Teriyaki for everybody, please...

Teriyaki Boyz is a Jhip-hop (yeah, I warned you that such thing existed... ^_^) that is a sort of side project from members of other Jhip hop groups in Japan. It is composed of rappers Ilmari and Ryo-Z from Rip Slyme, Verbal from m-flo and Wise from Bathing Ape. Nigo, also from Bathing Ape, heads the group and is a fifth member of Teriyaki Boys, but he's rather in the background, handling production credits, in charge of the consoles and being the fashion guru of the group, leaving the spotlight to the four MCs. That is why you see only four faces on the cover of their album , and there is an aclaration in the form of a "4+1" sign that refers to Nigo's involvement in the group.

Their debut in the Japanese music scene is very recent: their first and only album up to now, "Beef or Chicken" was released last November and it created an instant hype thanks to the outstanding line of producers that graced the tracklisting. There was Daft Punk producing the track "Heartbreaker" (which is actually a new take on Daft Punk's hit "Human after all") and Beastie Boys' member Adrock producing four other tracks, including the title track. Additionally, Just Blaze, Cornelius, Automator, DJ Premier, Mark Ronson, Cut Chemist and The Neptunes also contributed to the album producing a track each, with Pharrell being featured in the latter track... really an impressive list of people in the hip-hop and electronica scene. Obviously, the fact of being signed to DefJam Records was instrumental in getting such big names to collaborate in the project. Check them live in famous Japanese TV music show "Music Station", performing "Heartbreaker", courtesy of neptunes13 @ YouTube !

Their next release was only some weeks ago, contributing the songs "Tokyo Drift" (produced by The Neptunes as well) and "Cho large" to the soundtrack of the movie "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift", the third and latest installment in the car-racing movie franchise. "Tokyo Drift" is a great club-banger, and here you have a music video made out of footage and trailers to the movie by chulitagurl247 @ YouTube, so that you can enjoy the great jam that is "Tokyo Drift" with some great chasing scenes:

Here is the track "Tokyo Drift". And right below is the album ! Thanks once again to CJC for uploading and sharing it. It was an ideal contribution to diversify the menu of this blog. I only knew "Heartbreaker" from them, but I'm really enjoying the full album...

"X" marks the spot

Hi everybody! Yeah, I know I had promised an update for last weekend, but the possibility of going trekking to the mountains with a couple of friends came up and I welcome every possible opportunity to go outdoors and enjoy summer, so the blog had to be put on hold once again. Today, to make up for the delay, I am sharing with you a megafile comprising two soundtrack albums released for that great 2001 TV series that is "X".

"X" started in 1992 as a manga featured in the comic magazine Monthly Asuka by the Kadokawa Shoten Publishing House. Their authors are an all-female studio that go under the name of CLAMP and that are, by now, legends in the manga and anime fandom, having created some of the most popular, critically acclaimed and commercially successful titles in both their paper-based and animated versions, such as "Chobits", "Card Captor Sakura", "Magic Knight Rayearth", "RG Veda" and "Clover", among many others.

CLAMP members are Ageha Ohkawa (formerly known under the name of Nanase Ohkawa) handling the writing of the stories, Mokona Apapa and Mick Nekoi in the drawing department, and Satsuki Igarashi in design and general planning. Their work is not only characterised by their graphic style (which has evolved along the years and also as Mokona and Mick influenced each other), but also by developing great characters, creating emotional endings with unexpected twists, nuanced villains and love relationships of all sorts, with a strong presence of homoerotism specially among male characters. To read a CLAMP story is never dull: these girls are already a brand of their own, having experimented with every possible genre inside manga and having always found outstanding success thanks to the quality of their work. Each time a new title by them is announced, plans for its adaptation to the screen (the small or the big one) are simultaneously made. And, fortunately, they are workaholics that never seem to take a break or to suffer from creativity droughts...

"X" is up to the moment their longest manga. It has reached a 18th recopilatory volume in Japan in 2003 and the ending, foreseen for volume 20th or 21st, is long-awaited by fans since then. The publication of this title is on hold for the moment; sources in the internet claiming that the reason is a dispute over creative differences with Kadokawa about the ending created by the authors, others saying that it was CLAMP's decision to call for some time off after the Kobe disaster ("X" features plenty of scenes of apocalliptic destruction by earthquakes) and the Sakakibara incident (the beheading of a boy by a 14 year-old murderer that apparently was influenced by violence in manga, videogames and films). "X" is certainly one of CLAMP's most violent titles, and beheadings certainly abound, but the dates of these events and the decision to suspend the publication of the manga don't really match, so I'm more inclined to believe the first version.

