Archive for September, 2007
The Birthday Massacre’s “Walking With Strangers”
♫ 01.
While the members of the group the Birthday Massacre present a tough, take-no-prisoners appearance, their music is a lot more gentle than your eyes may suggest. Of course, your ears know better than to judge a CD by its cover (why are they all so purple and black and make me want to crawl in a corner and listen to the Cure?) and BM’s latest release Walking With Strangers is the perfect farewell to the bright days of summer and a pasty-white face welcome to autumn.
While sticking to the style of previous album art, their sound also has more a subtle evolution; in terms of style, it remains the tenderfooted blend of synth, rock, and alterna-goth with a hint of majestic ambience. All those keyboard synths in the opening track “Kill the Lights” is a great example of the typical track off any BM compilation, but while my first listen was rather unimpressed, continual listens of the CD is akin to unwrapping layers and layers of paper and finding that the core of the album doesn’t matter so much as the task of unraveling itself. Not only that, but unlike their last album, “Violet,” the album strives for an epic feel, each track ascending to the full heights of the chorus rather than bursting in unexpected. The rise and fall of the tracks is crafted with precision and clarity, rather than the haphazard feel of past albums inundated with choppy horror movie interludes: the uninvited guests to Birthday’s parties.
Chibi’s vocals are still thin and light which works alarming well in juxtaposition to the harsher sound of the music, a feat Amy Lee could only dream of achieving (Evanescence has never and will never do it for me). The songs pick up some with “Goodnight” and “Falling Down,” with harder, better, faster, stronger instrumentation (see how I just proved I’m hip and urban?), though standout track “Unfamiliar” abruptly interrupts for a short melancholic lament that only makes following tracks “Red Stars” and “Looking Glass” that much more abrasive (and yet, upbeat). After “Science,” and “Remember Me,” two more of the strongest examples of the subtle nuances of 80s synth pop and (dare I say?) italo disco, the album finishes with a somewhat lackluster slower paced song, “Movie,” probably the closest thing you’ll get to a ballad and the farthest you’ll get to a satisfying finish (the faster paced “Weekend” would fit more snugly).
Being one of the albums I looked forward to the most (and the only other one this month besides Ayumi’s new single), BM didn’t let any of my sensory taste buds down. From start to finish, it’s blessedly unpredictable yet comfortably conventional in a way most third albums can pull off but few can do with sincere passion; these are strangers I would definetly take candy from.
Add comment September 15, 2007
Ami Suzuki joins Yasutaka Nakata’s “FREE FREE”
Ami Suzuki joins Yasutaka Nakata / FREE FREE / August 22, 2007
Ami Suzuki joins Yasutaka Nakata from Shibuya-kei electronic/house duo capsule for FREE FREE, an almost hypnotically perfect electronic disco number with an equally delicious c/w track entitled “SUPER MUSIC MAKER.” What makes this single even more astounding is the impossibility of the math behind the music:
a) Ami Suzuki’s music = Crap
b) capsule’s music = Crap (until 2006’s FRUITS CLiPPER, anyway)
but
c) Ami Suzuki + capsule = Disturbingly Brilliant
In what universe these laws make sense I have no idea, but it’s obviously not of this Earth, as demonstrated by the quality of the collaboration. Is there even proper genre distinction for what constitutes “FREE FREE” and “SUPER MUSIC MAKER”? It’s arranged completely by computers and keyboards and even Suzuki’s vocals are tweaked beyond recognition. I almost have a hard time believing this was Suzuki (the PV where she dances around an invisible strip pole doesn’t help). Is this seriously the chick who released alone in my room in 1998? I’m further baffled that the same lonely, pouting face is thrusting her ass towards the audience on the cover of the limited edition (because when I think night clubs, I think ass), taking Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor to the next level (this logically being the V.I.P. room, where one can only imagine what hearing the song on E is like when hearing it sober is a trip in itself).
“FREE FREE” starts out with a twirling discoball melange of keyboards before the thumping beat comes in and layers upon layers of vocals are pasted amidst the frenzied electric melody. Like most dance anthems, it has little to say in substance (the main lyrics consist of “free / I wanna’ be free / set me free“, ahhhs, and heavy breathing). However, this matters little as the foundation of the song rests on the speed and consistency of heavy rhythms jumping in and out in intervals, leaving behind a dizzying set of ascends, descends and shocks of silence before breaking back into the nasal shrills of “freeeee.”
“SUPER MUSIC MAKER” begins as a slightly more toned-down number but refuses to take second place with regards to rank on the single. Instead of resting on the laurels of the title track’s number, it prompts “FREE FREE” to a dance-off (song-off?) and lets the listener (clubber?) be the player while it takes the controls and frantically pushes buttons in a frenzied, haphazard manner (that’s what I always did during Street Fighter anyway). But this analogy is superfluous. What matters it that “SUPER MUSIC MAKER” ends up being a sister to “FREE FREE” in a way most singles with c/w tracks can only dream of being. While “FREE FREE” is more catchy for its liberal use of English, “SUPER MUSIC MAKER” stays more traditional in its Japanese but adds chants of “Yeah!” and “Music!” to guide the listener. Anyway, who’s really listening to the lyrics with such a catchy dance track? That’s obviously not the point of the single. Analyzing its seriousness is like finding existentialism in a banana; wouldn’t it be more logical to just consume it? Consume this single. Revel in the brilliance that is the two short versions and the two extended versions of the song (a tad unnecessary, but surprisingly badass in a status extended mixes rarely achieve *cough*”Domino Dancing”*cough*).
The only thing that makes me hate this single is that fact that Suzuki has already collaborated with several artists in past singles and a full Suzuki/Nakata project seems unlikely. Or maybe the transience of the single is what makes it so beautiful.
♫ Official Site
♫ Buy FREE FREE
4 comments September 1, 2007
