There’s a bit of Engrish word play happening when UA and Kikuchi Naruyoshi bill cure jazz as a "standard jazz" album.
Indeed, there are jazz standards on the album, but the strictly acoustic setting — not a pop hook or an exotic sample to be found anywhere — makes it a "standard jazz" album.
In classic UA fashion, she once again challenges her listeners by making another seismic creative shift. It’s fitting with the big band abandon of Sun and the avant-garde electronics of Breathe.
Like Number Girl or fra-foa, the sum of Supercar was greater than its parts. The chemistry between the band’s four members — Nakamura Koji, Furukawa Miki, Ishiwatari Junji and Tozawa Kodai — gave Supercar a forceful presence as a unit.
Now that unit has disbanded, and it’s a challenge for a listener (that is, me) to see past the whole and to appreciate the individuals.
Ishiwatari and Tozawa have gone onto production and session work. Nakamura embarked on an impenetrable electronica project named iLL. Furukawa, on the other hand, picks up where Supercar left off.
Mirrors, Furukawa’s debut solo album, features the mix of British rock and electronica that fueled Supercar’s muse.
I can appreciate from where Love Psychedelico comes. The duo loves their classic rock, but there’s little point in slavishly recreating that era’s low-tech sound. So they indulge in the convenience of a drum machine or the cleanliness of a studio environment.
And it’s not like they’ve written bad songs.
But it wasn’t evident just how much gets lost in the studio till Love Psychedelico recorded some performances at Budokan for its live album, Live Psychedelico.
The band is on fire from the start, and the songs possess an energy lacking on their original recordings.
I’ve been using eMusic as something of a preview and back-up service. I’ll download an album on eMusic, and if I like enough, I’ll buy a CD and use my download from eMusic as a back-up in the unlikely chance something goes awry with the CD.
Some stuff I don’t feel too attached to get a CD, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it. (I may not love it …)
Utada Hikaru releases a new single on Nov. 22 titled, "Boku wa Kuma", so says Bounce.com. The single ties in with a line of stuffed animals named Kuma-chan. The article goes into detail about the toys, which I won’t. The song has been described as soft and tender.
The early Duran Duran videos which demonstrated the staying power — for good or bad — of MTV are hitting the digital downloaded services. The band announced it a few days ago, but it took Billboard until now to give a rat’s ass.
And I understand the sentiment.
The videos announced for download are the same ones available on the Greatest DVD. The added "bonuses" for iTunes are also the same easter eggs available on said DVD.
Capitol is evidently gearing this reissue campaign to the casual Duranies who liked the band at one point, still like them on some level but couldn’t care less about the minutiae for its career.
I already have the DVD, and there’s no way I’m going to buy video downloads with DRM. I may as well just decrypt my DVD if I wanted that kind of portability. Which I don’t, since I don’t live a lifestyle to require an iPod.
I’ll be interested in this kind of news when such video rarities as "Lonely In Your Nightmare", "Nightboat", "Do You Believe in Shame?" (cool video, sucky song) or anything by Arcadia gets reissued.
We’re entering the final third of 2006, and I’ve started to think about what I’ve heard in the past eight months to include on the year-end favorite list.
On the whole, 2006 hasn’t been that much more exiciting than 2005, but the brighter moments of this year stand out far more than last year.
The best album I heard in 2005 was originally released in 1982. (That would be Entertainment! by Gang of Four.) But the keepers of 2006 have far more staying power.
Still, I did manage to discover some albums in 2006 I wished I heard when they were first released. Although they can’t technically be included in a "best of 2006", there’s room to mention them with the "favorites of 2006".
The first half of my list is set, but there are still some open slots that the coming fall release season might fill.
m-flo is releasing a new single, titled "Love Song", on Nov. 6, so says Bounce.com. Continuing its series of post-Lisa collaborations, m-flo is working this time around with Bonnie Pink.
Bonnie Pink and Verbal collaborated a while back, so bringing Taku into the mix isn’t unimaginable. And if m-flo can make it work with Dragon Ash, it should be interesting to see what happens with Doping Panda.
A remix of "lotta love" featuring Minmi rounds out the single.
I’m usually a big fanboy when it comes to the works of Wayne Horvitz and Robin Holcomb. But I’ve been spinning the latest releases from both composers, and I just don’t feel it.
Horvitz released Whispers, Hymns and a Murmur on John Zorn’s Tzadik label back in February, while his first recording with his new ensemble Gravitas Quartet followed in June. Holcomb released John Brown’s Body also in June and also on Tzadik.
I considered this avalanche of releases a boon, until I listened to all three discs.