Volume at Zero. Day 10.

It is not easy to accumulate some time to write about music, and music just keep piling up! So I’ve decided to write about everything I hadn’t written yet. Here we go!

Stereopony

It is a nice band and I enjoyed going through their discography. Since I don’t have much time with all this stuff waiting to be written about, I’ll will speak only of stuff I found noteworthy.
Stereopony really hits me with their singles – most of them either five or four stars, as for A-side song.
“It’s a wild world”, a B-side from “Chiisana Mahou” single nearly gave me a heart attack – this song is used as a transition in Gaijin Kanpai podcast and it really was surprising to stumble upon this song. The song itself doesn’t feel like most of Stereopony songs. It gave me an impression of The Offspring, a solid female-vocals Offspring of their Americana days.
As for five stars for A-song, singles are – “Hitohiro no Hanabira”, “I do it”, “Namida no Mukou” and “Smilife”.

Two albums are nice listen, though the first one, “Hydrangea no Saiteiru”, feels softer and smoother, and I enjoyed it a bit more. It also has a few five-stars no-single songs – “Komorebi no Journey”, “Sweet Bule” and “My mistake”.

But then again, most of the songs are marked as played one time only. Guess nothing certain to say about the albums at this point.

It is a nice band but I can’t listen to it for a long consequent chunks of time. Lead singer vocals feels a little bit off for me. Well, I’m YUI fan after all, I guess.

day after tomorrow – complete Best

Okay, day after tomorrow, misono and someone else, for me at least. I’ve learned about them after one of misono’s first solo singles, that is.
The band is nice and they do a lot of interesting stuff with their music which results in some truly awesome songs, a lot of near-misses and a wholesale of average songs. It is really scary how many songs from this four-disk compilation is three stars.
Yet their five stars are pleasing – “for you”, “Pride”, “High-Spirit”, “Losing myself”, “Where so ever”.
There’s also a bunch of four stars, aforementioned near misses.

And as for “Losing myself” – I will be joining them together with “Oval”, I really want one big song with an awesome intro.

Abe Mao – Su.

This album is a roller coaster. I can’t describe it’s awesomeness, it starts fast, then slows down, goes into acoustics and drives back to insane speeds. The last song, “Hikari (+1)”, is such a perfect choice to end the album. When I listened to this album with an iPod in my pocket, with this song I actually understood that the album is over.
I’ll be getting a hard copy of this into my collection and also I’ll be listening to more Abe Mao.

AKB48 – Koo ni Ita Koto

Okay, I don’t really want to write anything about them. It is probably a nice album, but way to many vocal units per song. I don’t like visual side of AKB48 as well.
In the middle of the album thing get a little interesting, but nothing that I would extensively care about.

BARBEE BOYS – freebee

Second album of this band. No matter how much I love them, this album doesn’t feel that strong and awesome, at least after single walkthrough. But I’ll give it another shot.

Biyuuden – Ai Suite Room Number 1

Ahh, Biyuuden. Their official English title is v-u-den, and it is bullshit. So Biyuuden it is, as far as I am concerned.
They were one of my first idol groups and I like them a lot, even if they are an squired taste.
Their first album is short – 8 tracks with intro and outro included. It is short and there’s nothing in it for me except for Tea Break.

Biyuuden – v-u-den Single Best 9 Vol. 1 Omaketsuki

This one, however, is completely different. It starts strong and have all the songs that matter on it. Well, it IS single compilation after all.
“JaJa Uma Paradise” song was nauseating at first, but somehow I grew to like it and it is scary.

While I am talking about Biyuuden, I would like to introduce to the world an idea to shoot Ishikawa Rika.
I would murder for Okada/Miyoshi duo, but I guess I have to settle with their photobook without Ishikawa, since the trio is disbanded. Sigh.

Edguy – Savage Poetry

Listened to both original and remastered albums. Original feels weird and remaster is actually good. I love listening to different versions of songs back to back and compare the feelings they give off.
I’ll write about Edguy in-depth some other time. Spoiler alert – they’re awesome.

