Artist: Galneryus
Song: Beyond of the Ground
From album: The Flag Of Punishment
Genre: Flag Metal
[Buy CD][Website][Song Lyrics]

Any band whose first 3 album titles include the word “Flag” clearly mean business, and Galneryus is no exception. They embody the spirit of heavy metal hyperbole, both in blazing riff and glorious narrative lyric (often made more profoundly enjoyable by virtue of engrish grammar).

The opening melody of this song almost reminds me of a megaman game soundtrack. Flagman’s themesong maybe. And speaking of video game connections, the album art for this and two of their other albums was done by super talented illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, who is probably best known for his highly-recognizable Final Fantasy character designs.

In any case, I think this is a great band to listen to when one is feeling sluggish, or in danger of taking things too seriously.

Said the Gramophone has recently concluded their “Wonderful Video Contest In which people make films for their favourite songs”, and there are some great ones in there.

Yet another fine example of what creative people can do with a little encouragement, some basic equipment, and possibly an all-consuming lust for prizes.

[Link]

“Pika Pika” is a Japanese onomatopoeia with a meaning akin to that of our twinkle, sparkle, or glitter. It has come to be used as a term for a memetic movement of “light doodles” which are spreading around the internet. These are created by using a flashlight or led lightsource to draw images in the air, the trails of which become a single image in long-exposure photographs, and then turning a sequence of these images into an animation.

The Pikapika project started by Tochka, a Japanese creative group, has now collaborated with the Japanese internet company So-Net to create the light-doodle-animation extravaganza that is “PiKA PiKA the Movie”.

The project’s blog on So-Net has quite a few different pikapika videos, including some behind the scenes footage. It’s interesting to see how the seemingly random flashlight wavings of a bunch of people wandering around turns into complex and charming collaborative animations.

This groundbreaking Canadian animated short can now be seen in its entirety at the CBC website. Its been raking up awards and leaving people stunned since the film began its festival run last year.

Dark. Thrilling. Eerie. Beautiful.

I came out of the theatre in awe. I said to my friend, “Those eyes, I can’t believe those eyes!”