Artist: ??? (Midori)
Song: ?? (Osaru)
From album: ????? (First)
Genre: “Romantic Erotic Chaotic Sentimental Death”
[Buy CD][Website]

Midori is hard to write about. Their sound encompases jazz-noise chaos and sweet ballad. Frontwoman Mariko Gotou screams her guts out, and then squeaks cute little noises, sometimes while writhing on the ground, sometimes while standing on the drumset or the shoulders of the crowd, always with intense presence.

I’ll post some video later so you can see what I mean, but for now, here’s the second song from their album “First”. It’s another album from which choosing a representative track is impossible. If this music churns your butter in the least, so will every song on all their albums. No filler here, all songs are singularly crazy, interesting, and strangely addictive. If you “get it”, then by all means, Get it!

Clip: Lost Snow @ Brussels, Belgium.

Given their enthralling live shows, it wouldn’t take much to make a great tour DVD for Japanese post-rock band Mono. All that would be required is a camera, a tripod and the ability to press record. As anyone who’s seen one of their shows can attest, Mono is one of the most dynamic and expressive live acts in rock music today. The band could just compile a bunch of fan made Youtube clips for the DVD and it would still be worthwhile.

But Mono decided to give us something very special instead; a beautifully shot tour documentary called The Sky Remains The Same As Ever, put together by talented music photographer Teppei Kishida. Having followed the band for over two months and coming out with 100 tapes of footage to edit with, Kishida was able to capture the spirit of Mono in its entirety and give us a truly poetic film about the band.

The live performances on the DVD are incredible. The movement of the camera and the close-up framing perfectly mimics the emotional range and intimacy of a Mono show; it’s almost like the camera is engaged in a dance with the music; crashing when it’s loud, soaring and sweeping when it’s soft. Watching this on a large screen and a good sound system is as cathartic as standing 5 feet away from the band during their show.

Kishida has a great eye for detail. He frequently turns the camera to the crowd and observes their reactions. We often see individuals immersing themselves in the music by closing their eyes, couples embracing, intense gazes, tapping of the fingers, headbanging, screaming. These little moments tell you more about the band than any review or bio could possibly accomplish.

Interspersed between the live performances are montages of sightseeing, traveling across the world, interviews and recording. Part of what makes Mono the band that they are, is the underground culture that surrounds them, and these montages do great justice in portraying the spirit of that culture.

The DVD is already released in Japan on Mono’s own label, Human Highway Records, and will be released stateside in 2008 on Temporary Residence. Since the band is perpetually touring the world (currently in the US), you can also buy the DVD at their merchandise table during one of their shows and probably get Tamaki to sign it while she’s selling it to you. Check their myspace for touring dates and to view the trailer for the DVD.

Artist: The Luyas
Song: Cats in a Bag
From album: Faker Death
[Buy CD][Website]

Cats in a Bag is a song by The Luyas with an interesting duality.

There’s the carefree unabashedness of the vocal melody, like a developing daydream or breezy stroll; while behind it the sky is dark with some kind of deep burgeoning. Like gray-black airships inflating in the distance, silhouetted by sunset spears.

It’s a peaceful coexistence between the innocent and the ominous.

The whole CD is really quite good, and full of unique songs. It’s worth buying, to support a band worth keeping an eye on.

Artist: Hz
Song: Dead Man Walking
From album: Mr. Stiff
[Buy CD][Website]

Hz, or Hu Zhi which stands for tiger in Chinese, is an electronic musician signed to China’s BadHead Records. – A subsidiary to underground powerhouse label Modern Sky.

His debut album Mr. Stiff (2002) is a fascinating mixture of minimal techno beats, noise, industrial samples and hypnotic guitar riffs. Some of his tracks carry an aesthetic highly reminiscent of Byetone’s fuzzy noise sound. The track I chose to showcase is not one of them, but it’s a great track nonetheless.

