Swingset Committee is:
David Dahlquist – Production/Vocals
Andrew Belinsky – Vocals
Tim Morrison – Drums

Let’s talk about the record first.  Where do I begin?!  This is how synth pop should be.  In Transit is six perfect pop songs in 25 minutes that will leave you wanting more.  The first thing that immediately grabbed me about this ep is their use of out of character (for synth pop) instrumentation.  Album opener Little Life is a song that I was convinced was going to be douchey in that talk about my feelings and we all vomit indie rawk kind of way.  Not the case.  What starts as guitars and strings becomes a straight forward dance pop anthem complete with 4 on the floor kicks and chirping arpeggiated synths.  Swingset Committee doesn’t seem to be afraid to make the most of their equipment; the constant changes in the instrumentation provide the perfect backdrop for singer Andrew Belinsky’s strong vocal performance.

The ep’s six tracks showcase the varying ways in which one can write strong pop songs that makes you dance.  Track two, Singing Along, is on the softer, sugary side (and I see some pics that indicate a video is in the works), which is then followed by Mind Reels, the coldest most robotic effort in the bunch.  Into the Shelter is a softer track made great by an arrangement that builds throughout the song in a way that reminds me of a better track by the Postal Service — constantly holding back and only reaching fever pitch in the final chorus.  Moving towards the end of the ep we come to Easy Way, the most straight forward dance song in the bunch and my personal favorite track.  Smell of Soil closes the record with an epic touch, combining drums that have a sped up march feel with spacey synths that make me think of Plus-Tech Squeeze Box’s (Star) but with less ADD (oh god why does it always come back to weird Japanese pop with me?!?!).

After listening to the record and being thoroughly impressed, I wondered how their live show would stack up.  I was not disappointed.  Despite being a small band and despite much of the instrumentation being tracked, their live energy was more than enough to engage absolutely everyone in the room.  And what a great cover of Psycho Killer.  I am so stoked on this band.  Too bad their next show is the same night as our next show.  Cuz I wanna go.

AAAAAAANyways.  Just listen.  Also you’re welcome.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(this is the edit of Little Life, so you don’t get the awesome “fooled you into thinking we were Coldplay loving jerks” intro but you do get the awesome song)

Also, me and 006 are gonna do remixes for them and then they will do remixes for us and you can all be grateful.

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Post tags: Andrew Belinsky, Cake Shop, David Dahlquist, Easy Way, In Transit, Into the Shelter, Little Life, Mind Reels, Singing Along, Smell of Soil, Swingset Committee, Tim Morrison

I was first introduced to his work through his 1998 masterpiece (and directorial debut) Perfect Blue.

The story explores one pop stars descent into a world where she can no longer tell what is real and what is the television drama in which she is a character.  I guess it’s a psychological thriller…?  I don’t won’t to spoil it by going further, but Kon’s brilliant use of cuts between scenes lends itself perfectly to the portrayal of a human psyche on the brink of losing it completely.  Here’s the trailer, though it really doesn’t do the movie justice.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The second video is for Kon’s 13 episode series, Paranoia Agent. Once again, the trailer doesn’t do it justice.  The story follows a wide cast of characters who are in some way affected by Lil’ Slugger, a rollerblading killer who beats his victims to death with a baseball bat.  While the premise may sound absurd, Kon uses it to explore the ideas surrounding the creation of a rumor, kind of paranoia rumors cause and the kinds of secrets rumors cover up.

Much like in Perfect Blue, as the story continues, the line between what is real and what is not become more and more blurry until it is impossible to tell what’s right, but by then it scarcely matters.  Here’s the super creepy and weird opening to the series.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I wanna wrap this up by talking about one more of his movies (possibly is last!), Paprika.  The story follows a group of scientists who have created a new device, the DC Mini, which allows them to enter other people’s dreams.  While it’s intended use is for therapeutic purposes, when the team discovers the device has gone missing, they worry that someone with malicious intent may enter dreams in order to cause harm to the dreamer.

