[Serenity]

Wagakki Band live streamed the second night of their annual New Year Party today, from Nippon Budokan. They had a socially distanced audience, who were asked not to cheer or sing, only clap. The first two songs were shown at full quality on YouTube (starting at 30 mins in).

[Serenity]

New Band-Maid song, Manners

[Mataglap]

The most exciting band I've discovered in the last while has been Bitch Falcon, from Dublin. I hear bits of Savages, Alice in Chains, Chvrches, Cocteau Twins in there. The entire album is great, but here's a recent video

[Serenity]

Another new Band-Maid vid, to go with the new album out today.

[QuickTidal]

Serenity, on 12 January 2021 - 03:36 PM, said:

New Band-Maid song, Manners

Never heard of them, but I like this track. Will check them out. Thanks!

[Malankazooie]

I discovered them through an english version of a Japanese music show (J-Melo) that airs on NHK World. I was impressed as hell.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/j-melo/nhkworld/

In that link, their video is the second one. Go to around the 15:00 mark to begin the Band-Maid interview and live performance.

[Serenity]

QuickTidal, on 20 January 2021 - 03:47 PM, said:

Serenity, on 12 January 2021 - 03:36 PM, said:

New Band-Maid song, Manners

Never heard of them, but I like this track. Will check them out. Thanks!

Cool! You can put the subtitles on to show the lyrics in English, if you want.

[Serenity]

Malankazooie, on 20 January 2021 - 04:16 PM, said:

I discovered them through an english version of a Japanese music show (J-Melo) that airs on NHK World. I was impressed as hell.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/j-melo/nhkworld/

In that link, their video is the second one. Go to around the 15:00 mark to begin the Band-Maid interview and live performance.

It's a damn shame the Budokan show they talk about in that interview has had to (understandably) be canceled. They're going to be live streaming a performance instead that day, though. The three they did last year were awesome.

[Malankazooie]

Serenity, on 20 January 2021 - 07:29 PM, said:

Malankazooie, on 20 January 2021 - 04:16 PM, said:

I discovered them through an english version of a Japanese music show (J-Melo) that airs on NHK World. I was impressed as hell.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/j-melo/nhkworld/

In that link, their video is the second one. Go to around the 15:00 mark to begin the Band-Maid interview and live performance.

It's a damn shame the Budokan show they talk about in that interview has had to (understandably) be canceled. They're going to be live streaming a performance instead that day, though. The three they did last year were awesome.

That's a bummer. The Budokan has quite a legendary history. Hopefully in the not in too distant future they perform there.

[Serenity]

[Serenity]

And another new Band-Maid video, this time for After Life.

[Tsundoku]

Chicane's classic "Offshore" ... done by an orchestra. Not bad at all.



... and there's more. I did not know this was a thing.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 27 January 2021 - 11:53 AM

[Tsundoku]

Of course you knew this would make an appearance

[Malankazooie]

[Gorefest]

RIP The Golden Earring. One of the band members was diagnosed with ALS, so they've decided to call it a day. No farewell tour. A sad an meek ending for undoubtedly the most successful Dutch rock band.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 05 February 2021 - 04:20 PM

[Serenity]

This week I've mostly been listening to Stereopony.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Bought this:



'The sound source for Off-World is a Vietnamese Đàn Bầu, an ancient monochord instrument, played in an un-conventional way: bowed with a violin bow, and then processed through an octave generator, distortion and reverb. The most striking feature of the Dan Bau is a bamboo handle controlling the tension of a long metal string, making this instrument particularly good at expressive pitch bends, which is the focus of Volume 1 of Off-World.'

https://bunkersample...ff-world-vol-1/

Thinking of buying (just recently became available in English):



'Xun is a wind instrument with deep vacant sound. It has a history of about seven thousand years. The
unearthed items can be widely found in many archaeological sites such as the Hemudu site,
the Zhaobaogou relics, and the Bangx) site of Yangshao relics. Xun usually has an egg- or pear-shaped
body made of pottery, with one blowing hole on top and multiple finger along one side. Xun is a
component of aulic and ritual bands in Ancient time. However, its use has been discontinued due to
the turmoil in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. In the 1980s, Xun playing was revived by
archaeologists and artists and nowadays, it is commonly used in historical topics with murky or falling
scenarios.'

https://www.threebod...ucts/tearofland

And/or their other wind instruments... hopefully they'll post an audio demo for Phoenix Growl (bass suona, which comes with Phoenix Scream).