Minamino Yoko – Virginial

I can’t say anything about this album. I hits the extremes of soft vocals of 80s and it makes it hard to evaluate anything. I have one four-stars song only at this point.
I’m not giving up on Minamino though.

Pain of Salvation – Road Salt One

And I am finally on my last album for this evening.
It is solid stuff as an album experience, to go from song one to song the last without any breaks is a pleasure. But even breaking it up to songs – “Sisters” are extremely awesome, so if “Curiosity”, so is “Road Salt”.
By the overall impression I can compare it to Abe Mao’s album – it is just as nicely structured. The main distinction is that “Su.” is very varied and “Road Salt One” have a theme and this theme goes silver lining through the whole album.

And that’s finally it for today. I do not make announcements for the stuff I have in queue, but since I cannot imagine my life without music – more is surely to come.

Video game of life.

Life is getting faster, the pace of it.
An alarm on my mobile phone wakes me up every morning, well, at least it tries. If it succeeds, then I take a shower, otherwise I go straight to a breakfast.
For breakfast I have a cup of coffee and a toast, if it is available.
Then I commute to work, listening to some music while doing so. Or maybe reading a book. Or playing a video game on either of my handhelds.

I have a blue collar type of work and I work alone, just like any respectable assassin. Though I am not an assassin. It is actually sad, because being an assassin seems like fun.
But anyways, I work alone and my work doesn’t require me to have any kind of mental activity. So I listen to either a music or a podcast. I’ve tried watching movies, but they draw way too much form my attention tank, I hardly can have any work done. Movies are no-go.

I try to finish my work as fast as possible and be on my way home. Another commute – and I am back. ただいま.
I usually do not eat at work, so the first thing I do when I get home is invading my fridge’s privacy.
Now I am eating something, while playing a video game or watching a movie.
After a couple of hours, when I’m certain that whatever I ate is processed I do about thirty minutes of exercises, to stay in shape. I kinda like the way my body is at the moment and I want it to stay that way.
A short break before going to sleep – and then I am exploring the dreamland until my phone will make another attempt to wake me up in the morning.

Of course it’s not like this all the time. I try to meet with people as much as possible, attend some courses etc.

But life feels fast. It feels like I can’t stop anymore.
So I have to force myself to slow down.
I grind my coffee from grain state every morning. I cook my own food. Sometimes I walk home instead taking a bus.
Still it isn’t enough. But it is something.

Why am I writing this? I’m not sure.
I’ve read a review of Far Cry dated April, 2004. It was printed in a magazine and it was fairly large review. I feel that back then there was something that is not here anymore. I can feel a tingle deep within my heart.
Well, maybe it is not here, but that tingle means that some of is is still within me. So maybe I can bring it back. Make my life a little bit more real. Because as for now I might as well be dead.

And all of that gives me a thing to say, a thing which might look disconnected with anything written above.
Video games are not about completion. They are not about achievements. They are not about anything tangible.
Video games are about experience. They are all about player, how he or she lives a life.
My life is fast, which makes my games as fast. And I do not like it. That’s why I try to slow it down.
To feel again.

Volume at Zero. Day 9.

An it is a new day, and a fairly new bunch of albums.

aiko – Sakura no Ki no Shita
I’ve listened to this album one more time and, yes, it is pretty good. I’m not good with defining genres, but it is certainly not pop-music. It felt a lot like Natural High, which I happened to listen prior to any of aiko’s stuff.
Even this album contains some four-stars, I can’t imagine any of them being played alongside actual J-Pop music. Makes me think about how my collection should be organized in future… hm..

girugamesh – 13′s reborn
I was really anxious to listen to this album. I knew that this is something that I should like and I was afraid that it won’t actually happen. Gladly, the album turned out to be good. Only one time through so far, but more to come. There is really nothing else that I want to say about them at the moment.

And for tomorrow I plan on going through
day after tomorrow – complete Best (well, there are four CDs…)

Volume at Zero. Day 8.

