マサ子さん - MONKEYS WAX

MONKEYS WAX is an album by beyond perfect nagomu signed マサ子さん. マサ子さん were a really weird, really cute, really spastic pop band that had a super cutesy little girl stage persona, and they all were just too impossibly cute for words to accurately describe. the music is completely silly and completely absorbing in its higher levels of complexity. the really long tracks here are perhaps completely out of character, but they sound so, so, so good. like the week i found this album it was pretty much all i listened to. it's that cute/good/wonderful/perfect/flawless.

in between the tracks there are these weird backwards hissing sounds that only last like a second or two. weird, but it really makes the whole thing feel like some sort of weird children's saturday morning cartoon show (not that that's how they do it in glorious nippon, but you know what i'm getting at). this is the soundtrack to my ideal childhood. when i finally finish my time machine (school is really getting in the way . . . ) i plan to only have this album (and their other albums, sure) on repeat the entire time i am reliving my precious early years. yep. for sure that will actually work. :3 WE CAN ALL HAVE 1990S WACKY J-POP INSPIRED DREAMS (even you, if you listen to this album now).

YATTAAAAAAAAA!!!


1. 10cmの鯨
2. 僕らのE・W
3. PINHOLE HEAVEN
4. -
5. message・song
6. クリスタル・パパ
7. -
8. DOT HEAVEN
9. -
10. 二年生
11. -
12. 猿のワックス


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Sex Android - PLANET VENUS

by request, here is PLANET VENUS by Sex Android. PLANET VENUS is just a really perfect goth/death-rock album. the riffs are all really catchy, the drumming is perfectly simplistic, and the vocals are seductive and delightfully sinister. i imagine a grinning robot man dressed in leather, beckoning to me from a graveyard.

every song is perfect. perhaps not as perfect as the previous SEXAROID CAPSULE SCHNEIDER single that i uploaded, but this is still one of my all time favorite goth albums.

grab this now.


1. REPLICAS ANDROID
2. PLANET VENUS
3. MIDNIGHT DANCER
4. SISTER GUY
5. MARIONET
6. NABIRIA


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Sex Android - SEXAROID CAPSULE SCHNEIDER

Sex Android (not to be confused with the angura kei band SEX-ANDROID) was the solo project of Phaidia's vocalist, Gilly. Phaidia were legends in the japanese goth-rock scene. as far as i'm concerned, however, this is much better than anything that Phaidia ever did. now, don't get me wrong; i love Phaidia. but this is just so . . . intense. the a-side of this single just roars with sexuality. Gilly croons the lyrics, groaning and panting the whole time. and that guitar riff makes me fucking melt. jesus fucking wept.

the b-side is also really delicious. it suggests longing and lust, but it's much less feral than the title track. really catchy stuff.

[as a side note, what exactly is a sexaroid? because i've seen it in multiple places (for example, Voiss has a song called "Sexaroid Insane", and most famously YAPOOS had a song called "Barbara Sexaroid"). i'm going to assume it's like a, well, "sex android". in the video for the YAPOOS song, Togawa kills some business men (or are they spies?), played by the other members of YAPOOS, and then there's a segment during the spoken word bit where the video uses english words to describe how Togawa (playing Barbara) is half robot, or something.]


1. SEXAROID CAPSULE SCHNEIDER
2. GLAMOROUS LADY


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ミシン - 走れ馬車馬

so, here's an excellent little post-punk album by ミシン. they were signed to nagomu, as far as i know, and only put out three releases (this, plus two little EPs). their sound kinda reminds me of The Cure's first album Boys Don't Cry, but much more interesting (probably due to the weird awkwardness; nagomu pretty much only signed bands who were kinda awkward, as i'm sure you all know by now). there's a building intensity on this entire album, like there's something laying right underneath that is about to explode. a primal scream, per say.

anyways, this is a really wonderful album. download this now.


1. 走れ馬車馬
2. パートさんの手紙
3. Jamaican Eskimo
4. 険しい等高線
5. ペーター牧場へ行く
6. 南極観測隊員


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楽しい音楽 - やっぱり

楽しい音楽 is a fairly obscure band that, as far as i know, only put out one album in 1983. it's very difficult to find info about this band, because their name translates to something like "fun music". i know there were two members, by the name of 吉川洋一郎 (supplying the instruments) and what appears to be the legendary folk/pop singer あがた森魚 (supplying the little boy vocals). whether this is true or not i'm not entirely sure; my source might be wrong.

either way, this album sounds a bit like Picky Picnic or some other nagomu related acts (like 人生, for example). really hyper, childlike strangeness. on one track the vocalist goes through the act of mimicking the sounds of animals (like cats and birds and a sheep, for example). the whole time the synths are very cute and colorful, giving the album a very dreamlike quality.

albums like this are what make me enjoy music. i hope you'll feel the same way.


