In an effort to spur myself to post something here, I started a number of blank entries for reviews I want to write. I thought the reserved space for a future entry would fake me out into filling it up with text.
Nope.
First, my distraction was with the Great Music Library Rip of 2006. Now, I’m at work with Eponymous 4, my bedroom studio project. As long as I’m directing my energies there, I’m pretty much phoning in everything else.
Reader Kaworu tipped me to a listing on CDJapan yesterday, but now Speedstar Records confirms it — Cocco is releasing a new album on June 21.
Titled Zansaian, the new album contains 12 tracks and includes her most recent singles, "Onsoku Punch" and "Hi no Terinagara Ame no Furu". A special edition DVD includes videos for "Hi no Terinagara Ame no Furu" and "Swinging night", dance music video conceived and choreographed by Cocco herself.
It’s been quite a year for releases — Hajime Chitose, Hatakeyama Miyuki, Tokyo Jihen, Utada Hikaru and now Cocco.
Champion of Japanese pop and ’80s college rock catalog that Musicwhore.org is, this site is not above exploring the upper echelons of the music industry charts.
I will always have a place in my heart for Janet Jackson, no matter how her wardrobe malfunctions. But Madonna, darling, the leotard …
And while I may head for the ACO and Utada Hikaru portions of my playlist first, there’s room enough for these so-called urban artístes.
It’s already happened to me twice, so perhaps I should let others know …
There’s a serious bug affecting how orders are placed at YesAsia.com when you pay through PayPal. In the past, paying through PayPal took you off site from YesAsia to send payment. After a payment is sent, PayPal brought you back to YesAsia, whereupon your order was placed.
For my last two orders, I would be taken off-site to PayPal to send a payment, but when I returned to YesAsia, I was brought back where I started — at the page to place the order. In short, my payment was sent, but the order was not placed.
With ICE magazine ceasing publication, I’ve slowly found myself out of the loop where release news is concerned. Japanese titles require my own research, but stateside stuff, I usually get from ICE.
Someone on the ICE forums pointed out Pause & Play, and I have to say I like what I see. So I’m pillaging the information from that site to cobble together a preview of upcoming releases. Supplemented, of course, by my own self-researched picks.
I’ve been meaning to write about PE’Z for a long time, but I never seem to have a chance. I’d seen the band’s name pop up on various sites about a year or two before pianist Hiizami Masayuki hooked up with Shiina Ringo on Tokyo Jihen. That got the attention of stateside Japanese music fans.
But PE’Z is rather like Enya — the band’s albums are good, but they all sound the same. Unless you’re actually familiar with a particular PE’Z album, it’s not easy to tell where one begins and the other ends if you string them back to back.
It almost strikes me as pointless writing individual reviews for each album, even if I group them together in one entry.
And yet PE’Z makes an important contribution to jazz music — they make it fun again.
For a major label, Toshiba-EMI seems to have some adventurous A&R. Sony and Universal dominate where pop is concerned, but To-EMI have managed to court a large number of Musicwhore.org favorites at one point or other.
The label currently houses Shiina Ringo, Yaida Hitomi and Utada Hikaru. Zoobombs, Bleach and Number Girl were on its roster, and Hatakeyama Miyuki and PE’Z recorded for the label before moving on.
But it can’t hit a homerun everytime. So this round-up features some near-hits, almost-misses and Yorico.
Yes, I’ve been rather neglectful of posting here. I’ve been busy trying to rip my music library to MP3. I finally managed to get it all done — some 60GB and 10.6K files — so now I have time to write.
Problem is, all that ripping has been incredibly distracting.
I’ve been unearthing music I haven’t listened to in years, and it’s scattering my focus. There’s some new music I’d like to feature, but there some old gems I’d like to uncover as well. So an honest-to-goodness update may not be in the cards for the immediate future.
I wouldn’t have really gotten into Sigur Rós if Kronos Quartet hadn’t performed the band’s "Flugufrelsarinn" as an encore a few years back.
Kronos has made that performance available on its MySpace page for a while now, and I hope one day they make it commercially available. And wasn’t Sigur Rós supposed to be working on a piece for Kronos? I’ve always wondered how Mr. Bungle’s commission worked out.
Kronos’ MySpace page also has a recording of "Star-Spangled Banner", transcribed from Jimi Hendrix’s performance. Didn’t Matt Haimowitz already go there?
Seven years ago, long-time Kronos cellist Joan Jeanrenaud left the ensemble after 20 years. Her replacement, Jennifer Culp, stayed with the quartet for six years. Jeffrey Ziegler is Kronos’ newest cellist, and I have to say — he’s, um, really hot.
Right now, I’m listening to The Music of Lou Harrison, an album part of the American Masters series from the defunct label, Composers Recordings, Inc. (CRI).
I spent a year in New York City on a college exchange program, and I worked for CRI that entire year. Back then, I had aspirations to be this avant-garde composer proletariat enough not to scoff at pop music. Working for CRI gave me a nice glimpse into the machinations of a non-profit record label.
Yes, there are non-profit record labels — New World and Tzadik being the most visible. (Of course, it could be joked that no independent label actually makes any money …)