The first track is called Robot Roh Night by the band Shinsei Kamattechan, who seem to like graphics a lot and are using a Hatsune Miku kind of singer/ vocal processing, as near as I can tell. The second song is Front Memory, and also spends as much time putting together the graphics as creating the music. Nothing deeply intellectual here, just some good upbeat silly fun; until you translate the lyrics, at which point all bets are off. The band formed in 2007 and gained a following through streaming music videos, in part because of their tendency to stream live songs and mini-concerts using unusual and eccentric processes with no advanced warning. A lot like what Jack White does online with his music, come to think of it. They were indie for years, but signed up with Warner Music Japan once they got big. The final track is Whistling Flower Child, or at least I think that is what whistling yellow flower-chan means.
A new tune from Passepied, the song being Tokyo City Underground MV, and yes, the MV does mean Music Video. The lead vocalist is also a graphics artist and helps create the animations for her videos, as you may have noticed from Wednesday’s post. This track is from their new album, and will be in stores on June 18th, and available on iTunes at the same time. I also included another track which was from a mini-album released just a month or two back.
The band Passepied has a lead singer who is also a graphics artist, and she has brought some pretty interesting animation styles to her videos. That kind of thing doesn’t happen in a vacuum, as anyone who has ever sat through the credits at the end of a feature length animation knows. There can be upwards of a few thousand animators, each working on their specialty for the small slice of the total project their production house got. Music Videos are much shorter than feature films, and take much less in the way of resources. This makes them the perfect environment to give you a sense of perspective into the process, since the size of a music video is about the same as the size of a given project slice for a feature film. Take a look at the Music Video Yes/No, and then watch the behind-the-scenes video for it, and see if it doesn’t bring the effort involved into focus.
This time a few tracks from the band Androp out of Japan. The first song is One from their third full length album, Period. The other track is Voice from their 3rd single. They have a lot of other good music worth your time to check out.
Shishido Kavka knows how to rock, and she plays her own drums. Her music covers a wide range of styles, some of it just a bit more syrupy than I would prefer, but a lot of it quite good.
I have no clue what made them call themselves Bump of Chicken, but their music is fun. These tracks also feature Hatsune Miku, a virtual idol and computer-generated diva.