The Number Girl family tree continues to grow. Search for Number Girl on the Tower Records Japan web site, and a number of names appear.
The latest additions are SLOTH LOVE CHUNKS and VOLA & THE ORIENTAL MACHINE, both coming out with releases in the near future.
It’s been two months since I looked ahead (twice), and most of those releases have now hit shelves. The holiday season is usually slow when it comes to releases — it doesn’t pick up till February and March, as labels gear up for the summer touring seasons. So what’s on the horizon now?
ZAZEN BOYS will release its third album, ZAZEN BOYS III, on Jan. 18, 2006, reports Bounce.com. Band leader Mukai Shuutoku documented the recording of the album on his official web site. The band will be touring across Japan from the end of the year till the middle of 2006.
Tokyo Jihen is set to release its second album, Otona (Adult), on Jan. 25, 2006, Bounce.com reports. A special edition pressing of the album — the HOMME edition — includes a live DVD and samples of an original fragrance enclosed in the booklet. Perfume samples in Rolling Stone back in the early ’90s forced me to stop reading that magazine, so I guess I’m sticking with the regular edition, or the FEMME edition.
Here’s the track listing:
“Toomei Ningen”? Is that like “Toomei Shoojo”?
Oops Music has a one-sentence blurb about the next installment in Number Girl’s Omoide In My Head Project. One sentence is all that’s available for Omoide In My Head 4 ~Rare Tsudoi~, a collection of rare recordings. I imagine this edition will include early demos and compilation tracks. “Samurai”, “Tokyo Freeze” and “Zazenbeats Kemonostyle” weren’t included on Best and B-Sides, so we’ll see if they show up on this release.
Bugy Craxone is releasing a new album — self-titled — on Nov. 23, Bounce.com reports. So I went to the band’s official web site to see what other information is there. Tower Records Japan is selling the album, as it did with their previous album, Sorry I will scream here. And the 10-track album contains the following songs. I wonder if track 4 has a typo.
More Billboard.com release news: OutKast has set Dec. 6 as the release date for its next album, Idlewild, which serves as the soundtrack for the duo’s film My Life in Idlewild. The film, scheduled to hit theaters in early 2006, is set in 1930s, which had an effect on the album’s sound.
Big Boi insists its an OutKast album, not a soundtrack compilation, nor, by implication, some solo album gimmick to make up for the fact Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was not an OutKast album per se.
To quote Tim Grierson: “Best Marriage-on-the-Rocks: OutKast. Big Boi is all, ‘Don’t listen to all those rumors! Me and my man are gonna last forever!’ And we’re all, ‘Damn, girl! He’s cheatin’ on you!'”
Idlewild is also the title of an album by Everything But the Girl. The Scottish band Idlewild recently released Warnings/Promises in the US.
I still want to know how Big Boi feels about the impending release of Kate Bush’s Aerial. I really hope he gets to work with her. That would be cool.
In other Billboard.com news, the Flaming Lips are steadily working on its next album, At War with the Mystics. Billboard has been pretty good about getting updates from Wayne Coyne about the progress of the album. Coyne says the album will feature a harder sound. Would it be too much to hope it sounds like Number Girl? The album is scheduled for a spring 2006 release.
Dear Tommy february6,
Bounce.com tells me you’re about to release a new single. It’s called “Lonely is Gorgeous”, right? And it will be in stores on Nov. 30? That’s very nice for you.
But I must honestly say, it’s not a really good idea.
Utada Hikaru is releasing another single on Dec. 7, reports Bounce.com. The title track of the single, “Passion”, serves as the theme song for the video game Kingdom Hearts II. A limited edition CD+DVD release hits stores Dec. 14.
“Passion” will be the fourth single Utada has released since her last Japanese language studio album, Deep River, in 2002. Three or four pre-release singles is usually a sign an album is in the works, but now that Utada is juggling both English- and Japanese-language careers, who knows what’s in the works?
I forgot a few releases in the original entry, so rather than tack them on the end (where they probably won’t be read), I’ll feature them here …