It is not the easiest time in my life – while Giant Bombcast is an interesting thing to listen, when it gets over 4 hours it feels more like a chore. But anyway, with E3 coming to it’s conclusion, things should get in shape soon enough.

I don’t have much time to discover and re-discover any music, but there’s still something.

HammerFall – Infected
It is hard for me to write about this album. Mostly because of it is a shitty one, if not the shittiest of their albums. I really love their old stuff, it sounded the way Power Metal meant to sound – powerful. Now… ugh, I can’t describe it very well. It became more segmented and less emotional, I dunno. I endured it once and I can’t say for sure that I want to go through it ever again.

aiko – Sakura no Ki no Shita
Just mentioning that I superficially went through this album once and the sound embraced by my ear-drums wasn’t repelling. I’ll get close to that album in a short time.
aiko usually doesn’t work for me, but who knows. This albums is the first in ORICON Top 100 albums of all time (as far as I remember).

So, that’s it for now.

Volume at Zero. Day 7.

This week won’t be the one full of music impressions, that is for sure. The reason is ongoing E3, a video game event held in Los Angeles. Even if I do not attend to it, I cover a lot of audio material like podcasts and such. Therefore – not enough time to dedicate to music. Today there will be only one album

Kajiura Yuki – Fiction II
I was ignoring a couple of Muspy notifications for a while already. The first one was “HammerFall – Infected” which is interesting, but nothing that interesting. And another one was by someone, whose name was in kanji. And it was only this morning that I read after those kanji and into the title of the album, which was “Fiction II”.
- “Fiction II”… – I thought – That sounds somehow familiar. That can’t be… oh! Oh! Wait!
I’ve downloaded the album and upped it onto my music device in mere minutes.

This album is awesome. In comparison with the first “Fiction” variety in music is greater and the sound is somehow feels more advanced. There are a lot of 4 and 5 stars, yet “forest” surpasses them all – it is rare occurrence that a song touches my heart to that extent.

I will be adding this album to my collection, even if I don’t have much money to spare at the moment. Because after listening to it I can’t get rid of the feeling that my collection lacks essential stuff, which is Kajiura Yuki – Fiction II.

Volume at Zero. Day 6.

As of today I’ve yet again failed to listen to every single album in my list. I’ll get to the rest of them eventually.

Stereopony
I’ve completed their discography, but even if I have things to say, I’d like to have a break from them for a day or two to get my thoughts together. But overall they are nice and very YUI-like (that’s why I take to them in the first place).

Ketsumeishi – Ketsu no Police
Ketsumeishi is a Japanese hip-hop band. I have a confession to make – I don’t know Japanese very well. With that in mind, I still tried to listen to a group with seemingly lyrics-driven songs. In other words – I don’t understand what they are singing about and that is more likely to be the reason I’m not fond of their music.
There catchy bits here and there but overall I won’t be keeping this album. I also expect the rest of their albums to be just as much one-time listen as this one. Sad but true.

After a short break, I gave Perfume‘s best-of another listen and it was actually quite good experience. Music like this requires listener to be ready to perceive it.

At the moment I think about enhancing Volume at Zero posts and somehow establishing twitter integration. All just thoughts for now though.

Volume at Zero. Day 5.

As I’ve predicted, there wasn’t much time during the weekend to write anything. For today’s issue I’ve listened to one mini-album and one usual album.

Kamiki Aya – EVILÄLIVE
This mini-album is strong. I feel like I’ve been showering stars on it non-stop. “EVILÄLIVE” song is a bit generic, but well crafted and I gave it five stars without hesitation. Another one to receive maximum star count is Aria – some pretty awesome guitar work. Every other song with the exception of “Again” (3) got four stars.
Well, I like Kamiki Aya a lot regardless. I’ll talk in-depth about her some time later.