The first animated adaptation of this manga was under the form of a music video to the song "X" by (how appropriate...) legendary rock band X-Japan. The video was only 2 and a half minutes and left fans salivating for more. Here you have it courtesy of bentoprd @ YouTube:

In 1996 an anime movie was finally released, but despite the expert direction by Rintaro ("Metropolis") and many other celebrated artists involved in its production, the movie was panned by the fans. And for a reason: to try to encompass the twelve volumes of manga that were published by then in a two hour movie was suicidal, and too many changes had to be done to the original story in order to have the rudiments of a coherent story.

But finally, in 2001, the TV adaptation was done in 24 great episodes that adapted the 18 volumes... and went even further, providing the fans with a conclusion to Kamui's saga. It is no secret that CLAMP starts a manga only when the story is already written and the members are satisfied with it, so there are plenty of chances that what we saw on the screen is actually what we will eventually see on paper someday when publishing resumes. But it is also very well known that adaptations of CLAMP work to the screen aren't usually literal, and there are way too many differences between the published volumes and the episodes... so some variation should not be discarded. Yet, the ending makes so much sense and is so fitting to the journey that the main character -Kamui- has undergone, that it really feels like the closing to the story that CLAMP imagined.

"X" tells the story of Kamui, a 16 year-old boy that is called to decide on the future of the Earth on Judgment Day in 1999. He must participate in the fight between two factions of warriors empowered with supernatural abilities: the 7 Dragons of the Earth, who are willing to eliminate humankind and give the Earth a fresh new start, and the 7 Dragons of Heaven, who want to preserve humankind even at the cost of seeing Earth further deteriorating because of our activities. His choice of band will have an automatic influence on which group his best friend Fuuma joins. Destiny has foreseen that these two become enemies in the fight. Each of the Dragons is a complex character with a fascinating story behind, and the main topics are friendship, sacrifice, hidden desires that sometimes we are not even aware of, the consequences of our pursuing them and, above all, if there is such thing as fate and if we can fight it.

I have no words to describe how awesomely cool the story is. The TV series, perfectly adapted the colossal fights, the deepness of the relationships among characters (usually belonging to different factions), the angst, the tragedies, the apocalliptic atmosphere... The voice casting was top-notch, with stand-outs Kenichi Suzumura outdoing himself in the role of Kamui and scene-stealer Mitsuaki Madono playing Sorata.

And then... the music ! Naoki Sato composed an amazing score that I'm sharing today with you, guys. Two soundtrack albums were released and I'm comprising both in a single file for your utter enjoyment. Included are the OP rock song "ExDream" by Myuji, and ED "Secret Sorrow" by Kohei Koizumi (who is a guy, don't let yourselves be fooled by his voice... :-P). The instrumental pieces are marvellous, and will give you goosebumps for different reasons. There are tracks like "Destiny" that make you smell the nearness of battle, and then others like "Simply one desire" that leave a warm imprint in your heart, thanks to the professionalism of the orchestra arrangements. You won't find the karaoke versions of OP and ED (included in the sountrack) because the file would otherwise be too big, but the TV size versions are there. Mr. Suzumura sings the final track, the insert song "Crystal". And also included is the song "Strength", also by Kohei Koizumi, which was used in the OVA "Yochou", released to the market as a sort of episode zero to the TV series... (Awful idea if you haven't read the manga, because it contains many spoilers !! :-s). Unfortunately I don't have much information to share on Mr. Saito and on some of his other work in animation... hell, not even a photo of him ! :-(

But at least, as a test of the quality of the animation and of the general feel of the TV series, enjoy the OP courtesy of Ramblingnakuru @ YouTube:

Go check this manga out (it's published in most Western countries) and if you enjoy it, then get the DVDs for the TV series, because I'm sure that the manga will hook you enough to want to know how the story ends...
Here's the album, and always remember Kotori's wise words..."Destiny is not decided yet !" ^_-

ROM Reuploaded by Request

This is a quick message to let you know that the ROmantic Mode album "Romantic Pleasures: The Best of ROmantic Mode" has been re-uploaded. Thank you, Rose, for warning me about the expiration of the previous link. You can check out the entry I wrote about this amazing group and download the CD by clicking on the month of "February" in the Archives section to your right. It is one of the groups that I would like the most to introduce you to, guys, so give it a try and give me some feedback on them.

