Strider’s Web

Flow: United Sparrows

Flow has been doing music for Anime for a long time; they started playing together in 1991, and became FLOW in 1998. So far they have released 11 studio albums, 5 compilation albums, 5 Extended Play discs (averaging 6 songs each), 37 singles, and a handful of collaborations. With almost everything they have done being used as opening or closing songs for anime series, with the rest ending up in games tied to anime series, any Otaku reading this should already know them. On December 15th their new 6 track EP Dice comes out, with the 4 vocal tracks being the theme songs for 3 different new Anime series. The two instrumentals tracks on that EP are the Karaoke versions of two of those songs, which really increases sales in that part of the world; it certainly increases my desire to add it to my collection.

The first track is the TV-sized version of United Sparrows, the ED theme to Back Arrow, while the second is the full sized version of that same song. The 3rd piece is Dice, the OP for the 15th Anniversary Code Geass Lelouch of the Rebellion. For those curious, the other two anime-related tracks on the upcoming Dice EP are the themes to the game versions of Symphonic Psalm Eureka Seven HI-EVOLUTION and BanG Dream! Girls band party!. Since they are variations of the themes they did for the anime’s of each of those franchises, they should sound pretty familiar.

Radwimps 2021

It’s time to revisit Radwimps and see what kind of interesting music they have been coming up with in 2021. If their website comes up in Kanji, the first thing you can click on that isn’t the homepage will be the languages subfolder where you can set it to English. The first track is their new song Summer Daze, and yes, the first part is sung in English, with Closed Captioning when they switch to Japanese. The song was posted two weeks ago, and is just shy of half a million views at this point. The next song is called Utakata song by Google Translate, was posted 3 weeks ago, and managed to get 1.5M views in that time. For comparison, the final track included this time around is Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do? posted 2 years ago, with over 88M views.

Triple J’s Like A Version: Worth Checking Out!

Triple J is my favorite radio station out of Australia, and most weeks the best segment on it is Like A Version. The premise is simple; they invite a band to play live in the studio, allowing them to do 2 songs. One is an original of their choice, the other is their own spin on a favorite of theirs by another band. I have been amazed at how easy it is to learn everything you need to know to decide if you want to learn more about the band in the short time it takes them to play those two songs. Triple J has been running Like A Version since 2004, 52 weeks a year for 17 years; do the math and you will realize just how much excellent music you have to learn about!

The first band included tonight is Telenova, doing their cover of Madonna’s Hung Up, and their own original song Bones. They came from two other bands, and sound amazing now that they have coalesced into their current configuration. The other pair tonight is from Client Liaison, who cover Deee-Lite’s Groove Is In The Heart, followed by their original Elevator Up.

Just so you know, I didn’t cherry pick this stuff; it really is the last two bands featured on the program. And just in case you wanted to check out the official versions of these two tracks…

Taka Rides Again; Renegades, Journey

One OK Rock lead singer Taka came out with a few tracks recently you should know about. First was an acoustic version of their recent song Renegades which are the first three videos listed here (acoustic version first, then original version, then a Making Of for the song). For the record, I think Renegades is the most important (or at least Politically Correct) song to come out of Asia in the last year or so. Then there were two duets he did with friends, the first here being the song Curtain Call with Shota Shimizu, the second is the cover of Journey’s song Open Arms with Arnel Pineda. And then, just for a treat, a radio interview with a fellow rocker! You can’t make this stuff up!

Hugh Laurie Blues

The music Hugh Laurie sings and plays is quite tasty, and mostly it is all about Blues and Dixieland. Originally I was hoping to share another few songs, but apparently my previous musical postings from Hugh got eaten when I migrated to the new server, so I just cherry picked a few of my favorites. The first track is Louisiana Blues, the second is Unchain My Heart, the third is Stagger Lee, and the final song of the set is Professor Longhair’s signature tune Tippatina.

POLKADOT STINGRAY 2021

POLKADOT STINGRAY’s new song Aoi is the ending theme to the TV Anime Series “Godzilla Singular Point”, was posted last month, and is the first track in tonight’s assortment. I have to admit to being a little confused about why a music video for a song for a Gojira series is so obviously based on the 1987 Wim Wenders’ masterpiece Der Himmel über Berlin (called Wings of Desire for the English version). Or maybe it’s based on the 1998 American remake of that film, City of Angels but either way it was a treat to watch. The 2nd video is the Anime version of the same song, while the third is both live action and anime of their song Kenshin from their 3rd full album. The last video is the acoustic version of their song Pose, or at least as acoustic as something recorded with an electric guitar can be.

All of these tracks were posted by the band in the last 90 days. Like so many of the bands I have listed here since I migrated to the new server, I have lost their blog entries from the last few years, but still retain some older entries you might enjoy checking out.