Rammstein – Mutter
By that point I hope that it is obvious that even if Asian music is a priority, I listen to a lot of other stuff. Yesterday I suddenly felt the urge to have some Rammstein running through my veins.
“Mutter” is a very good album. Well, not exactly. It is a regular studio album that just happens to be better than most of “best of” compilations from other performers. Hit-count is extremely hight – I haven’t passed any stars so far, but it seems that the first half of the album will be five per each song.
“Mutter” reminded me of “Humanity Hour I” album by The Scorpions – the quality of songs is very high and it only gets more intense as album goes on.

At the moment I am burning through Stereopony discography and I will most likely finish it by tomorrow. So, the albums to look forward to are:
Stereopony (complete breakdown of their discography so far)
Ketsumeishi – Ketsu no Police
girugamesh – 13′s reborn
aiko – Sakura no Ki no Shita

Over and out.

Volume at Zero. Day 4.

Not a single day without anything going wrong lately. But oh, well, can’t do much about it, can I?
Today’s fuck up of the day is TVXQ’s “MIROTIC” album that mystically won’t be played on my device. Strangely enough, iTunes plays it just fine.

So, Day 4 it is. Tomorrow is Saturday and I’m a little unclear of how my music re-research would progress during weekends.

And as of todays albums, here we go!

First of all, I’ve finished ikimono-gakari‘s “best of” which I started yesterday. I truly was an awesome thing, setting something so purely brilliant like “Nokori Kaze” nearly at the end.
I probably won’t keep the whole album. It is “BEST OF” after all, meaning it is a compilation of good songs. I’ll keep songs that are good for me and let the others go.
I am curious about those ikimono-gakari people now. I’m not sure whether to give one of their regular albums a listen. I can clearly see how Kiyoe’s vocals can do an awfully terrible job to my ears – and yet I am curious.
We’ll see, I guess.

Stereopony – OVER THE BORDER
I’m skipping this one. Stereopony are so down my alley, it is hard to judge. I plan to dedicate a day and listen to their discography, and than evaluating things in retrospect of each other.
But this album is so damn good T__T
Especially compared to

Janice – Do U Know
, which isn’t bad, but a Chinese Pop to the bone. I might be a little bias at the moment, so I won’t claim that this is my final opinion of this album, but it’s just too soft and too patternless whatsoever. There were a couple of songs I went with three stars (“Charming Eyes” and “Do You Know Where You’re going to”), but nothing else at the moment. Hmm… to give some benefit of the doubt I’ll say “Do You Know Where You’re going to” is four stars – somehow it works.
I’ll reevaluate this album eventually and maybe give another of her albums a listen.

Rajaton – Kevat
Rajaton is a Finnish a Capella ensemble. I can’t describe them much beyond the fact that they uncovered something new in my heart today. The first track of this album, “Kivinen Tie”, set the mood of the sky filled with dark clouds, right before heavy, yet somehow purifying, rain. Don’t ask me about that, I’m insane.
Their music makes me feel things I like to feel, and listening to a music without any musical instruments is very unusual. They are truly strange. And I like it. Looking forward for another album.
And as an album, “Kevat” have quite a few 4-stars,which I can see easily evaluated to 5 eventually.

As for the weekend, I’m not sure which music will make it, but I’ll try to honor MIROTIC at least.

Volume at Zero. Day 3.

On the third day I finally failed to listen to my list of albums. My mind was somewhere else the whole day so I often found myself zoned out while listening to a song. Obviously, I repeated some songs as much as four times because of that.

Kix-S – Body
A decent 90s J-Pop/Rock album. “Naked Lady” and “Daite… Dakishimete” both got 4 stars on first listen. Anyway, a solid album, reminds me of MANISH.

Janice – Do U Know
This one was the one which I failed to listen.

