Posts Tagged Asobi Seksu
24 November 2009 at 12:00 am
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Asobi Seksu, One Way Ticket, Power Pop, Rewolf, Shoegaze, Shonen Knife, Super Group, The Nerves
… if I hadn’t spent the past two four six eight weeks writing that last *@&!ing Scandal post:
I went through a late 70’s power pop phase a month or so back, centered around classic L.A. trio the Nerves. Previously I’d only known them from two cuts on one of Rhino’s D.i.Y. comps
(“Hanging On The Telephone” pretty much squashes everything else there), but that actually represented half the band’s official output — they released a single four-song EP in 1976 and then broke up, with members Peter Case and Paul Collins forming the Plimsouls and the Beat (respectively), and Jack Lee having some limited success as a songwriter. Last year, Alive Records put out a full-length collection of Nerves recordings, One Way Ticket
, collecting the EP, the never-released follow-up single, demos, live cuts, and three tracks from immediate post-Nerves projects (including a version of “Walking Out On Love” by interim Case/Collins band the Breakaways that I find superior to the version on the Beat’s first album). The first eight cuts sound like the core of one of those great lost pop records, and if you can get over the poor sound quality of the later tracks, there’s some great stuff there too. Alive has also put out a live set
(vinyl-only, alas) and the Breakaways demos
(on CD), but I haven’t listened to either yet.
Asobi Seksu’s Rewolf
, which I mentioned in passing here, has been out for a bit now, and I quite like it. Gorgeous acoustic re-recordings of songs from throughout the band’s catalog, the album has a mellow, late-60’s folk vibe, the songs largely stripped down to guitar and voice, occasionally augmented by flutes, chimes, or organ. The renditions vary in how far they stray from the original — “Breathe Into Glass”, for example, makes a 180° shift from the emotionally remote (frigid, even) original recording to a rather intimate, confessional piece, but “Urasaii Tori” (renamed “Bossa” here) largely retains its playful nature. I’m not sure how well this would work as an introduction to the band, but if you’re a fan, this is quite a treat.
Shonen Knife played at the Rickshaw Stop at the end of October, and I made a rare foray out to see them. At this point there’s only one original member left (the drummer looks like she hadn’t been born when the band formed in 1981, though Wikipedia tells me that she was in fact four), but the band still plays with infectious amateur enthusiasm. Their new album, Super Group
(released in Japan in ‘08 but just out recently in the States) is fun in the same way: catchy, silly, three-chord pop-punk.
Well, that’s it for now. Expect this quasi-hiatus to last pretty much forever.
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5 October 2009 at 1:13 am
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Asobi Seksu, Rewolf, Shoegaze, Transparence
Transparence, Asobi Seksu’s new 10″, showed up on eMusic a few weeks back, settling my fears that it would be a vinyl-only release. I’ve been listening to it a fair amount, and it’s pretty enjoyable, though nothing earth-shaking.
The title track, which appeared on Hush earlier this year, is given a brief new intro, galloping drums in place of the original rather ambient fade-in, which makes the song sound marginally more rock n’ roll, and works well in the context of an opening track. It’s a decent — but not fantastic — song, with some excellent parts that unfortunately don’t quite pull together correctly, and suffering (like the rest of Hush) from a lack of dynamics. The EP also has a remix of the song by Aa, which pushes the tribal drumming up a bit and otherwise cuts the song up a bit and makes it rather annoying.
The other two tracks — both Hush outtakes, apparently — are both pretty good, though. “Miniature Cities” is another slow, minimalist dream pop number, in the style of much of Hush, but it works pretty well, and probably benefits from being separated from its similar-sounding brethren. It builds to a nice crescendo around the four minute mark, when the sound thickens considerably into a dense, swirling soundscape. That said, it would have worked better in the “classic” Asobi Seksu style, with said crescendo slathered in layers of big guitars.
My favorite track is “Urasai Tori”, a goofy little pop song with a shifty rhythm, a rather mournful harmonica, and rapid-fire woodpecking as a percussive backdrop. It’s lightweight but rather pretty, and while I can see how it wouldn’t have fit onto Hush that well, it seems a shame to leave it buried as a b-side.
