The Winking Owl have a new mini-album coming out in another two weeks called Into Another World, and the first track here is also the first song on it: Now What?. After that is their 2015 debut EP Open Up My Heart, and we finish with my favorite track from their 2016 first full album This Is How We Riot. Luiza’s voice has range and power as she switches effortlessly between Japanese and English, showing off her European/Asian heritage. The band’s music is tight, focused and very well produced, and with their record deal with Warner Japan they are finally getting the exposure they deserve. I have found CDs released by them going back to 2010, so I am pretty sure the phrases Debut EP and first full album refer to their current record contract, and not their actual musical career.
Sorry, little in the way of genre movies this week as near as I can tell, although I do tend to miss releases every so often. This would be a great weekend to catch a previous release you didn’t quite make it to the theater for, or to binge watch a show you are falling behind on. I particularly recommend checking out Class and Doctor Who Season 10 on VOD or Streaming. Speaking of Streaming, that link to Class will take you directly to the Pilot episode, streaming for free for anyone to watch. Remember that this is the school that the Doctors granddaughter Susan was attending in the very first 1963 episode, and if you keep your eyes open the episode is filled with Easter Eggs, which seems appropriate considering it aired Saturday night.
It has been a while since we posted our last OreSka Band, and they have some great new tunes worth sharing. All of these are from their 3rd Full Album Slogan, which was released November 23rd, 2016. The first track is Free Now posted last November, the second is !Fiebre! from last May and pretty much the best example of Japanese Samba Ska I have ever heard, the third is NEXSPOT and includes a slice of Jazz I wasn’t expecting from them. This band has been growing into their talent nicely, with each album better than the one before.
The obvious winner this week is Star Wars: Rogue One, arguably the best film in the franchise so far. In Anime, Naruto Shippūden Set 30 contains episodes 375 through 388 for more Ninja goodness; for reference, they are currently streaming episode 500 from Japan. Hyperdimension Neptunia is being released in a S.A.V.E. edition, which makes now a great time to add this game-to-anime project to your collection.
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.