Jacks - Vacant World (1968)

Jacks played depressi-psych years before it was cool. Vacant World is their first album. The songs are all folky and poppy with depressive/psych undercurrents there to keep the listener on edge and feeling bad over the course of the album. It never gives the listener a reason to be on edge because it doesn't explode at any point, and its psychedelia is more of an outcome in the listener than an explicit stylistic decision. Although its undercurrents remain undercurrents, Vacant World will depress you and it will make you dizzy, entirely because of these undercurrents. Undercurrents.

here

Onna - Onna (2009)

Compilation of cartoonist Keizo Miyanishi's psych project- Onna. A few tracks are lo-fi psych mixed with new wave as weirdo drum machines and bass keep the songs moving or just repeating and moans and guitars play around over the top. Like if LSD March were inspired by Suicide, but I don't think of Onna quite that highly. I get the feeling most people seek this out to hear a young Michio Kurihara on the live tracks that come after the aforementioned DIY bedroom psych ones. There's four of those, and they're pretty good

B-

buy
spotify

Birushanah - Akai Yami (2007)

aka 毘盧釈那 - 赤い闇 (2007)

1. Jyodo 2:13

2. Akai Yami 20:27

3. Kairai 17:39

Traditional Japanese folk instruments/instrumentals PLUS heavyheavy doom? Sounds like a great idea! But they're a band, not just an idea! Are you calling them a gimmick?! Hold up, no! I like this release!

B-

There you go!

buy

Rebecca - Poison (1987)

1. Poison Mind

2. Moon

3. 真夏の雨

4. Tension Living With Muscle

5. Deep Sleep

6. Killing Me With Your Voice

7. Nervous But Glamorous

8. Cherry Shuffle

9. Trouble of Love

10. Olive

OPEN YOUR HEART

B

192

Boris - Amplifier Worship (1998)

1. Huge 9:16

2. Ganbou-Ki 15:46

3. Hama 7:32

4. Kuruimizu 14:29

5. Vomitself 16:56

Seeing Boris live a couple of weeks ago reminded me that every music blog needs Amplifier Worship on it, even if everyone probably has it downloaded any way

Their best album- the perfect bridge between Lysol-y dirty heaviness and Sunn O)))/Earth like minimalism

Ridiculous heavy shit

A

v0

Ryu Umemoto

Here's a last minute addition for day 5 of Weaboo Week. Ryu Umemoto was a video game composer who worked primarily with FM synthesis and scored mostly shoot 'em ups and eroge (pornographic visual novels). He passed away earlier this year at the tragically young age of 37.

Ryu Umemoto, Ryu Takami - Eclipse "The Album" - Ryu Umemoto Rare Tracks Vol.1 (2007)

Unlike subsequent entries in the Rare Tracks collection, this album offers CD quality audio rather than music created under strict hardware limitations. This definitely results in a greater variety of styles, but I find myself more drawn to Umemoto's pure FM music. Luckily for me, this album features a bonus disc comprised entirely of FM arrangements.

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Ryu Umemoto - Desire "The Origin" - Ryu Umemoto Rare Tracks Vol.2 (2008)

This is probably my favourite Rare Tracks album. I consider it a masterwork of FM synthesis with several amazing tracks. Ishtal and Reflector are two such tracks, and the album even features subtly different renditions of these themes played on alternative sound chips.

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Ryu Umemoto, Ryu Takami - Xenon "The Origin" - Ryu Umemoto Rare Tracks Vol.3 (2008)

Xenon "The Origin" takes the multiple renditions theme of the previous volume even further by offering the complete soundtrack as recorded on both the YM2203 (OPN) and YM3438 (OPN2C) sound chips. Some of these tracks have an intriguing lo-fi techno sound that's not the sort of thing I expect to encounter on a video game soundtrack.

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Ryu Umemoto, Ryu Takami - EVE burst error "The Perfect" - Ryu Umemoto Rare Tracks Vol.4 (2009)

This marks the end of the Rare Tracks series, with the exception of a special volume only attainable by purchasing the first three together. I considered getting this shortly after learning of Umemoto's passing, but the cost of about $100 was just too much for me. It appears to be out of stock currently... for now you'll have to settle for Vol.4 which contains about 2 hours of sweet FM tunes.

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Ryu Umemoto - Konoyo no Hate de Koi wo Utau Shoujo: YU-NO (YM2608 rip)

This is probably Umemoto's most famous soundtrack and spans an impressive 5 hours. There's a little debate as to whether Ryu Takami, Umemoto's close collaborator, also worked on this, so don't deem my attribution of this solely to Umemoto definitive. As far as I know, official recordings of the soundtrack in its original FM format were never released (in spite of its popularity) so provided here is an excellent rip by Knurek in direct link form. Hopefully this won't crash anyone's server...

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(Source)

Ryu Umemoto - Akai Katana Original Soundtrack (2010)

Another CD quality audio soundtrack, with some FM thrown in for good measure (it's what Umemoto does best, after all). Tracks 15 and up are voice samples from the game. I don't recommend listening to them, but decided not to exclude them for completion's sake.

Download V0 (MF)

Ryu Umemoto - NIN2-JUMP Sound Track / Akai Katana FM Sound Collection (2011)

The first half of this album covers NIN2-JUMP, which I believe was Umemoto's final solo soundtrack. It's a neat mix of FM with more modern samples and sounds. The second half of the album remixes the Akai Katana soundtrack in a similar FM fusion style.

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Download FLAC (4S): Part 1 Part 2

Studio Ghibli Arrangements

Day 3 of Weaboo Week and I apologise in advance for utterly failing as a weaboo in this instance. Although I've seen several Studio Ghibli films, I haven't listened to the soundtracks in isolation and the only piece of Ghibli music I especially remember is the opening to My Neighbour Totoro. Nonetheless, there was some interest in Studio Ghibli music, so I've decided to irresponsibly post a bunch of arrangement albums I've barely listened to. Note: most of these didn't survive the great Megaupload purge of 2012 and have been removed.

Various Artists - Ghibli meets Bossa Nova (2009)

This was an impulse buy based solely on the cute cover. To this day, my regrets are minimal.

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Lisa Nakazono - Chopin de Ghibli (2009)

These piano arrangements do a pretty stellar job of emulating Chopin, so if that's what you're looking for I doubt you'll be disappointed.

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Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Studio Ghibli Symphonic Collection (2005)

A collection of straight orchestral covers.

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Li Xiang Lan (李香蘭)- Selection

First,an introduction from the new poster - me : Hi !!!! ^o^
Second, here we have an amazing artist, the one that is really a gem , Li xiang lan, or also know as Yoshiko Yamaguchi, who's been the leading lady of chinese cinema in the 40s and was one of the Seven great singing stars. An individual with an amazing life, and ofcourse, amazing music had a very exciting but still troubled life: after the war, the Chinese authorities acccused of treason and collaboration with the Japanese,but luckily was free of charges,so she moved to Japan and had a carreer there and after some time in the US and Hong Kong too until she retireed in 1958 from acting.
In this great selection of 22 songs, you can really feel the power of her voice and the beauty of the accompaning music whether it is chinese traditional, japanese traditional, or in most of them, jazzy/swingy which was in that time quite popular. So, I'm sure most of you'll like it :)
p.s. I hope that my English doesn't suck so much :)
see you!
Deawn

more info on her: Wiki

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