Meanwhile, Asobi Seksu has another record coming out, on Polyvinyl on October 30th. Called Rewolf, it’s a collection of acoustic re-recordings of songs from the band’s catalog (along with a few covers), recorded at Olympic Studios in London. There’s an MP3 of their cover of Hope Sandoval’s “Suzanne” here — very nice, with a heavy 60’s vibe courtesy of the fairly ornate production involving chimes and flute as well as strings. If the rest of the record sounds like this, I think it will be quite good. (If nothing else, it has the best cover art on an Asobi Seksu release since the “Stay Awake” single in 2007.)
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5 July 2009 at 1:05 pm
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Asobi Seksu, Shoegaze, Transparence
I haven’t been paying much attention to Asobi Seksu since Hush came out (it kind of bummed me out). But I noticed today that they have a limited edition 10″ coming out on Polyvinyl next month, featuring two versions of the Hush cut “Transparence” (the album version and a remix), and two Hush outtakes, “Urusai Tori” (which my bad Japanese translates to “noisy bird”) and “Minature Cities”. Like much of Hush, “Transparence” isn’t a bad song, but it never quite regains consciousness from the murky production and lack of dynamics. So maybe the remix will be an improvement?
Anyway, you can pre-order the record here. I’m hoping that it will be available digitally at some point, because I haven’t had a record player in years, and anyway that album art is hideous (what happened to these guys? they used to have awesome album art).
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16 March 2009 at 1:54 am
· Filed under Nonsense ·Tagged Asobi Seksu, Concert Review, Shoegaze, The Independent
I was really looking forward to seeing Asobi Seksu again, because now that I’ve heard and been disappointed by their new album, I thought I’d hear how the material played out live (when I saw them in October, I didn’t notice any appreciable difference in song quality between the new and old material, but then they only played a handful of new songs).
And basically, the new material held up quite well. The set was split about 50-50 between old and new, and I really didn’t feel that the new stuff was found wanting at all. And they didn’t even play “Glacially”, which is my favorite “rock” song off the album and likely would have torn the place up if they had (they did play “Blind Little Rain”, my absolute fave off the album). Otherwise, most of what I said about their October show seems to hold up pretty well — they sounded tight and did a credible job of recreating the sonics of their albums, and the new(-ish) rhythm section is excellent. And again, the set seemed a bit on the short side.
Alas, due to social obligations, I missed first opener Resplandor entirely — which really, really sucks, as I’ve heard great things about this Peruvian shoegaze band, and the songs on their MySpace page rock — and I only caught the last two songs by second band Bell. (I was also significantly more inebriated than I like to be at concerts, which might explain why my recollections of the show seem somewhat flimsy — “what I said six months ago!” etc.)
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19 February 2009 at 10:49 pm
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Asobi Seksu, Britpop, cerulean, Dream Pop, Indie Rock, my new music, Shoegaze, Travis
Some recent music acquisitions:
cerulean, Brighter/Still
: I think this is what Buffalo Tom would have sounded like if they’d decided to record a shoegaze record. Big droning guitars, but the singer’s gruff vocals gives the proceedings a sort of American alt-rock flavor. The album doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the majestic instrumental opener “Cathedral City”, but it’s pretty good.
Travis, Ode to J. Smith
: Travis’ most recent album, written and recorded on a rushed schedule which resulted in a much more vital, rocking sound than they’ve tried in a decade. That said, my favorite song (so far) is “Song To Self”, which sounds much more typical of the band’s recent, anthemic output.
Asobi Seksu, Hush: Yeah, this album was a letdown, but I still figured I’d pick it up. The best gauge of my disappointment: I bought it digitally off eMusic, instead of buying a physical CD like I originally assumed I would.
Brighter/Still
Ode To J. Smith
Hush
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15 February 2009 at 4:03 pm
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Album Review, Asobi Seksu, Dream Pop, Hush, Indie Pop, Shoegaze
I wrote last month about my initial disappointment with Asobi Seksu’s new album Hush, and now that the album is actually coming out I thought I should update my thoughts on it.
