One of the better artists out of Paris these days has to be Zaz, who creates such amazing music. The first track is Je Veux, the second is On Ira, and the third is called Le Long De La Route. To my mind, she seems to be somewhere between Pink and Edith Piaf. You should go hunt down the rest of her catalog, it is all excellent, and there is a lot more of it!
The first track is Positif, the next is The Ego Has Landed followed by Johnny Insano, and the last video is The Full Pledge Munkees playing some good Ska during their live set at Baybeats 2014, Singapore’s alternative music festival. The band started out as a trio in 1999 Singapore, and has added to their lineup over the years. You can now get their music from iTunes, and they were one of the bands that played this years Hoppin’ & Steppin’ Ska Festival in Japan. You can hear more of their music at Nyaring TV, which is their record companie’s YouTube Channel, but I have no clue why some of their official music videos include only still images.
Another Saturday, another great band. This time we take a look at Survive Said The Prophet, a Japanese Indi rock band who sing in English as often as not. The first track is Subtraction from their new 8 song EP Course Of Action, which was just released on April 15th. The second tune is If You Really Want To, which was posted online back in May of 2014 but is also on the new EP. They got together in Tokyo in 2011 and released their first single Let Us Party that same year. They have done tours and festivals across Asia since then, and you can find their music on iTunes Japan.
Sooner or later it had to happen; a Nerdcore artist, MC Lars in this case, did a tribute to George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. The track is called Dragons Blood, and both the video and the song are fun. As someone watching the end product it is hard to tell if Editor Mike Sobo, Visual Effects master Tobias Arturi, or the
Effects Mixer Samarei was the one responsible for the excellent time/speed frame shifting during the combat choreography. It is truly well done, whoever pulled it off.
While I am not generally a major Trance/Electronica/Synthpop fan, there are a few bands who always catch my attention and have me listening for anything they put out there. One of them is Perfume, a Japanese band who also co-hosts one of the top 3 music shows out of that country (at least in my opinion), Music Japan. The first track is their latest, Pick Me Up from earlier this year, the second is Dream Fighter from 2013 (posted online) or 2008 (album released). Listening to them now it is hard to believe they started life playing Shibuya-kei, but even that jazz-based art form with influences from Samba, Wall Of Noise, and Ye-Ye, had enough of the House and Synth flavor to foreshadow where they could end up.
A Crow Is White just released their third mini-album in January, called Himitsu, and the first video here is the title track. The next one is their 2013 song Sunny Side Up, and the third one is Hi-speed Muteppou. They are an Art-Rock band from Japan, and they have put together quite a number of quality songs, of which these are only a few.