I have also added an alternative download link for Tommy February6's album "Tommy Airline", because somebody was having problems with rapidshare. I hope you enjoy both albums. I'll try to be back next weekend with a soundtrack, for a change ^_^.

The flight of the Garnet Crow

Ok, guys, so... as I had told you via the comments box to your right, today we have yet another greatest hits album ! Yay ! :-P You know that the aim of this blog has always been to introduce newcomers to Jpop/Jrock acts, and I think that there is no better way of doing that than presenting to you compilations of their best material and, if you dig what you hear, just leave you free to check out the rest of the discography of the artist or group in question, don't you agree ? This time, I'm posting a collection released last year by another one of my favorite groups: Garnet Crow.

Garnet Crow is a quartet formed by Yuri Nakamura on vocals, Azuki Nana and Hirohito Furui on keyboards, and Hitoshi Okamoto in guitars. One of the main reasons for their popularity is the originality and versatility of Yuri's voice and the depth and poetry of Azuki's lyrics for their songs. Yuri's voice -just like Akira Asakura's, the vocialist of ROmantic Mode- is very different from what you usually hear in the Japanese scene. Blessed with a wider than average range, Yuri is specially confident singing in a low register for adding dramatic tones to the lyrics, but goes higher when the tempo calls for it with equal mastery. It's enough to listen to the beautiful, haunting "In little time" to understand what I'm talking about... The combination of her expressivity with the quality of the lyrics was enough for them to be noticed quite early in their artistic career. Their story started in 1999, when the two girls -who were already friends struggling to make it in the music world- met the guys in a recording studio. They found that they all had in common their passion for music and were equally frequenting studios for cutting demos. They quickly draw the attention of music producers thanks to the catchy melodies and simple arrangements of their songs, fusioning pop and light rock. The affinity between the four of them grew stronger as they rehearsed as a group, and soon Garnet Crow managed to edit an EP called "First Kaleidoscope ~kimi no uchi ni tsuku made zutto hashitte yuku~", which was a major success in the indies scenes. Track 1 from their BEST OF album below ("kimi no uchi ni tsuku made zutto hashitte yuku") is precisely taken from that indies EP and you can notice by the sound quality that the guys were tight on the budget back then... Check them out performing in concert one of their hits, the song "Kimi to Iu Hikari", courtesy of uenokado @ YouTube, for a first sample on how they sound live as a group:

Their official debut in the music scene, recording for a major, was in March 2000 when their single "Mysterious Eyes" was released as OP # 7 of that long-lasting, cult-favorite TV series, "Detective Conan". Here's the clip of that opening, thanks to K.Himura @ Imeem.com, as a sort of additional preview to Garnet Crow's music before you download the album. You have to bear the intro with Conan telling the viewer about the episode of the day, and then at the end his reading the list of sponsors of the TV series, but it's a cute video and gives you an idea of how the OPs are really shown on TV over there ^_^:

Just like B'z, Garnet Crow developed a long partnership with that TV series, aditionally contributing four ED songs up to now (# 10, 14, 18 & 20; the first two -"Natsu no maboroshi" & "Yumemita ato de"- included in the CD below).

But their relationship with animation projects was not limited to Conan. Almost all of their hits are linked to anime series, having provided OP's & ED's to the likes of Project Arms ("Call my name"), Patapata Hikousen no Bouken ("Naked Story") and, recently, two OPs and an ED to the animated adaptation of the manga MÄR. Their music, therefore, is well known in the fandom.

The albums "Sparkle", "Crystallize" and "I'm waiting for you" would continued their initial string of hits. But even if their work has benefited from the diffusion that the partnership with anime entails, they haven't reached in Japan the level of outstanding success that they merit, being considered as critical darlings but not fully embraced by the masses.

In 2005, willing to close a first chapter in their career after only 5 years of activity, they put out their first "BEST OF" album, a collection of hits, self-covers, fan-favorite album tracks and new songs in a double CD package. I'm just posting CD1 of the compilation and hope that you like the 14 songs therein included to the point of buying the album and enjoying the second disc as well. My favorite in this CD is undoubtedly "Sen ijou no kotoba wo nabaretemo...", and if they hadn't made such a crappy video for it, I would have posted it as well for gracing these lines... :-P

Here's the album ! Let me know what you think of it and hope to be back soon with more music...