Once again, Kon uses a futuristic plot to explore the line between fantasy and reality.  While this story lacks some of the darkness of his earlier work, it is visual more realized and an amazingly told story.  Here’s a scene from the movie to give you an idea of Kon’s strange brilliance.  I think that even in this short clip you can see it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here’s the trailer for Paprika.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I don’t really know what else to say.  Kon directed a couple other movies (Millenium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers) but I wanted to touch on a couple of my favorites and I’ll leave it to you to explore the rest of his work.  I hope you will go out and find this stuff cuz it really is amazing.  Kon was to have another movie, The Dream Machine, released in 2011 but since his death yesterday the current status of that project is unknown.  Regardless, Kon left us with a brilliant body of work for which he will always be remembered.  Also, I’m stoked that I saw Paprika multiple times in the theater. Jealous, suckers?

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Post tags: anime, Paprika, Paranoia Agent, Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon

It all began when Model-003 introduced me to the band a couple years ago.  He insisted that I pick up their full length, “Messages”, but when I did I was nonplussed.  Looking back, I can’t figure out why because the record is full of great hooks and excellent instrumentation that uses quirky synths and punky guitars–everything I love.  Here’s a little intro in the form of a video from their first record.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyway, fast forward to 2010 and To My Boy’s much anticipated (at least by me!) second record, “The Habitable Zone”.  Just like when I heard their “Messages”, I was not into the new one at first;  where the fuck did all the guitars go?!?!  But, because I loved the first record so so much I decided to give the new one another listen, and I’m glad I did, cuz this has quickly become one of my favorite records of the year.  While the tone of this album may not be as frantic as that of the first record, the album’s true strength lies in the fact that each song and each hook is far more carefully crafted than anything on “Messages”.  And with all those wonderfully awkward vocals placed on top of all those odd synths sounds, I’m left with that bouncy feeling I got when I heard “Electricity” for the first time.  This kind of pop really does it for me, and that’s just the kind of pop that’s all over the album.  Check it.

TRACK NINE//THE GENERATORS

Most of the album is just like “The Generators”– great, slightly futuristic pop songs.  Other standouts include album opener “Underneath the Pylons”, “When I Was a Cloud”, “Delightful Beams” and “Antarctica”.  Oddly enough, the closer, “We Are Your Ancestors” is the song that fits most closely to the style of their previous record (it’s one of the few places on the record that prominently features guitars), but perhaps with a bit more polish to their sense of melody.  Other than that, the album does slow down a bit on tracks like “Us + the Wind”, “Looking for a New Way” and “Hello Horizon”, and while I might not dj those tracks, I find that they really fit very nicely into the album, making “The Habitable Zone” a coherent and engaging listen from start to finish.  Here’s a video from one of their slower numbers so you can experience their more mature sound or something.  I would also like you to listen for that “Take My Breath Away” bass line.  radness!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Okay so….you love pop.  You love keyboards…you love vocals that are strong and interesting and just a bit pitchy.  If you need more OMD or Speak & Spell era Depeche Mode in your life (AND I KNOW YOU DO), you need this record.  And that’s that.

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Post tags: Antarctica, Delightful Beams, Depeche Mode, Hello Horizon, Looking for a New Way, Messages, OMD, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Speak & Spell, The Grid, The Habitable Zone, To My Boy, Underneath the Pylons, Us + the Wind, When I Was a Cloud

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Post tags: Cake Shop, human 2.0, LAST YEAR'S MODEL, remix

The game itself is pretty straight ahead.  It is a top down adventure game in the style of Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana, or even Diablo.  Though the style is far more 16 bit throwback then it is modern adventure.  And that is why Zenonia excels.  If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it and Zenonia does a great job using a tried and true formula.  Each of the 4 character choices have different skills, active and passive, and a wide array of weapons and armor to equip.  While using new equipment does not change or basic attack and defense skills, each piece of equipment does change the appearance of your character.  While this doesn’t have a huge effect on the game, it does add to the fun of finding new stuff.

The game play is straight ahead.  Basically you embark on a mission to save the world.  The story is uninspired but you can skip through most dialogue.  Mission after mission presents nothing new, just a series of fetch quests and enemy slaying requirements, but when the fun of the game is building up your character, finding new equipment and using new skills, you don’t really need variety.  In fact, I like that they didn’t too much to mix it up cuz I was totes content just grinding.

