The band La Luz from Seattle are women with a retro rock sound that reminds me of the best of the classic surf bands. The first track is their song You Disappear from their second album Weirdo Shrine, and posted online in September of 2015. The second is the full live set they did as part of KEXP’s Iceland Airwaves expedition in Reykjavik in 2014, and the third is their live set in the KEXP Live Room in Seattle recorded last year.
The band METAFIVE was formed around Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Takahashi Yukihiro early in 2014, as I mentioned when I posted their video for Don’t Move last month. This time around we have the video edit version of Luv U Tokio, posted on line 3 days ago, and the studio live version of Maisie’s Avenue posted a few weeks ago on December 26th. This band just gets better with each new track I hear from them. Their very first album, META, which includes all of these tracks and many more, hits the shelves in just a few days on January 13th. You can pick it up from your favorite Japanese online music outlet as an import for 2,800 Yen, but sadly it is not coming out in the US at the same time. Locally you can get their track Split Spirit, featured in the Anime Ghost In The Shell: Arise from the iTunes store.
The best music of 2015 has to include the Ulfuls, who had several killer releases this year, with Sporty Party at the top of their list. Did I mention that 2015 was the year of One OK Rock, when after a decade of working their collective tails off they finally broke into the US market with a major record label giving them full distribution across North America? They are the last few tracks in today’s group, truly the best new music of the year.
More amazing music that I consider some of the best out of 2015, including Ore Ska Band doing Hands Up Girl back in September (did you know they played Live at Otakon this year?). Next is Wake Up!, an amazing collaboration between Asian Kung-Fu Generation and Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, two of my favorite bands out of Japan, which is why I kept it in even though it happened in 2014. Sense Clown did A-Han this past June, and Singapore’s Indi Fusion group In Each Hand A Cutlass released Satori 101 back in April.
There was a ton of new and amazing music in 2015, like My First Story with Alone and the Wagakki Band with Ikusa. Then there was Superfly with White Light and Passepied with Tokinowa. One of the groups that surprised and delighted me this year was The Full Pledge Munkees, an amazing Ska band out of Singapore, represented here by their song Positif MV. And that really only covered the first 4 months of the year, and didn’t even mention One OK Rock, who finally had their big breakthrough in North America with their release of their first US album this October. Like most such events, their overnight success came after a decade of working their tails off to get there.
Art Rock band The Oral Cigarettes have put together some tasty tunes over the years, so I wanted to share a few of them with you. The first one is their track Hey Kids, which was the 2nd OP song for the anime Noragami Aragoto (the first Noragami OP was Hello Sleepwalkers). The second song is this year’s hit Amy, and the third is 2014s Star Get. I think this band has a lot of promise, and I can’t wait to see where they go from here.