5 posts tagged “asobi seksu”

The band was deafening. Yuki was adorable. The crowd swooned. All in all, it was a very successful night and an emotional victory for anyone below the 5’2” mark.

This was a perfect bill for the tiny 7th Street venue in Minneapolis: Asobi Seksu, Lonely Dear, and Anna Ternheim.

Since I've been closely following each of these artists through my various album reviews and show reviews by other W♥M writers. What I expecting was "yellow fever" and "Teeny tiny Yuki" and "audience sing-along". I do suggest you check the previous reviews, since I probably won't add much to it. All are true, with the exception of Asians in the audience (there were a few, but not like overwhelming "itwasallyellow" moment).

Anna Ternheim (annaternheim.com / myspace.com/annaternheim) was the only artist that we haven't reviewed live, so I was quite excited to see her. Although she's not that well-known in the States, she's quite famous in her home country of Sweden (having won both "Best Female Artist" and "Album of the Year" on the Swedish Grammy). So for her to tour here, at very intimate settings, is such a boon. In fact, there was a group of Swedish fans (like six of them) who visited Minneapolis just to see Anna in such a small venue.

Ternheim's "band" was basically stolen from Loney Dear (we'll get to him later). They adapted well to playing (and backup singing) her songs. My favorite from the set was, of course, "What Have I Done". This song feature this distinctive violin, which was replicated by pre-recording, so no live violas on stage.

So embarrassingly enough, I only had a brief chance to play around with the Pen camera's setting. At the show, for Anna Ternheim, I could not figure out how to change my shutter speed and ISO settings. Thanks to Erik who looked it up to tell me that the up/down/left/right d-pad doubles as a wheel! Who knew?

The only thing I savaged out of Ternheim is this video of her performing "Let It Rain" (see video), which includes the lyrics that would inspired the title of her latest album, Leaving on a mayday.

Lonely Dear ♥ 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (10/09/09)

The same band that played for Ternheim came back for Emil Svanängen, aka Loney Dear (loneydear.com / myspace.com/loneydear). Loney has been doing this musician for a while now. You can just tell, the way he handles himself on the stage and the way he manipulate his audience - yes, he made the audience do that "na-na-na-na" chorus from "The Meter Marks OK".

Compared to Ternheim's set Loney's set was much longer, or at least it felt more like a full set. To be honest, it seems that Loney could continue to play for another hour. He kept asking the soundguy (who was probably with the touring bands as it was not the typical staff guy) if they could have four more minutes to play one more song.

Asobi Seksu Setlist ♥ 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (10/09/09)

I read that Asobi Seksu's Yuki was small, but wow, she's really small. Sometime, I think the loud noise of guitar, bass, drums, and effects, drowns out Yuki's voice. So, combined with my already damaged hearing, I could not make out what she's singing about. Something about cats and strawberries and rain or something.

While this may be attributed to the fact that they were already late on arriving at 7th Street, due to some detours driving from Vancouver, Canada, which resulted in no soundcheck, I just think the band is normally loud when played live.

One thing I will mention is that the band is incredibly hard to shoot, due to poor lighting, because they wanted to emphasis on their own line of blue lights and strobes effect lights and combined with Yuki's hair-in-face and/or looking away.

They started off with "New Years", a Japanese song that's been a staple of their intro song since 2006. They played "Thursday", which I know a few people liked, and for the finale, Yuki took over the drumming-action on "Red Sea". The final song was ridden with all-out strobe light city. It's very cool effects when you see them on stage, blinking in and out, but yeah, not so much for photosensitive epilepsy people.

This is one of the best bill for a band I've seen in a while, so it's definitely worth it to see them all together.

PS, Stay tuned for Kate G's update on Asobi Seksu when they arrive in New York on the 16^th of October.

Hey ya’ll (that’s an homage to Vu’s travels down south).  I’m sorry, this review is grossly overdue, please don’t be a hater.  Fortunately, this was an interesting night, and besides the wealth of minors that obstructed my view, the music was pretty good.  Let’s talk about the music.

Openers Resplandor are from Peru, not Beirut*

Hopefully this doesn’t sound like I’m making a cultural stereotype, but all five members had that dark, brooding elegance that I associate with South America.  Similarly, their music was also dark, brooding, and slightly off-putting.  Singer Aracelli Fernandez is just a wee thing up on stage; all crazy with the hair and the New Age hand movements.  The band lists a lot of shoegaze influences, like My Bloody Valentine and the Stone Roses, but if I were to belittle their artistic merit with inane categorization I’d call it “Innocuous Art Rock,” meaning they lacked that careful balance between humdrum drone and ephemeral brilliance that My Bloody Valentine, for example, achieved in aces.  I’d say Resplandor has potential, which isn’t meant to be condescending in the way you might call something bland “nice,” just a courteous suggestion to push forward (after all, this is certainly the genre to challenge conventions).  Resplandor has a few summer dates in Toronto (NXNE music festival); Myspace or Website.