Which is why I didn’t really care when after you beat the game the first time through you immediately are sent back in time to start the whole thing over on the level you are at and face harder enemies.  Total play time, about 20 hours.  Not bad for a hack and slash for iphone.

The game is, however, not without it’s weak points.  First off, the game is glitchy.  Random things will cause the status screen to close unprompted.  This is not a deal breaker, but I’m surprised that this has yet to be fixed in an update.  The equipment customization/building feature leaves much to be desired.  I found it hard to even find the items I needed to make the equipment I wanted to, and often, by the time I could construct an item, better versions of it were already available at the shop.  So by halfway through the game I gave up trying as my weak little mage could only carry so much anyway and just sold off all the ingredients I found and bought better equipment.  Which leads me to my other beef…there really should be a place to store items that you don’t want on you immediately but may want in the future.  This seems so obvious especially since low strength characters can carry significantly less the high strength characters and I felt that I was missing out on a fun piece of the game.

All of those items are nitpicky gripes though, and did not really keep me from enjoying the game.  At this point I have played it through with 1 character and am working on 2 more.  It’s that fun.  So buy it now at the app store!!

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Post tags: iphone, ipod touch, the lost memories, zenonia 2

Radtown massacre!  Check out those sweet glasses.  FLOPPY is an electronic rock duo that formed in Japan in 2004 consisting of Sharaku Kobayashi (vox, guitar) and Hiromu Toda (synthesizer).  They released their first album in 2005, Protoscience is their fourth (almost, cuz it’s only seven tracks and one remix) full length record.  I would call this music “Post Polysics”, but Sharaku’s other band, Metronome, has been around since the late 90’s, making them contemporaries of my favorite hyper rock band, though Metronome’s style is a bit more visual-kei.  FLOPPY’s music has a lot to do with Polysics and other “Tokyo New Wave of New Wave” bands (Hi-Posi definitely!).  Their music flies by at breakneck speeds and each song is filled with as many different sounds, textures and rhythms as can possibly fit, but what sets FLOPPY apart is their commitment to a more austere feel that is less pogo punk Devo and more cyberpunk anime while still managing not to take itself too seriously (see above intro video).

What I really like about FLOPPY is, much like Brit electo punk rap rockers Hadouken!, they combine aspects of genres of music that should be awkward and awful in a way that is awkward and amazing. Take Protoscience album opener, Reimei.  It starts fairly reserved for a FLOPPY track, merely picopop break beats and a typical FLOPPY vocoder heavy vocal line.  Slowly adding club style kick drum and loud snare that is all cheesy rave, it then opens up into a chorus that is influenced in style and sound by late 90’s alt metal or something similarly awful…it almost sounds like early 2000’s radio rock?  I don’t know, I have trouble describing it because it ends up sounding so fucking rad.  The melody is impeccable and while the heavily pitch corrected vocals were off-putting at first, I did grow to like them and accept that they are definitely an important part of the FLOPPY post-apocalyptic club punk aesthetic.  Have a listen.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The album continues from there,  each track messing with a different genre but filtered through FLOPPY’s hyper yet cold take on maximalist post chip tunes electro pop.  Live horn samples that sound like a game show or a tropics vacation commercial (Harukaze), bossa nova inspired bass lines (Metairo Toiki), surf rock (Surftronica), and plenty of really cringeworthy rave (Papopi and Tetsugakudo Shinjyu) keep things interesting throughout the albums seven tracks before ending with an eight bit outro.  Tacked on to the end of the album is a remix of Metairo Toiki, which is the only place on the record where vocal effects, pitch correcting a vocoding have been removed.  Not what you would expect from a remix, but the mix is very inventive and is a great dub take on one of Protoscience’s most manic tracks.

4 // METAIRO TOIKI (album version)

As usual, I think you should support awesome music, so go buy this music now or die!!  Sadly, I have been having a lot of trouble finding any videos or songs from Protoscience to share with you, so to wrap this up, here are a couple of vids/songs from FLOPPY’s previous releases.  I really feel that FLOPPY gets better and better with each release, with Protoscience being their strongest record by far.  So check it out first then go for the back catalogue, which is still pretty bodacious.  001 out.

