I saw this item on Oops Music, but I haven’t seen it anywhere else. Rittor Music is publishing a score book of the upcoming Shiina Ringo rarities collection, Watashi to Hoden, on July 30. The book includes photos and a discography, plus artwork by Kimura Toyouji. Rittor is also publishing a piano score book with every song from "Koufukuron" to "la salle de bain". (I think I’m reading that correctly.)
I attempted to puzzle out "Toki ga Bousou Suru" on my own, but I’d love to see what a published arrangement might yield. Band scores aren’t entirely accurate, but the Shiina Ringo books I’ve got seem to reflect the songs all right.
I never have picked up any Tokyo Jihen score books, though. Curious.
Head on over to the Sigur Rós official site to hear the entire new album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust.
First impressions:
Quite a bit of tribal percussion.
The first few tracks sound like the band really cut loose. There’s actually … tempo.
Ah, the quieter tracks and the grand orchestrations come later.
The encoding of the stream is pretty sucky, but there seems to be a lot less fancy studio work. I think the word I want to use is "organic". This album won’t be mistaken for Takk … or Two Hot Dogs Facing Each Other (ne, ().)
The new album hits stores on June 24, which coincidentally is when enigmatics by Eponymous 4 will also be released. By the way, enigmatics, like Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, is available for pre-order.
Leo Imai releases a new single titled "Taxi" on July 23, reports Bounce.com. "Taxi" will serve as the ending theme for NHK Music Square from June to July. The single also includes a coupling tracking titled "The Sweetest Thing". An excerpt of "Taxi" can now be heard on Imai’s official site and his Myspace page.
Quick impression of the 30-second excerpt? If Imai were any more repetitive, he’d be singing for Philip Glass.
Hajime Chitose releases her fourth album, Cassini, on July 16, so says Oops Music. A limited edition first pressing includes a DVD with performances from the live album, Fuyu no Hainumikaze. Producers on the album include Sakamoto Ryuichi, Tokita Shintarou of Sukima Switch, Kanno Youko, Haketa Takafumi and — perhaps the oddest name in the bunch — the Chieftains. Yes, the traditional Irish band. Hajime’s next single, "Hotaruboshi", comes out two weeks earlier on July 2.
Here’s something funny: I actually learned about the new Sigur Rós album on Bounce.com before I saw the article in Billboard. I was nearly tempted to translate the Bounce article, but that would be silly.
I did download the pre-release track, "Gobbledigook", from the band’s promotional website, and I wasn’t prepared for what I heard. The percussion is all over the place, and the tempo actually breaks into a triple-digit metronome reading. I won’t go so far as to say it’s 120 bpm, but it’s quicker than just about everything on Takk …
Billboard mentions Flood co-produced the album. That would explain things.
And if you had problems pronouncing Ágætis byrjun, the title of the new album is Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. According to the band’s press release, "The album title is translated into English as ‘with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly’ with the English spelling of the Icelandic album title being ‘Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust’". The Sigur Rós pronunciation guide indicates it should sound like, meth suth ee ayreum vith spileum endaloyst. Say that five times fast.
The album has an international release date of June 23, which means June 24 in the US and most likely June 25 in Japan.
To commemorate the 10th anniversary of her 1998 debut, Shiina Ringo releases a new compilation album and a DVD of video clips on July 2, reports Bounce.com. The album, titled Watashi to Houden, includes b-sides and rarities in a two-disc set. The DVD, titled Watashi no Hatsuden, compiles her video clips starting with her first single, "Koufukuron", to her recent collaboration with Saito Neko, "Konoyo Kagiri".
Shiina will also embark on a tour under her own name and not Tokyo Jihen. On May 27, a special site, ringo10th.com, launches to anticipate the upcoming releases. (As of May 14, the site doesn’t even resolve to a name server.)
Even though I already have all the singles, it would be nice to have the coupling tracks on one disc. It’s a shot in the dark, but I’m hoping some of those rarities include her songs for Hirosue Kyoko and Tomosaka Rie. I’m very much fond of "Cappuccino", "Shampoo" and "Mokuren no Cream". I managed to snag Tomosaka’s "Shoujo Robot" single from eBay a while back, and those are some of Shiina’s best songs. The video is pretty neat too. I dig the Band of Ringo.
I received an e-mail from CD Japan announcing the debut single from a new project by L’Arc~en~Ciel’s hyde and OBLIVION DUST’s K.A.Z. The pair are calling themselves VAMPS, and the single is titled "Love Addict". It comes out on July 2.
hyde’s nü metal solo work isn’t very impressive. Rather, it sounds like he’s been slumming since releasing the incredibly moody Roentgen back in 2002. But his teaming up with K.A.Z. is intriguing. hyde is no Ken Lloyd, though, and I wonder whether K.A.Z. can really beef up hyde’s emotive style.
And further on the horizon Rhodes says the group hopes to release "Reportage," the album it scrapped in favor of "Red Carpet Massacre" that features the last work original guitarist Andy Taylor did with the band. "We want it to come out one day," the keyboardist says. "It’s a really interesting record…more of an edgy, indie rock album, obviously going back to our earlier roots. There are a lot of songs I’m very proud of that I’d like people to hear."
Here’s what my cynical-colored lenses see:
We’re trying to figure out how much to pay off Andy Taylor to let us release an album that was probably better than that tanking piece of crap "Red Carpet Massacre" turned out to be.
Justin Timberlake and Timbaland did far better with the new Madonna album than with Duran Duran.
I’ve scoured a number of new release sites, and I can’t really find anything coming up in the next few months that interest me. Oh, there’s lots of music coming out in the next few months — even I’mreleasing an EP this summer — but very few things that would get me to the record store.
So instead, here’s a quick round-up of items about which I’ve already posted.
I wonder if Hajime Chitose needs to get out of Onitsuka Chihiro’s head. Because like Onitsuka, Hajime is also contributing a song to a film, and it’s also titled "Hotaru", says Bounce.com.
The new Hajime song serves as a theme for the film Climber’s High, based on a book by Yokoyama Hideo. Yokoyama is a fan of Hajime and wanted her sing the film adaptation’s title song. Sukima Switch’s Tokita Shintarou writes and produces. Climber’s High opens July 5.
The article doesn’t mention whether the song will be released as a single.