Except that I haven’t really changed my opinion much. Not so much a bad album as a disappointing one, Hush just isn’t as exciting or engaging as its predecessors.
At first I thought that I just missed those big, majestic guitars, since the band chose to go with a spare, fragile sound this time out — reminiscent of classic 4AD recordings — instead of their previous shoegazer guitar roar. And that may be part of it, because as anyone who reads this blog knows, I really like big majestic guitars. But the album’s real problem is that it’s a pretty dull listen, with one delicate, mid-tempo song after another blurring together into a rather dour monotony.
It’s not that the band is bad at dream pop. Songs like “Layers”, “Gliss”, and “Mehnomae” are quite beautiful. But the band has eschewed much of their earlier diversity here — nothing as punky as “Mizu Asobi” or “Asobi Masho”, nothing as flat-out poppy as “I’m Happy But You Don’t Like Me” or “Taiyo” — mostly sticking to frigid, slow numbers. And this is where the production really hurts them, because there’s a surprising lack of dynamics to much of the material, as if a crush of huge guitars on the chorus was the only tool the band had in their arsenal to add emotional punch to their songs, and having decided to not do that this time around, the songs are left feeling empty and cold. The drums and guitars are extremely low in the mix for the most part, which does accentuate Yuki Chikudate’s wonderful, ethereal singing, but also leaves the songs badly in need of an injection of tension, drama, and release.
The album’s two best songs come at the end: “Glacially”, the ninth track, is built on top of a pulsing, melodic bassline (reminiscent of New Order) that adds some welcome urgency to the song, and has a tremolo-laden chorus that adds some of the excitement that’s so lacking elsewhere on the album. And closer “Blind Little Rain” is the album’s absolute highlight, a wonderful melding of girl-group elements (which the band flirted with on their b-side cover of “Then He Kissed Me” a couple years ago) with dream pop. The song is gorgeous and heart-breaking, and exudes a warmth that most of the rest of the album lacks. If only everything on Hush was this good.
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19 January 2009 at 2:26 am
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Asobi Seksu, Dream Pop, Hush, Shoegaze
I got my hands on a leaked copy of Asobi Seksu’s soon-to-be-released third album, Hush
, last week, and I’ve been listening to it a fair amount. And I have to say that, so far, I’m not really getting into it.
I knew the album wasn’t going to sound the same as Asobi Seksu
or Citrus
— “we didn’t want to do 7,000 reverb guitars this time”, etc — and the “Me & Mary” single certainly pointed towards a sparer sound, especially the ethereal b-side, “Breathe Into Glass”, which suggested that the band was looking to 4AD more than My Bloody Valentine this time around. But since I loved “Breathe”, that didn’t seem like a problem.
But I’m just not getting into the actual album much. Sure, there’s some gorgeous dream pop here — “Layers”, “Mehnomae” — and in “Glacially”, at least one track that soars like the band’s earlier material, despite the more restrained, atmospheric production. Album closer “Blind Little Rain” attempts to fuse 60’s girl group pop with dream pop, with fairly successful results. But most of the rest of the songs seem indistinct, and just bleed together. Do I miss the guitar roar of their first two LP’s that much? Is the material just weaker this time around? Does it just lack for a couple hooky pop songs to make the album a bit more immediately accessible?
Anyway, this (hopefully) isn’t my final word on the album, and hopefully in a couple weeks I’ll post a mea culpa about how much the album grew on me.
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16 January 2009 at 10:24 am
· Filed under Nonsense ·Tagged Amusement Parks On Fire, Asobi Seksu, Dream Pop, Indie Pop, Lush, my new music, Shoegaze
Another rundown on recent music I’ve picked up. This edition is all about shoegaze, old and new. I’ve been listening to a lot of shoegaze lately.
Asobi Seksu, “Me & Mary”
– The lead single off Asobi Seksu’s forthcoming album came out in November. I picked up the b-side, “Breathe Into Glass”, back then, but I was going to hold off on the A-side since it’s on the album too. But … well, I didn’t.
