Category: Jpop

  • Let’s Go!

    Let’s Go!

    I have the semi irregular tradition of listening to DePaPepe the Japanese acoustic guitar duo while reading 100 years of solitude. It’s a good tradition and it reminds me of spring in Japan cherry blossoms warmish weather green trees busy streets and the beautiful city skylines. Man, what a great memory. Like Saturday afternoon Fox movies. Something warm and good from childhood. Essentially, you know that’s what I think about when I listen to DaPaPePe’s album Let’s Go while reading 100 years of solitude in the spring.

    spring or summer.

    It makes me think about spring in Hirakata at the Tsutaya bookstore sitting in the back by a window reading, which is interesting because you know when you kinda have nostalgia for a time and place, but you were reading a book about nostalgia about a time and place There’s a kind of circular literary satisfaction that makes the tradition pleasurable. I also enjoyed the kind of pureness and the great mixes in the audio of the DePaPePe songs, the simplicity of the guitars yet the stories and drive of the music make for a really good experience and reminds me a lot of when I used to play guitar in high school in college.

    It takes me back to another time when you know, I guess one memory leads to another sometimes they’re just kind of a chain reaction of thought and this memory is a good memory because it makes me think about another good memory of eating lunch at Kansai Gaidai with Scott and Thomas and Rye and Bryan and Rebecca and Levi, Brack and Chris and yeah it makes me think about eating rice balls at the Kansai Gaidai cafeteria with the little chicken nugget inside the rice ball wrapped in a piece of seaweed so there is sort of this cyclical nostalgic weaving that’s going on that I guess is pretty well illustrated in 100 years of solitude and for me it’s wrapped up in this Spring weather sunny day guitar playing listening to DePaPePe music.

  • Have You Ever Revisited Lumines II… ?

    Have You Ever Revisited Lumines II… ?

    Well, Michael posted about a DDR track and a GBA game and, somehow, I landed here, posting on shoesatthedoor and thinking about Lumines II for the psp. That was the first time I had ever heard music like this while playing a game – and over its music video, too! It was an incredible moment I had not expected. The game started out like the previous one, a kind of Tetris-style game with a slight musical component. Suddenly, the song changed, and the background faded into the music video. It was spectacular. And this wasn’t the only one. The game even featured one of Takagi Masakatsu‘s song-moving-painting things, perhaps one of his best. At the time, it was a multimedia experience that felt quintessentially Sony. I’m not really sure if companies compete for that wow-factor anymore, or maybe I just don’t notice it, except for in racing.

    Near the end of university, and just after, I traveled a lot, and I spent a lot of time on airplanes and in some other rough places with my psp, playing Lumines II and Taiko no Tatsujin. Hearing these songs really takes me back, not to anyplace good, but to a place I was pretty thankful for having them.

    I had known about Takagi Masakatsu before. I used to hang out on some website that was all about minimalistic music. I forgot what it was called. I found Masakatsu there and this other little band called Lali Puna. I also bought a couple of his CDs back then, probably the rarest things I own. Hopefully, with this blog, we won’t lose anymore websites.

  • L’arc En Ciel without Tetsuya

    L’arc En Ciel without Tetsuya

    Have you ever wanted to listen to L’arc en Ciel without the Bass? Neither have I. But there is a release of Driver’s High without bass. Most likely this exists because they needed to fill up space on a b-side or some single release or some such rare release that only happens in Japan. I think bass driven pop music tends to be more interesting and L’arc is a master of bass driven pop songs.