The playlist is slowly inching back to the 40-hour threshold, which means I really ought to do some writing in the next few weeks.
I haven’t bought much in the way of CDs this past month — one title, that’s it — and I only recently blew through this month’s eMusic quota.
I’m concerned about a persistent ringing in my left ear. It’s not anything painful, but it’s a level of audible that’s difficult to ignore. At first, I thought it was just all the electronics in my apartment giving off some sort of high frequency, but when I cover my ears, the ringing doesn’t die down.
So I’m going to spend the next few weeks with a mostly 18th Century playlist to see how much I can mitigate it. I hope I don’t have to give up my iPod during workouts.
I’m not sure if Sony Music Japan still does it, but a few years ago, the label conglomerate would allow one of its bands to hijack the template of the site to promote an upcoming release. Using the ever clever Engrish, these events would be called "sitejacks".
Well, I’m throwing conflict of interest to the wind and letting Eponymous 4 perform some "sitejacks". It’s taken over not just here but my more neglected pieces of Internet real estate: Filmwhore.org, TVWhore.org, 作譜, 名作記 and my long-defunct online journal 日々の本.
I’ve even sitejacked my Twitter page. (Are you on Twitter?)
If you’re reading this post through an RSS reader, I encourage you to visit the site to see the hijack in progress. It ends next Monday.
While I’m pimping myself out, I may as well mention that the entire enigmatics EP is available for streaming till June 24 at the official Eponymous 4 site. I hope it encourages folks who may not have considered becoming a patrón to do so. And I hope it doesn’t discourage anyone who planned on buying a CD from not doing so. Pre-orders are still being accepted.
UPDATE [06/14/2008, 17:32]: I’m extended the sitejack till June 24. I kind of like how the site looks right now. I’m pretty sure I’ll be fully tired of it by then.
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.
Here’s my Last.fm Top Artists chart for the past week (June 1-June 8, 2008):
I usually only ever get maybe 30 or 40 plays from a single artist, maximum, on any given week. But 170 plays for Igor Stravinsky? What gives? A rather convenient boxed set titled The Works of Igor Stravinsky, that’s what.
I bought it on the same day I wasted cash on Duran Duran’s Red Carpet Massacre. I already had quite a packed playlist at the time, and I knew I would probably only ever listen to this boxed set during a listening lull. Well, I’m in the middle of a listening lull.
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.
I guess the first quarter of 2008 was all the year had to offer. The upcoming quarters look pretty desolate in terms of releases interesting to me, and even my current playlist doesn’t have much luster.
As a matter of editorial propriety, this site focuses on the music of people who are not me, the people whose day job is, in fact, the creation and performance of music.
In short, the people who are way better at it than I am.
I only ever mention my music project, Eponymous 4, in passing, usually as an excuse for not posting for long periods of time.
This entry will be no different.
This time, however, the distraction isn’t purely creative — there’s a bit of commerce involved as well. Go on and head over to the Eponymous 4 web site for the official announcement, to which I alluded a few weeks back.
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.
![[Last.fm Top Artists, June 1-June 8, 2008]](http://media.tumblr.com/yJH57ockLa0p1oygOMzpntOV_500.png)