Lush, Gala
– Gala collected Lush’s first three EP’s, Scar, Mad Love, and Sweetness and Light, along with a couple then-new songs. I had this on cassette back in the early 90’s, and liked it much more than their first full-length, Spooky
. I actually downloaded several songs off this when I first signed up with eMusic back in September, so I decided to buy the rest of the album.
Lush, “Monochrome” – The final track off the aforementioned Spooky, and my favorite. eMusic’s copy was actually off the best-of comp Ciao!
.
Amusement Parks On Fire, s/t
– Supposedly composed and recorded solo by Michael Feerick before his 20th birthday, this impressive 2005 shoegaze record has a rather muscular, emotionally direct sound, at times hinting at mid-90’s American alt-rock.
Me & Mary
Gala
Spooky
Amusement Parks On Fire
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29 December 2008 at 12:48 am
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Asobi Seksu, Club 8, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, JPop, Luminous Orange, Panda Riot, Piana, Shoegaze, Swinging Popsicle, The Charade
I don’t really feel qualified to do a “Best of” list for the year, because I simply haven’t listened to enough of the year’s new releases, not even enough of the new releases that I was planning to listen to.
That said, it was a pretty good year for me with regards to music, since — after a couple years of not paying all that much attention — I started to much more actively seek out new music, and found a lot of stuff that I’d been missing out on the past few years. So, here’s an incomplete list of stuff that I really got into this year:
Swinging Popsicle
Swinging Popsicle — I’ve written so much about this Japanese indie pop band on this blog, I don’t really feel there’s much point in writing anything more right now. But they’re definitely my favorite of the bands listed here. MySpace.
Asobi Seksu — Another band I’ve written a lot about on this blog. I’ve been listening to tons of shoegaze records this year, and Asobi Seksu is the best of the new wave of bands that I’ve heard. MySpace.
Club 8
Club 8 — A band I really should have checked out years ago, as their name pops up a lot in the same sentence as personal fave Saint Etienne. Melancholy Swedish pop duo, who periodically augment their lush pop with elements of electronica, bossa nova, and 60’s pop. MySpace.
Panda Riot — After stumbling on this band back in September, I finally picked up their debut album a few weeks ago, and it’s fantastic. Another really great modern shoegaze band. MySpace.
The Charade
Luminous Orange – Although I have two solid albums by this Japanese shoegaze band, Luminous Orange is really on this list because of one song, ”Sakura Swirl”, an absolutely brilliant and hypnotic track full of mysterious glitchy electronic bleeps. MySpace.
Piana — Minimalist, ethereal pop from Japan, with hints of electronica. Absolutely beautiful. MySpace.
The Charade — More Swedish guitar pop. I wrote briefly about their great song “Monday Morning” here. It’s still the best thing on the album, but the rest of the album is pretty great, too. MySpace.
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19 November 2008 at 11:20 pm
· Filed under Music ·Tagged Asobi Seksu, Breathe Into Glass, Dream Pop, Shoegaze
Asobi Seksu’s new single, “Me & Mary”, came out yesterday. I already wrote a bit about the A-side, which has been streaming off their MySpace page for a while, but I finally got to hear the B-side, “Breathe Into Glass”, today.
Anyone who’s looked through my previous posts knows that I like Asobi Seksu a lot, so it’s no surprise that I like this song, too. But I actually think that this is going to end up one of my favorite songs by them. Much more dream pop than shoegaze — there’s very little guitar to be heard — the song is hauntingly beautiful. The walls of icy, shimmering music during the verses positively dwarf Yuki Chikudate’s vocals, giving the song a fragile, vulnerable air. But when the chorus comes in, with more drums and her vocals now pushed up in the mix, the song becomes positively majestic.
I read somewhere that that new album was going to be less in the way of 700 processed guitars and whatnot, something that made me nervous at the time. But if this is what it’s going to sound like instead, then I’ve got nothing to worry about.
Still not that big on the cover art, though.
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