Bell at the 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (03/07/09) ♥ photo by Kate

The crowd had probably doubled by the time BELL came on, an irrelevant statistic (nobody ever shows up early) that, in the moment, seemed odd, since I assumed BELL’s following would be minimal.  I guess I was wrong (and also not cool).

Fellas:  Olga Bell is a cutie. 

Half-way through BELL’s set Kate admitted that the smiley singer’s stage persona was sort of unsettling (because she seemed happy and to be enjoying herself), a sad statement on today’s bitter frown-y music scene.  Why do we find comfort in vulgarity and self-loathing?  Why are pleasant, well-adjusted artists turn-offs?  Something to explore in therapy, I suppose.  But since music can be therapy, I will freely disclose that Bell’s smiling made me smile.  So what if her clear, soaring vocals channeled early Bjork?  So what, We Heart Music.  BELL’s thing (her je ne sais quoi) was so charming that every snide aside I felt obligated to share just went “poof” when she pulled out that cute little mini-keytar!  And, you know, the girl kind of kicked ass.  Despite this being their first tour, the band sounded sharp—Bell on keyboard, doing her samples and loop-de-looping and blippity blipping, her two drummers adding a necessary and impressive rhythmic oomph—the result was effective.  I know BELL inspired at least one dude in the room to shake his groove thang because he did so right behind me.  If a band can make the whitest white man gyrate his hips in such an alarming, graceless, amazing way, while simultaneously drinking a pint of beer, then that band can probably say “we’ve made it.”  BELL will be starting the East Coast leg of her tour at the end of April.  For a full list of concert dates, visit Myspace.  If you’d like to buy a copy of BELL’s EP, go here:  Website.

Asobi Seksu sex you.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind Asobi Seksu fans that the band’s name roughly translates as “fun sex,” so I won’t, even though I did.  Teeny tiny Yuki (small singer night!) is Asian (obvious) and they all call New York home.  So, sexy name + Asian singer + New York ÷ Minnesota = A LOT of underage Asian girls + their white boyfriends.  Seriously, Asian invasion.  Resplandor and BELL may have brought the young and hip, but Asobi Seksu brought the fever:  YELLOW FEVER.  And let me tell you, Yuki rocked it.  Right away the audience was treated to a full dose of pint-size fury, as Yuki thrashed about on stage, barely visible over the top of the microphone stand.  The combination of her dreamy, albeit often indecipherable voice and the forceful instrumentation was impressive live (studio polish really doesn’t befit these noisy bands).  It’s hard not to get wrapped up in the wave of sound, as it basically crushes that small part of your brain that responds to creative stimulation; conversely, the same effect makes it difficult to consciously distinguish one sound wave from another.  A few times during the night I lost my train of listening and drifted (something that is neither good nor bad).  Happily, Asobi Seksu played favorites from Citrus (i.e. “Strawberries,” “Thursday”) along with selections from their new album Hush, including the first single “Me & Mary.”  The band is currently on tour.  Full dates on Myspace and Website (apparently the website redirects back to Myspace).  Hush is available now; purchase HERE.

* When the band introduced themselves I thought they said ‘Beirut’ instead of ‘Peru,’ so I loudly remarked “Beirut!  Zach Condon eat your heart out!” or something equally tactless.  Now I am embarrassed for myself.

Shoegaze is on the rise these days; from bands like The Autumns and Stella Luna sticking to the original shoegaze mechanics (a la Ride's "Vapour Trail"), to veteran rockers trading in their noise for a wall of sound, it's hard to accept that the gazer movement is long gone.

Enter Asobi Seksu, whose name translates from Japanese into something like "playful sex," or "casual sex." Their 2006 sophomore album Citrus was pure aural magic. Every bit of this CD screamed nostalgia -- not only nostalgia for the heady heydays of bands like My Morning Jacket, The Church, and Sonic Youth, but nostalgia for things like summer drives with the windows rolled down, and other flower, happy things like that.

And that's the magic of Citrus; every obscure, whispered lyric, every sneaky little guitar riff is well played. It's pop brilliance, and a return to a genre that, quite frankly, needed a returning-to.

Their video for the single "Thursday" is a pretty decent visual representation of the shoegaze "sound." It's pastel, hazy, and definitely dream-like. If you like this, the mp3 is free to download at their website, as well as several more from various other albums. They're on tour now with The Appleseed Cast, which is a story for another day.

--Gus