Japanese side of things and hardcore

Hi all!

This time I concentrate on my latest cds I´ve bought. Af for Tori Amos show in Ice Hall, there´s nothing new to tell. Just remember to wear something warm, the place is cold. Usually they have flea market there in weekends. As for the pic, I think it´s properiate since this time we travel to Japan and from there to germany/Netherlands.

Let´s start off with Japanese side of things. There are many good bands hailing from there and they even have their own personal music style called Shibuya Kei. Shibya style is bit hectic clubpop with anything goes attitude. Definetly worth trying!


And bit of Shibuya Kei we go off. Fantastic Plastic Machine has the honour of starting things. Absolutely fantastic and weird band like this is worth mentioning. Can I say anything bad of album which opens with 3 second track called Beautiful? The track is a man saying I am beautiful and that´s it. Brilliant way to open album, made me laugh. Rest of the album is pop/house mixup. There are some pure house tracks (Love is psyhedelic) and some pure pop. As always with japanese, this one has also lot of strings in it. Same is with highly recommender Lonesome Echo Strings/Lonesome Echo Productions. They use both variants of the name. Album has a bonus track Take me to the disco, which is absolute killer. Track goes Take me to the disco at the end of the world. Also nice bit slower track is God save Mona Lisa. If you´re into not yer typical pop, chech this out. There´s also track called Lotto, which I have to mention eventhough it´s not from this album. The track is dance track sung in German:)

Some tracks:

Take Me To The Disco

Love Is Psychedelic

God Save Mona Lisa

There Must Be An Angel (Eurhythmics cover, not from album)

And let´s move on then to beautiful and talented Utada Hikaru and her album Exodus


I just love this album, eventhough it´s pop/r&b fare but still. Lyrics are mostly normal love stuff and some, like Exodus 04, are different. But still if you´re looking for deep lyrics, this ain´t your cup of tea. If you like good quality r&b/pop this might me for you. Utada tried to break it in US with is album and it shows. Well produced r&b is the main thing here, but the whole album isn´t like that. It´s enough varied pack to keep things interesting and has good melodies. And I do like Utada´s voice. Devil inside for example is housier dance tune which was released as single with 11 mixes. You make me want to be a man is also personal track. Besides those two standout track for me is Exodus 04. Beautiful slice of pop music. Hotel Lobby is more slow pop with good melody and nice rhythm. Some tracks:

You make me want to be a man

Exodus 04

Devil Inside

Hotel Lobby

I´ve also been grooving to Fiona Apple´s Extraordinary Machine.
I guess most of you have heard this album already, so I won´t spend much time to introduce this one. It´s good album and the songs are varied, which is always good. I find that problem with Aimee Mann that songs sound so much similar that it´s hard to separate them. I do like Aimee, let´s make that clear. Opening track Extraordinary Machine flirts with jazz and old musical/cabaree style and pulls it off. Not about love goes more to rage department and Oh Sailor is good catchy pop song. Good album overall and it will be interesting /if/when Fiona makes a new album which direction she´ll take.

Extraordinary Machine

Not About Love

Oh Sailor

From my trip to Mayday I bought lot of cds (some were good, some bad). One good collection is Hardstyle Germany.

2 cd mixed pack here. There are 20 tracks on earch cd, so it doesn´t give much time for each track to build. Mixing is solid and techincally good. Selection works and if you listen to it as mix, it works. If you listen to it as compilation, it doesn´t work that well, since the tracks are just snippets and almost like previews. Same problem is always with Ministry Of Sound releases, tracks playing maybe 2min each. Hardstyle Germany is from the more accessible end of hardstyle sound, with melodies and good drive. There are couple of cheesier tracks (Losing My Religion in hardstyle anyone?), but they don´t ruin the set. If you´re new to this sound, this is good place to start. Solid mix, good selection and rolls well.

Showtek The Colour Of The Harder Styles

Vorwerk Cambodja

Zero Vision Overdrive

And move on to harder sounds. It´s time for Hellraiser compilation Claimed By Darkness


2 cds and a dvd with report from the party. Nice pack indeed. Only problem for me with these compilations is that some tracks are too hard. Luckily there aren´t many of them, total 3 of 28 tracks ain´t bad. This the true sound of what I call hardcore. Also this has hard techno tracks thrown in for good measure. And as you can guess, some tracks have samples from Hellraiser movie. The tracks aren´t mixed, but there isn´t much of a break between them, so djs be careful. Good point with this cd is that it´s mostly mainstream hardcore, which is much more accessible than the old stuff. Nowadays hardcore has melody and sometimes also vocals, but vocals are more typical for UK hardcore. There is a big difference.
On the dvd is main report and report from vip area. Also included are visuals and trailer. Dvd isn´t bad if you wanna look at party report of dancing people, djs and of overall look of the party. And it´s well done dvd too, main report clocking over 20 minutes.

That´s it for now, next time we have couple of more hardcore cds and hopefully Damien Rice´s B-sides collection, but that´s up to the mailman if I get it. Also coming up is review of Tom McRae´s Streetlight collection (also as soon as I get it) and RE.M.´s latest Collapse Into now.

Untill next time,

Tommi