3 posts tagged “j-rock”
(Japanese text by Tomo, translated into English by Maggie)
Supercar are probably the closest you'll ever get to a Japanese
shoegazer band. They hail from Aomori, a place in the countryside in northern Japan that is usually considered their version of
"the boonies." When they first started out, they were a guitar band
that seemed happy to just layer their ringing guitar sounds with
beautiful melodies. But with their 2nd album Jump Up, their sound
suddenly evolved (and this was evolution, not change), going from
Britpop copy band to developing their own sound identity.
The product of this was their 3rd album, the 2000 release Futurama. They got the title from a combination of the words "future" and "panorama," and sure enough, it was a record that seemed to depict the future and an all-encompassing view of sound itself. At the time, their use of both rock and electronica drew comparisons to Primal Scream and Radiohead.
Usually, it's very difficult to put Japanese lyrics to UK guitar band-type music as it comes off sounding very unbalanced (perhaps that explains the dearth of such bands in Japan), but Supercar skillfully maneuver around that, and the music and lyrics are written by different members of the band. Another feature of the band is the use of boy/girl harmonies, but on this album, the female vocals tend to take a backseat.In the beginning, the guitars jangle in
the instrumental "Changes," and lead into the deeper guitar sound of
the masterpiece "Playstar Vista." Despite its futuristic feel (perhaps
aided by the synths), this is an album that leaves you feeling
mysteriously warm. The first half of the album is so solid that when
you get around to the latter half, it sometimes seems like the album is
a little too long. But, there are still some gems like "Fairway" and
"Restarter" tucked away.
Post-Futurama, Supercar continued to evolve, stretching out into the far reaches of the electronica universe with the release of their 4th album, High Vision. After that, they once again changed direction and headed back to Earth with a more conventional, Talking Heads-esque 5th album Answer, and then they broke up.
Official SONY site | English fansite
ORIGINAL TEXT:
しかし2nd『Jump Up』になるといきなりその音は進化（変化ではなく進化です）の速度を時速150kmくらいに上げ、いかにもＵＫ好きってだけではなく、自分たちの音処理のスタイルがまるっきり変わりました。 ところがその音の進化はまったく止まることが無く、速度維持しながらも真っ直ぐだけではなく縦にも横にも向い始めました。
それが結晶されたのが2000年に発売された3rdアルバムの『Futurama』です。 タイトルはFutureとPanoramaを合わせた言葉らしく、まさにその言葉通りの音の未来と音のすべての景色をあらわしている傑作アルバムです。 発売当初はロックとエレクトロニカとの融合ってことでPrimal ScreamやRadioheadを引き合いに出して評価されておりました。
通常英国的なメロディとアレンジがあると、そこに日本語の歌詞を乗せるのは非常にアンバランスで難しいのですが（だから日本にはそういうバンドが少ないのかも）スーパーカーはその辺がとても巧みで楽曲と詩は別々のメンバーが書いています。 それともうひとつの特徴はヴォーカルが男女ひとりずついるということであり、このアルバムは男性ヴォーカルの割合が非常に高く、女の子の声は控えめに後ろから、または横からとても可愛げに顔を出してくれています。
さて、その後のスーパーカーはさらに進化をし続けて、エレクトロニカの星にたどり着いた4th『High Vision』を経たのち、その進化を 無理やりに止めて地上に戻ってきてTalking Headsのような原始化した5th『Answer』のアルバムを残して解散してしまいました。
１枚とも同じアルバムが無く、好みは分かれるとは思いますが、自分は最も動き続けていたこの『Futurama』が一番好きです。
Maggie | my♥posts | maggie@weheartmusic.com
Fans of J-Rock will probably have heard of Supercar, one of the most famous and easily accessible Japanese band (since all their lyric titles were in English and some of their songs alternate English with Japanese).
In 1995, at the age of sixteen, Miki Furukawa placed an ad in a local Aomori Prefecture magazine and met Junji Ishiwatari, who was eighteen at the time. They seem to hit it on pretty well and soon convinced their friends to join their band and in 1997 landed a deal with Sony Japan.
They broke up in 2005, by this point, they had evolved into an electronica-rock band.
Post-Supercar, Miki Furukawa released her solo album, Mirrors (Jul 2006), with the leading single Coffee & SingingGirl!!! (Jun 2006). In March 2007, she released her new single Psycho America (not available on her album). Both singles comes in regular format and deluxe format, which includes a bonus DVD music video of the song.
A video for "7Stars" was made, but it was never released as a single.
Koji Nakamura, the drummer?, released albums under the name Nyantora and iLL, and his albums are all instrumentals.
This video for "Lucky" in really, really, really big (198mb), so I suggest if you want to watch it without interruptions, let it download for a while or save the movie file to your computer (you'll need a DIVX codec to play it later).
You can easily find some more really high quality music videos on Stage6.
July 18, 2007 10:03 AM
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Having been a twinkie ("yellow on the outside, white on the inside") and a hardcore Anglophile for most of my life, I've never really been a big fan of J-pop/rock. But the last time I was in Japan, which was in 2004, I kept seeing this music video by a band that sounded, well, not too bad. In fact, the song was pretty catchy and by the time I came home, I had bought the single and album by them. I suppose I liked them because they weren't vacuous like a lot of j-pop idols or Johnny's boy bands, but not overly dramatic and flashy like the visual-kei bands.
Asian Kung-Fu Generation was born in 1996, when dummer Kiyoshi Ijichi, guitarist Kensuke Kita, bassist Takahiro Yamada and singer Masafumi Goto met in college. They seem to be influenced by British and American indie bands, which probably explains why I like them. In fact, there's even a song off their 2nd album that I could swear was by a band called Weezer, but whatever. On their website they describe their sound as: "Weezer-ish sound a la japonaise. Emotional Sense and Literary Rock."
If there are any anime fans out there, you might recognize them from Fullmetal Alchemist and Naruto. For 'Rewrite' I decided to use the cover art for the single since I'm quite fond of the artist who does their cover art, Yusuke Nakamura.
So far AKG have released 5 albums, and a slew of singles. Also available are 2 compilations which include tracks by bands such as Ash, the Rentals, Silver Sun and Dogs Die in Hot Cars, along with other Japanese bands that I admit I am not familiar with. Their later releases seem to showcase a mellower "Aji-kan" (the Japanese sure love abbreviating names), but I've yet to get my hands on their latest CD. Discography can be found here, but it's all in Japanese. (The English version is not complete.)
I'm presenting some of their more popular songs, 'Rewrite' from Fullmetal Alchemist, 電波塔 (Denpato "Radio Tower") from 君繋ファイブエム (Kimi Tsunagi Five M), 遙か彼方 (Haruka kanata, which translates to something like "very very far off") from Naruto, and the video for 君という花 (Kimi to iu hana "Flower called 'you'"). If there is any interest I will translate the lyrics and post them.
Ja, mata ne!
Maggie.
[ e-mail: maggie@weheartmusic.com ]
