Kyary Pamyu Pamyu continues to produce surreal music videos in Akihabara and kawaii overdose clothing in Harajuku, and here is the proof. This video was posted on Wednesday and is called Mottainaitoland, and as always, Kyary’s is the only face you will see. The other track is also from this week and also a bit uptempo strange, the band CAPSULE doing their track Control from their new album CAPS LOCK.
Japan is far from the only country in Asia, and the culture is influenced noticeably by their neighbors, including the Middle East. The band Beats Antique does the best job I have heard so far at fusing Middle Eastern musical styles with western rock and jazz, and does it from an Alternative Rock perspective. Kind of like Daft Punk Meets Scheherazade. Not as surprising as it might be, considering the band is from Oakland, California. Here is a taste of their recent live performance on KEXP, Seattle’s amazing NPR-style music station.
Someone took the stand alone Mario Paint Composer and transformed the Daft Punk song Get Lucky into an 8 Bit game sound composition. This is not a simple song either, very layered and complex, and they pretty much got it all in there. I threw in the original track for comparison purposes.
The first band is Folca with a track from their 2nd mini-album Curtain Call. That just came out in September, and they are touring Japan in support of it now. Then we have Triceratops with their song Going To The Moon. They are a 3 piece band heavily influenced by British Invasion bands like the Beatles and Stones, hence the nice harmony work and quality guitar riffs. They have put out a dozen albums in the last 15 years and are still going strong, with their latest release being a live tour recording they put out in August. The third band is Supercar with a live version of their song Lucky. They played good basic rock from 1995 to 2005, releasing 5 studio albums and a handful of project recordings.
The first song is called Forever by Touming Magazine, and it is quite a treat to listen to. The video has its own story to tell. The second tune is Easy, the title track from the album of the same name by Upset Underworld. These don’t really count as J-Rock, since both bands are actually from Taiwan, but if you are looking at them from New York or London they look like they at least might be in the same neighborhood. The third track, from We Save Strawberries is J-Rock, though.
This is your Traditional Irish music, played by a band composed of Japanese Death Metal musicians with a Zydeco drummer. If they actually lived in the UK, they would have had a flat next door to the Pogues. That is the shortest way I could get across the idea of what their music is like, but you won’t really know until you listen to them yourself. And maybe not even then. The first track is Drunken Pirates, the second is Polka/Ill Weeds Grow Apace, and we finish with Rascal Trail.