Bruce Willis – If It Don’t Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger
This is a bullshit. A solid, cheerful bullshit. And it is doing an awesome job at being just that for me.
I can’t think of Bruce Willis as of an jazz/blues singer, it way to much out of “Armageddon” and “Die Hard” canon that was imprinted in my mind at early childhood, that he is nothing more than a badass guy in the movies.
This album make me cheer up a little while I’m listened to it, and for that I am thankful. It is not serious even when it tries to be (with ballad songs and stuff). A nice way to relax.

ikimono-gakari – ikimonobakari ~Member’s Best Selection~
It is two-disk best-of compilation and so far I’ve listened to 25 out of 31 tracks. While it begins maybe not so much my thing, eventually things get pretty much interesting. I’ve actually passed a bunch of 4 and 5 stars around, as follows:
Seishun Line, KIRA KIRA TRAIN, Natsu Koi -2010 version-, Ima Hashiridaseba, Kimagure Romantic, Joyful, Kimi ga Iru, Kokoro no Hana wo Sakaseyou, Happy Smile Again – 4 stars
Hana wa Sakura Kimi wa Utsukushi, Blue Bird – 5 stars

Aside from “Blue Bird” song it is the first time I actually listen to ikimono-gakari and overall they are doing a lot of things the way that I want them to do. I’ll finish the album tomorrow, but I doubt it will suddenly become any worse.

–
I’ve also listened to Dream Theater – When Dream and Day Unites (remastered). I will keep this album to compare it with any of their album I’ll listen eventually, but so far there are only a few three-stars songs.

–
Tomorrow will bring us a brand new day, and on that day I plan covering
Dong Bang Shin Ki (TVXQ) – MIROTIC
Stereopony – OVER THE BORDER
Rajaton – Kevat
and also covering those albums I haven’t finished today.

Volume at Zero. Day 2.

At this point I’m already trying to introduce some sort of rating system for my iPod and for now it comes out like this:
5 stars – something outstanding and way out of ordinary. At this point (97 tracks) there’s none of those ratings yet.
4 stars – a great song.
3 stars – a nice song overall, but nothing special
2 stars – so-so song appropriate for certain occasions, or maybe a part of a playlist
1 star – for deletion.

Most of albums so far have only one listen-through and at that point it is way to rushed to pass any judgments. Yet, somehow, a few judgments were passed.

Evanescence – Fallen
Let me be frank – this album is not to make you enjoy your life. But if your life is in ruins, your heart is broken and everything and everyone you love(d) is forever gone – that’s your choice.
This thing is up-front depressing. The sound is gloomy and the lyrics is packed with lines to hit you where it hurts the most, provided that you’re vulnerable emotional state. And while all conditions are met – the album is a great thing to make you actually enjoy your pain.
And should we not consider any emotional involvement – the sound and variety of it is still quite nice and nearly every song is good by itself.
More than a half of this album is 4 stars for me, and under different conditions some of them might have been even 5. I guess I’m not that vulnerable anymore.

Perfume – 1st Complete Best
Perfume is a great band, yet their music isn’t really working for me as much as I would want it to. For me, Perfume is much more visual band than any of idol groups or whatever. Their choreography is precise and fits their music in a very nice way, somehow resembling an electricity (well, for me).
As for this album, even the sound isn’t what I’m usually looking for there are a few decent tracks. Yet my impressions is too premature to rate any of them.

Kitahara Aiko – Message
Yet another performer whose strong side is visual one. Kitahara Aiko is cuter that kittens. Her voice fits her looks nicely, but I’m not sure that it is enough to justify her singer career. Her voice works perfectly on a faster songs and ballads are usually no good. “Fuyu Urara” is a solid 4 stars for example. Not much to say about this album atm.
She really is more of a visual impression, I’d love some idol video of a photobook featuring her.

Anzen Chitai – Anzen Chitai I Remember to Remember
Yet another band straight from the 80s. I learned about them from a cover of their song Jirettai made by Goto Maki. This sound makes me think about a large city at night, with all those roads and streetlights, empty.
Nothing particular about the album for now, except that I have a feeling that it kinda fades out a little closer to the end.

That’s it for today. Picks for tomorrow:
Kix-S – Body
Janice – Do U Know
ikimono-gakari – ikimonobakari ~Member’s Best Selection~
Bruce Willis – If It Don’t Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger