The art rock band PASSEPIED just posted a new track this week called Hyper Realist, the first displayed here, and as always it is just as much about the visuals as it is about the music. I had to also include TOKINOWA, their ending theme to the anime Rin-Ne, a story about shepherding lost souls to their next reincarnation written by Rumiko Takahashi herself. To finish the set off, Nagasugita Haru, another music/visual tour de force from about 8 weeks ago.
METAFIVE has a new release about to hit the shelves, METALIVE, a two disc set. The first disc is a Blu Ray with 18 live videos, and 3 songs recorded as studio live sessions including Don’t Move. The second disc is a CD with 14 of those same tracks in audio only format. Like their first album, these are only available as imports at the moment, but CDs play the same all over the world, and although Japan is in Region 2 for DVDs, it is at least using the NTSC format for its videos. The first tune presented here is Gravetrippen’ from the purely live videos, the second is Don’t Stop from the studio live sessions, the third is Maisie’s Avenue also from the studio live sessions.
Taka of One OK Rock recently posted a few covers online, and they are fairly amazing. The first is Zayn’s song Pillowtalk, and I thought it strange he was covering a former One Direction singer’s work until I saw and heard the original version of the song. The second track is Adele’s powerful anthem Hello, and that one was never a surprise. Considering what a master of rock Taka is, it is nice to get an idea about which more relaxed tunes he appreciates enough to add his own renditions to the worlds musical collection.
The Pillows will be doing the music for the FLCL sequel, just like they did for the original. They also recently released their 20th album, Stroll and Roll. Character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto will also be returning for FLCL2, and joining the team for the first time is Katsuyuki Motohiro, director of Psycho-Pass. The original 6 episode series was groundbreaking and quirky, I can’t wait to see what they do with the new one. The first track is from that original series, Ride On Shooting Star, the second is I think I can, and the third is No Self Control
When you think of Jazz, CNBLUE and Girls Generation are not the first names that pop to mind, since they are much more K-Pop than anything else. And yet, Lee Jong Hyun broke free from CNBLUE to do Moonlight Swing, a great upbeat Jazz track and one of the songs on his first solo album. Likewise, the 9 member Girls’ Generation begat Girls’ Generation-TTS, a subset of the band comprised of Taeyeon, Tiffany, and Seohyun. They produced an excellent EP comprised of jazz/rock ballads, of which my favorite track was Twinkle. These two songs are only a fraction of the excellent jazz South Korea has produced over the last century, so if you enjoy these be sure to explore its other wonderful offerings in this genre.
The new Hello Sleepwalkers release is Planless Perfection, which they rolled out back in March, and the VR style 360 degree song posted first is from that album. I recommend putting on your VR headset and best set of headphones for that one; being surrounded by the band while they play is quite a nice effect. The second track here, called something like the collapse of the Myth of Huai, is also from their latest realease. They are probably best known for doing the OP for the first season of the anime Noragami, which is a fun little show about an unemployed god; that track was on their 2014 album. Finally, again from Planless Perfection, a slight change of pace with their song Breaking Dawn.