EVERYTHING // DEUS EX MACHINA

Click here to view the embedded video.

DEUS EX MACHINA // DEUS EX MACHINE

Click here to view the embedded video.

SENTIMENTAL SHOUNEN // SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Post tags: cyberpunk, ELECTRO, Electropop, FLOPPY, Hiromu Toda, j-pop, Japanfiles, Metronome, NEW WAVE, picopop, Protoscience, Sharaku Kobayashi, Tokyo New Wave of New Wave, visual kei

I first came across Hondalady while searching through Japanfiles’ electronic music selection.  I downloaded they 2009 album, Cassettable, based on the kitchy strength of the title track, which was created using samples from the original Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest in Japan) on NES (Famicom).  While the song was cute, the rest of the album didn’t really grab me and I haven’t listened to them much since.  However, I listened to some samples of their newest album, Sneaker Mon Amour, and decided to give it a shot.  And I’m glad I did.  They melodies here are much stronger than their previous effort, and the production shows a lot of variety.

Forming in 1996, Hondalady is a two person Japanese pop act consisting of Maru (vox, programming) and Die (TB-303, turntables).  After releasing a slew of ep’s and singles, they released their first full length album, PRINCE, in 2001.  Sneaker Mon Amour, released 3/2010, is their 9th studio album.

The sound of Sneaker Mon Amour is a mish mash of electronic dance music styles with a strong vocally driven pop aesthetic on top.  Album opener, “Hallelujah”, has a very sunny 90’s pop feel (think Bis’ Action and Drama).  This is followed up by “HANA TSUKI YUKI HOSHI SORA”, a slightly dreamy pop number full of chiptunes (or at least chiptunes inspired) arpeggiated synths.  “Escape (from KIX)” moves back into 90’s territory, its full of breakbeats that would make bands like Deee-Lite or Happy End of the World era Pizzicato Five jealous.  Track four, “B. A. D. (Big Adventure of Die)”, is a very party heavy rave song, the same kind of thing that Hadouken used to create their brand of rave/rock hybrid. Following it up is “Forest Zunta”, which also has a rave feel but is much smoother with more of a house music vibe and is almost entirely instrumental.  “NAMAKEMUSHI” starts off as a dub track, but quickly moves into a club music tinged pop chorus.  “Freestyler” is the single off the album, it’s a straight ahead pop track with a great synth hook, punky guitars and a slightly industrial beat.  The album closes with “Escape (from CDG)”, a wind down track that reminds me a lot of late 90’s Japanese pop cafe music such as Cubismo Grafico.

The vocals throughout this album did take a bit of getting used to for me.  Generally, I don’t like heavily vocoded and pitch corrected vocals, but I felt that Hondalady used the vocoding to varying degrees and each song, and it was ultimately an aesthetic choice they made that did not completely eliminate all humanity from the vox.  There is none of that waaaay too smooth radio R & B vocal here.  So don’t get too worried, but still, be ready…i guess…argh…trapped in a lost thought hole.

Here’s a video for the single, “Freestyler”.  I don’t love this video.  It’s aesthetically awkward (unusual for a band I like…) and the broad that shows up half way through the song is just wierd.  Still, I LOVE this song.  I would have reviewed this album a bit sooner but I couldn’t stop listening to this track over and over and over.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I like that this album is short, it’s 8 tracks run about 35 minutes., so I wouldn’t have time to get tired of them if I tried.  Also, due to the brevity of the album, each song’s distinct feel sticks out very clearly, and I would be hard pressed to determine that any of these tracks are merely album filler.  So yeah, go check it out.  Hope you like it!!

© MODEL-001 for LAST YEAR'S MODEL, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg!
Post tags: B.A.D. (Big Adventure of Die), Cassettable, Dragon Quest, Dragon Warrior, Escape (from CDG), Escape (from KIX), Forest Zunta, Freestyler, Hallelujah, HANA TSUKI YUKI HOSHI SORA, Hondalady, NAMAKEMUSHI, Sneaker Mon Amour

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Post tags:

Hey guys!!  I dunno how I missed this cuz I think it’s been around for a minute, but I wanted to share with you another fun band.  Taking their influences from the likes of Parklife era Blur and Pulp, Manchester’s Performance make some catchy, snarky pop music!  I have blogged about 2 of Performances members previously — their electro pop project, Kiss in Cities, is one of my favorite new bands.

