I just saw the new Ghost In The Shell movie today, and it was every bit as good as I had hoped; firmly in that universe but from a parallel time line. I look for some Yoko Kanno music to post in honor of it, but didn’t immediately find anything posted by the copyright holders, so I thought I would share this new track by Q’ulle instead. The song is called Don’t Stop and was just posted in the last two weeks; it is their first single from their new release, and will go on sale this Wednesday the 5th. The second track is Heartbeat, their 3rd single from their 2015 project, and the 3rd tracks is 2016’s 5th Single, Alive.
GOOD ON THE REEL released their third full album this February, and since it has been a few years since I last posted about them I thought it was time to take a look at some of their recent work. The first track is the somewhat pop A Small Room from their new album Guanaco’s Feet, the next is the much more rock Keeping Rain in Line, or maybe Rain Keeping Lines; whatever it is called, I like it a lot. That one was posted in 2016.
DAOKO is an energetic J-Pop artist from Tokyo who recently had one of her songs selected to be the end theme for Shingeki no Bahamut Virgin Soul. Not bad for someone who posted their home made music videos to Nico Nico Douga, and had one of them take off. The first track is Daisuki with TeddyLoid, the second is If we are the Protagonists of the Game, the third is just called Bang. And I threw in a Rage of Bahamut Virgin Soul trailer at the end.
SECONDWALL is an energetic J-Pop-Punk band who formed in 2009, with their first major single in 2012 and the first mini-album in 2013. The first song here is At the end of love, the cherry blossom dances, which was the OP theme of the TV Drama Love That Makes You Cry on Fuji TV last year. The second track is 2015’s Identity, the third is Period filmed live at Otsuka Deepa on November 9, 2011, and posted by the director.
OKAMOTO’S formed in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan in 2006, and got their major record label deal in 2010, when they signed with Ariola Records Japan, an affiliate of Sony Music Entertainment. Everybody in the band is a fan of world renowned artist TarÅ Okamoto, so when they chose stage names they all went with his last name. Their music is kind of acid garage band, with a lot of energy. The first track is the Google Translate version of their hit Lagoon posted about 4 weeks ago, the second is 2015’s Waratte Waratte, and the third is Sing A Song Together, also from 2015. If they sound familiar it might be because their debut hit single Shout Out Your Desires was the 18th ending theme of Naruto: Shippuden.
There are some new songs from Fukuoka prefecture art-rock band PolkadotStingray (yes, it really is one word run together), the first one here is ELECTRIC PUBLIC posted last Sunday and rapidly approaching half a million view in just 6 days. That is the opening song of their 1st Mini Album Great Justice, which will be released on April 26th. The next track is the mermaid from their first E.P. release last year, Boneless E. P., and I almost put a pretty interesting Google Android commercial they did for an app that would let you search for photos of yourself. The song on that one is great, but I can’t see posting a commercial.