I'm upgrading my audio interface to the new Audient iD4 MKII when it becomes available, but since it relies on USB-C power my laptop might have trouble providing adequate phantom power for my condenser microphones, so I jumped on a good deal on a used hardware tube valve microphone preamp this morning.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 06 February 2021 - 09:12 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Ron Silliman
·
There was something to laugh at on SNL last night & it was Phoebe Bridgers' tribute to her musical grandparents at the end of this song'

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 07 February 2021 - 06:30 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'The Weeknd Gave Us the Chaotic COVID Super Bowl Halftime Show of Our Nightmares

[...] Some might still be reeling from flashes of Hannibal Lecter, the red-dressed Tethereds from Us, or the New Directions kids doing spooky drag for that "Thriller/Heads Will Roll" mash-up from Glee—all of which were apparently evoked during The Weeknd's act, depending who on Twitter you follow.

The grand, explosive, people-packed pop-star extravaganza we've come to expect is untenable in a pandemic[...] But then a flash mob of short-circuiting dancers in bandages stormed the field, and there were echoes of the scale we had missed after dynamo blowouts performed [...] in recent years.

Some might wonder how a song from the film version of Fifty Shades of Grey had made it to the Super Bowl Halftime Show. (I say it is about time.)

And most of all, some might wonder why we were doing any of this at all. (It can't be referenced enough: PANDEMIC!) But hey, at least the dancers were wearing masks, and those masks were covering their noses.

[...] The whole thing started with the singer in a Pepsi-themed neon lights diorama, posing in a sports car as his back-up ensemble began to sing. That ensemble was dressed as a choir made up of the ghosts of C-3PO and his family

[...] his sojourn into the trippy cube of gold lights and mirrors to perform "I Can't Feel My Face," during which he violently jerked the camera around himself. Disorientation was the point, which is certainly a different note for a show typically meant to rouse, connect, and engage.

[...] You could hear the collective "whaaaat is happening???" of a nation as extras with face bandages burst in and started crashing against each other, eventually parading their act out military-style to the field [...]

The Weeknd has used the performances, press, and public appearances for After Hours to act out a storyline, loosely a bad night in Las Vegas, that had him playing a character in a red jacket who gets beat up and then careens down a path that becomes increasingly surreal. Frequently, performances included a bandaged nose, but then his entire face would be wrapped, like someone who had just undergone plastic surgery. Recently, he appeared with the aforementioned "after-surgery" prosthetics.

Asked what all of it symbolized, he told Variety that, "The significance of the entire head bandages is reflecting on the absurd culture of Hollywood celebrity and people manipulating themselves for superficial reasons to please and be validated."

It's a fascinating take to have for the person who is headlining the biggest show in entertainment on capitalism's most fruitful night for an operation desperate to keep up appearances of normalcy during a deadly pandemic.

[...] whether the crowd live in Tampa Bay finally pulled their masks up over their faces so as to cover their agape mouths.

Maybe that's the whole, damning statement about our current national state of mind. What in the hell are we doing expecting the normal right now, when things are anything but? The Weeknd had us dancing through our own self-destruction.'

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 08 February 2021 - 03:59 PM

[Serenity]

My favourite guitarist, Saki (from Mary's Blood, Nemophila and Amahiru), has just released her first solo song to celebrate her 10th anniversary as a recording artist. It's an instrumental called 'Brightness'.