While Kiss in Cities and Performance share electronic pop elements and the ability to craft great melodies, Performance is a more somber affair.  The tone is darker (maybe a bit more sneering) but more epic (arena rock!!!) without the dayglo club feel.  Performance has already released a passable album, but if their newer singles, Reptile and Living, are any indication, the band is only now hitting it’s stride.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Post tags: (We Are) Performance, Kiss in Cities, Performance, Reptile, The Living

breathing fire made of hearts?

San Francisco based artist, Junko Mizuno resides in a magical world populated by curvy women, odd circular men, cute fluffy creatures and lots of sex and drugs.  Coupling the cute with the obscene is nothing new, but Mizuno has a way of combining charming and grotesque imagery that is all her own.

My first exposure to Mizuno’s unique brand of story telling happened when I found Pure Trance at a comic book story in North Carolina while I was on tour.  I picked it up for my girlfriend at the time, but ended up reading it and had to snag my own copy.  The story she told was so dark and so full superficial and evil characters that I found it impossible not to love.  And of course, Mizuno’s art is nothing short of perfect.

But rather than go on about Pure Trance (which I could do for days–it’s rad!) I wanna talk about her more recent graphic novel, Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu.  Previous Mizuno graphic novels have all been based on other sources: she did a series of fairy tale retellings published by viz, and Pure Trance is somehow based on a trance music compilation of the same name.  LFGP is based on nothing but the twisted inner workings of Mizuno’s mind, and the result her most interesting and cohesive story to date.

Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu Vol. 1

The basic plot is as follows:  Pelu is a little ball of fluff that resides on a planet populated by naked babes and an intergalacticly traveled space hippo.  Pelu wonders why is is so different from all his sisters.  When he learns about reproduction in school, Pelu realized that he is an unfinished part of the planet’s inhabitants reproductive process.  Shocked and dismayed by the fact that he is merely a piece of someone’s guts, Pelu obtains a magic mirror locket from the space hippo and travels to earth in search of love.  Weirded out yet?  Yeah, it’s definitely odd, but that’s just the beginning.

In this, the first volume of LFGP, our hero finds love in all the wrong places–each episode Pelu finds a new rad Mizuno girl to be with but each more twisted then the last.  First, a pregnant enka singer who’s boyfriend likes to be burned (literally); second, the ignored daughter of a romance novelist who takes out her frustrations about her drug addled boyfriend by beating up Pelu;  Third, a pair of deep sea diving twins driven apart by a lecherous boyfriend when one of them becomes pregnant; And finally, a geeky girl and a spoiled rich brat who inexplicably swap bodies after overdosing on drugs together.  With each meeting, Pelu manages to resolve a conflict for the girl he loves but then is forced to move on, a little heartbroken but still hopeful that he will meet his dream girl next time (I hope it takes him awhile, cuz I can’t wait for volume 2!!).  Further accenting the deviance of the narrative is the fact that the main character, Pelu, is almost completely oblivious to the grotesque nature of the situations around him; he tells the stories about love, death, sex and drugs with the narrative voice of an after school special, complete with a cute sexless body to match.

The cuteness of the art is, without a doubt, the most important part, because as funny as these stories are, they would be nothing with about Mizuno’s beautiful art.  The lines are clean and simple, often looking like a hybrid of a Disney cartoon and manga, but always with a hyper sexual and/or violent undertone.  It is this twisted take on kawaii that gives these odd stories their life–nobody draws a picture quite like Junko Mizuno.  So go out and pick up a copy of Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu Vol. 1.  (I recommend Bergen St. Comics if you are in my neck of Brooklyn).  Here are a few more radical Mizuno pictures–

When Space Hippo Attacks

the hospital director is addicted to drugs (Pure Trance)

The Skating Rink Murderer

Sings: “He’s not a cat, and he’s not a dog.  He’s an alien, and his name is Pelu.”

© MODEL-001 for LAST YEAR'S MODEL, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg!
Post tags: comics, graphic novel, Junko Mizuno, last gasp, Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu, manga, Pure Trance