Dead Man Walking is a more varied display of Hz’s talents. The song starts off with some eerie sounding arpeggio chords played over a restrained techno beat (oxymoron?) and then develops, rather suddenly, into a trance rhythm. The hypnotic baseline then carries the song through some odd, but very cool sounding, warped vocal samples before it reaches its abrupt end. I love the off-kilter blues solo that finishes the song; it fits in perfectly with the track’s overall quirkiness.

Hz’s music is terribly difficult to find stateside, but fortunately for us, the Modern Sky website will take international orders through mail order. It’s easy and very cheap (CDs cost six dollars)! Follow this link for instructions on how to order.

Tale of Tales (1978) is a special film. Among its many strengths, I’m particularly amazed by its unique visual style. It is quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Yuri Norstein animated the film by shooting images placed on glass planes stacked on top of each other. By doing so, he achieves the effect of giving 2 dimensional images a layered 3 dimensional depth. The clip provided above is one of my favorite moments in the film. In this scene, a petit and mysterious wolf explores the lawn of an abandoned home. You can clearly see the multiple layers of bushes, mist and falling leaves working together to create this stunning scene.

The story is quite ambiguous, images are laced with nuances of meaning, but nothing is ever explicitly clear. You are left with scattered meanings which can only be put together as you discover the film’s themes. Personally, I find that the film’s ambiguity is what makes Tale of Tales so engaging. It is the lack of explicit meaning that draws the viewer’s imagination. The more you think about the film, the more the film is able to affect you. While the beauty of the images mesmerizes you, the vagueness of the film will captivate your mind.

If you must, the film is available on a certain Youtube. But I highly recommend purchasing Yuri Norstein’s complete works dvd if you want to experience the true beauty of this film.

Been gone for a while but now we’re back with a vengeance and a new writer, Ian Sit. He is coming on board to help raise our posting frequency as we experiment with a new multi-writer format.

Together we hope to climb to at least one post per week now!

Check out his recent compilation, “Lounge Fight” which should give you a basic idea of his musical tastes.

The tracklist is:(

1) Lobotomy by Ogre You Asshole from Demo
2) Utatane No Hibi (L’ecume des jours) by Luminous Orange from Drop You Vivid Colours
3) Black Joe by Nirgilis from Vuna
4) Antenna by Supercar from Last Scene
5) Irie by Spangle Call Lili Line from Spangle Call Lili Line
6) Num-Ami-Dabutz by Number Girl from Num-heavymetallic
7) Lucky by Bugy Craxone from Sorry, I Will Scream Here
8) Hush and Vane by Condor44 from 00203
9) Ao to Akano sekijou by Niumun from The Beginning Of Everthing
10) Nantonaku by Sleepy.ab from Fantasia
11) Highway – Alternative – by Quruli from Jyoze to tora to sakana tachi
12) Shigatsu Ni Furu Yuki by Sloth Love Chunks from Shikakui Vision
13) Atmosphere by 9mm Parabellum Bullet from Gjallarhorn
14) Light Chair by Shugo Tokumaru from Night Piece
15) Drown by Farida’s Café from Gold
16) Ghost Song by Apogee from Fantastic
17) Waratte Sayonara by Fujifabric from A La Mode

So, without further ado, let’s welcome Ian!

Artist: AIR (the one from Japan)
Song: Liberal
From album: Freedom 99
Genre: Various
[Buy CD][Website]

AIR, among other things, is the musical project of Kurumatani Koji. He has put out something like 15 albums, with genres varying wildly within them; something neither the French band “Air” or the atmosphere itself can claim.

For example, Freedom 99 contains, among others: the Rage Against the Machine-ish rap-fronted, bass-backed “Real Say Juice”, the super-energetic electronica dance song “Selfish”, the brooding industrial piece “6453”, the dark alternative “Native”, the clean jazz-bar song “Unmei ha ikutsu mo aru”, and the pop ballad “Koko de tashika ni”. Wow indeed. Very diverse.

(Also this song called “Liberal”, which I thought was an interesting mash of loud guitar-walled machine and contrasting vocal styles.)

Nicely synchronized ferrofluid manipulation and music. A soothing liquid world of gently bedaggered monoliths.

[Link][Previous ferrofluid]