1. にっぽん絵葉書模様
2. ピラニア・ボーイ
3. 道でばったり動物たち
4. まわるよ
5. やっぱり
6. お茶の間
7. プラネタリウム投影機
8. オール怪獣総進撃
9. いやいやニコニコ
10. スピークスペル
11. おわかれスイング


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MSBR / 井内賢吾 - 壱

by request, here is 壱. 壱 is a live collaboration between noise legend MSBR and folk oracle 井内賢吾, recorded on two nights in 1998, and in 1997. both artists are at their prime here. MSBR's synths and tape manipulations are hazy and swampy feeling. 井内賢吾's voice is as terrifying as ever. truly, he is a portal to jigoku. his guitars shake and quiver, like a plague victim coughing out its last breaths. when the oracle begins to howl, my heart palpitates, and i am filled with the deepest sense of dread, and of complete doom. MSBR's noisings are the shadows in this bunraku play, and 井内賢吾 is the lone priest, praying to the holy buddha, but receiving no comfort.

MSBR (aka 田野幸治) is dead. he lost his fight with cancer in 2005. i wouldn't be surprised in the slightest of 井内賢吾 is dead as well. as i have mentioned before, he has essentially disappeared from the world, leaving very little trace. it strikes me as oddly appropriate, considering the nature of his music. sheer bleak terror, shrieks of pain from the waiting grave.


1. Psychic Blue
2. live on 23-05-‘98
3. live on 24-01-’98
4. - (a japanese title. unfortunately i don't know what it is.)
5. live on 24-11-’97


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河合その子 - COLORS

as requested, here is another album by the lovely 河合その子. this album is perhaps not as perfect as Dancin' In The Light (which still remains one of my all time favorite pop albums), but it's certainly worth checking out. it features the splendid "雨のメモランダム", which is quite possibly my favorite song that she ever did (it was also the first song that i ever heard by her). it also features the incredible "カーテンの少年", which is easily one of her best vocal performance. the fluidity with which she moves from one note to the next on this track is absolutely stunning. she seems to float on waves of a tropical ocean (the bossa nova-esque guitars and percussion on this track are also really nice).

the production here is not quite as great as Dancin' In The Light's production (there are a few too many corny back-up vocals here), but it's still a top tier idol pop album, without a doubt.


1. Weekend Monument
2. ラヴェンダーが目印
3. Endless Theatre
4. さよならBack Stage Kiss
5. 雨のメモランダム
6. カーテンの少年
7. 指輪物語
8. Downtownの雨傘
9. 思いでのオムニバス


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ＭＯＴＨＥＲ ＧＯＯＳＥ - RED LIMIT

so, here's ＭＯＴＨＥＲ ＧＯＯＳＥ's album. i'm under the impression that this album is particularly rare. i only found this recently, too, so i can believe it.

this album is interesting. the sound they have going here kinda makes me think they were inspired by thrash metal. i mean, it's goth for sure, but it sounds like they were inspired by thrash. so, actually it kinda reminds me of early music from the visual kei scene (but only in technique and spirit). they do the really quick strumming on a couple tracks (like the first track), but the percussion on the entire album is unmistakably goth. very simplistic and yet chaotic. actually, this entire album is rather chaotic. i guess the fast drumming, fast guitar strumming, and the vocalist's really weird voice all cause this. it did take me a while to get used to his voice. it's very squeaky and nasally. kinda cartoonish sounding, actually. it gives the entire album this really strange feeling, like it's sarcastic and mean spirited (maybe i'm just imagining that, but that does seem to be the tones that are being expressed here).

anyways, i really enjoyed this and i'm sure you will, too. if you like both thrash (or hardcore, i guess) and goth then get this. sooner rather than later.


1. Too Dance
2. Red Star
3. In The Far East
4. Lulu
5. Channel 2
6. Biss
7. Xeno
8. Missing Space


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SYOKO - SOIL

SOIL is a perfect pop album from Syoko, the vocalist of G-Schmitt. this was her first solo album, and it was released the same year as G-Schmitt's brilliant sin, secret & desire. it was even recorded in the same studio as that album.

when first listening to this album, i kept getting reminded of the OST's for Tonari no Totoro and Tenkū no Shiro Rapyuta, as well as a few other early soundtracks by 久石譲. and that's because, as i later discovered, this album was produced, composed, and arranged by the mastermind behind so many of Studio Ghibli's films. yeah, i shit you not. the very delicate, raindrop synths on this album sound very much like some of the less childlike songs from Tonari no Totoro (which remains not only my favorite OST by 久石譲, but also my favorite film by Studio Ghibli).

so, this album is absolutely perfect to my ears. it features my favorite vocalist and my favorite contemporary composer. what's not to like? the songs are perfectly structured, and wonderfully elegant. Syoko has such passion in her voice. i am absolutely swept away by the grace she exhibits here on this pop meets post-punk masterpiece.

(ps. unfortunately the first track sounds a bit off because the vinyl was apparently very scratched, but it clears up a bit about a third of the way through the song, and luckily you can still hear exactly what's going on this song. what i'm saying is it is by no means ruined; it's still probably my second favorite track on the album, after the excellent "Sphinx In The Night". anyways, thanks to BlackiceLORD for this!)


1. Erewhon
2. Criminal Shuffle
3. Sphinx In The Night
4. Magie
5. Sunday Never Comes
6. Sunset


ENJOY