[Tokage 5930]

Another chance for me to shill these fellas... 

These guys unfortunately never managed to release more than a couple of singles, to my knowledge, which is a pity because they're GOOD. As far as I can tell this is literally the only song of theirs on Youtube

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by Tokage

[zaa_zaa 208]

On 7/1/2019 at 10:55 AM, Tokage said:

Another chance for me to shill these fellas... 

These guys unfortunately never managed to release more than a couple of singles, to my knowledge, which is a pity because they're GOOD. As far as I can tell this is literally the only song of theirs on Youtube

 

Naaaaah, there are more songs of them on youtube, such as

 

They released two singles,you can find both of them online even in 320 quality.

All of the songs are on this channel.

Edited July 3, 2019 by zaa_zaa

[The Moon 989]

aurora were the art kei PIONEERS we have to stan x 

 

the vocalist was also in a following band called gechena who were great but didn't release much of anything before disbanding 

Edited July 3, 2019 by The Moon

[Paraph 826]

Arege

 

[JRD 5156]

Back when I was little girl I always wanted to hear: Pop'n'roll 3rd, Rusty, Lemon☆Squash, Sazae the Movie, MAG, Bullet Mark, ＄ウォンテッド＄, and everything テディ released with えぼし that will never probably see the light of day.

[Tokage 5930]

kinda straddling the line between vk and not-vk w/ this one, but they at least did appear on one of those Tokyo Guerilla V.A.'s that had a bunch of other VK-related artists on 'em. Musically it's quite close to '80s Japanese new wave stuff like early P-Model, The Plastics, Halmens and such

 

 

[xriko 165]

Can someone describe me "obscure" ? 'kuz most of the band quoted (except those from JRD) had songs leaked.

[anadentone 478]

to me ,obscure bands are about 90% of the bands in the "disband" threads. I guess Viva rush is an obscure band since they've been around for some time yet no one much talks about them. Also, most popular bands earlier bands are obscure.

[colorful人生 2777]

Two that come to mind at the moment:

 

 

Mr.Davinci is better known as Mr.Davinci空想学園 w/ their older vocalist. They ended up releasing 3 50-limited one-coin singles w/ the new vocalist before disbanding. After a few years, three of the members got back together for a jam session and uploaded some videos of them playing over instrumentals on the bassist's YT channel.

 

 

Phase Faith isn't only obscure, but still active playing their old tracks. They've had several releases, but all of them are fairly difficult to find. I have their best-of album and a demo compilation, but that's it. 

 

*Oh, there's also Xirclett. Though, Rihito was the vocalist for ラベリ and Celestial Garden (w/ now-Royz members), so I guess they're kinda obscure.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2019 by colorful人生

[suji 8317]

53 minutes ago, xriko said:

Can someone describe me "obscure" ? 'kuz most of the band quoted (except those from JRD) had songs leaked.

they're basically bands that have like 5 fans or so and their releases are usually hard to come by. thankfully there are some whose songs have leaked, but that was either by someone who actually attended a concert/bought the cd, or just pure luck finding it online.

[Biopanda 2675]

My favorite truly obscure band would be Ayane (formerly known as 彩音 before the vocalist went solo)

 

 

While 彩音 released a couple singles and a minialbum, they weren't exactly impossible to find. On the other hand, Ayane had two singles limited to 20 copies each as well as a full album that probably only exists in the single digits at best. I nearly wouldn't believe that the album even existed at all if I didn't see a single trader with it on their list (though they absolutely refused to trade it for anything, so it very well could have been a fake listing).

[xriko 165]

I'm sharing this one. 

The band is キキオン from 2002. I got only few information, I brought them on vk.gy. If you have more please include them.