Random Thoughts: The Return

flowersofnight

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The real question here is, why do either of you know this?
Just looked it up after seeing the announcement on Mana's Twitter XD

New arrival here that's not worth its own thread: picked up a mini-comi with a picture of Atsushi Fukuyama (ex-Pride of mind)'s band "Recall", which wasn't previously known to exist outside of Japanese copy-paste rumors. (I feel like the phrase "Chinese whispers" is inapt here ::meev::)

recall.png


Can't find any information about this "Katsuhiro Oda" character. On FROZEN, all I could find was a review from ::cam:: saying "I hate synthesizer bands" ::meev::

The magazine is カネコヂル (kanekodiru) #1 from 9/2000. There's another copy on Mercari here:
https://item.mercari.com/jp/m79481915766
I got a lot with a few issues, but none of the others had anything salient in them.

If anyone had known, Puresound actually had a tape by Recall at one point:
https://puresound.co.jp/user_data/s...sd=99&mt=1&perPage=20&sk=1&zk=1&kwdstr=&pd4=4

But now it's gone. ::hora::
 

heutre

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Pretty general question but what do ya'll think is the future of the underground music acts we've been scouring for years now, on this website. Do you think they have some sort of legacy remaining or that their legacy mostly being kept alive by us ? I sometimes wonder how many more artists I've never heard about exist, that have been on the avant-garde of their own respective genre, but have been mostly forgotten. I sometimes wonder if the items we collect will one increase in value for some reason or another, or if it's really of value only to us and to some other remote fans.
 
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flowersofnight

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Pretty general question but what do ya'll think is the future of the underground music acts we've been scouring for years now, on this website. Do you think they have some sort of legacy remaining or that their legacy mostly being kept alive by us ?
I don't know that they have a "legacy" in that other musicians are ever going to be influenced by them, but at least people are still listening to the music and interested newcomers can learn about it. I consider that an improvement over how things were years ago where nobody knew anything about anything. The knowledge is a lot less deeply buried than it used to be.
 

Hampo

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The whole influence thing is interesting. I was a huge fan of Rozz Williams and he genuinely had a pretty big cult following and he was considered a "pioneer" in his own genre.
Yet I don't think I know ANY band that considers any of his projects to be an influence, even if they like his music.

I think it's mostly just crazy fans who claim that someone was more important in their scene than they actually were.
 

sanctum

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Yet I don't think I know ANY band that considers any of his projects to be an influence, even if they like his music.
He was a pretty big influence on Celtic Frost's 'Into the Pandemonium' album, so much so that Tom G. Warrior dropped his signature style to imitate him on many tracks.
 

Hampo

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That is fascinating information. Might actually have to check that album out now.
 

Hampo

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Oh my god, that Mana tweet! I know that Közi covered Christian Death so he knew the band, but even Mana as well! This is cool. They opened some MM concerts with Miranda Sex Garden music and they dig Christian Death.
I am happy now that one of my all time favourite bands validated my taste in music :D

And yeah, I can definitely hear some Rozz in that second Celtic Frost track. It especially reminded me of the more "sedated" Rozz vocals he used in his early live concerts.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that the younger "whinier" Rozz is the same man who sang with such a charismatic voice towards the end of his life.
I don't know any other artist/band that has such a good track record when it comes to Bowie covers than Rozz and his various projects. Especially his take on "Time" rivals the original;
 

sanctum

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Mana as well!
From what I gather it was a present from the manager of Orkus magazine, but it is possible that Mana already knew about the band. 'Perish' always had a jangly deathrock vibe to it for me.

I don't listen to any American music so the only Christian Death's album I have heard is Only Theatre of Pain, so I'm not familiar with any of his music outside of that one album.
 

Hampo

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Well, if you ever need any recommendations, I'm your man.
This is honestly nothing to be proud of, but I have all the records Rozz put out that you can find. So not even close to a 100% collection.
You see, the sad thing about being a Rozz Williams fan is to know that you will never get all of his albums, as the dude had probably 7 or more different projects and his rarest stuff is so rare that you can't even find it online. The collectors are also stingy as hell. They just sit on the casette tapes and never release them anywhere. They're such drama people too, always complaining when somebody uploads a rare Rozz live footage on youtube.
 

heutre

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Well, if you ever need any recommendations, I'm your man.
This is honestly nothing to be proud of, but I have all the records Rozz put out that you can find. So not even close to a 100% collection.
I know that Kai from Art Marju Duchain was a fan of them, and I've heard from a couple of sources online that they sound a bit similar. Are there any songs from their repertoire that you'd recommend to me that sound somewhat similar ? (I'm looking for spooky atmospheric yet rythmic sort of stuff ahah)
 

Hampo

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No idea what that band sounds like. Spooky yet rhytmic, hm...

When it comes to Rozz Williams era Christian Death, there's only 3 albums actually; "Only Theatre of Pain", "Catastrophe Ballet" and "Ashes", so it's not that difficult to find what you like. Though, there's also his Christian Death comeback records, which are ok too.
Only Theatre of Pain might be too rough for some people, as it's a very bleak punk-esque album and the sound quality is what it is. However, it is the one that hardcore fans play the most, I think. Catastrophe Ballet is the easiest one to get into, a new wave gothic rock sound and Rozz actually "sings" instead of moaning. The final album has the widest variety of genres and is in my opinion better than the second one.

This one is a pretty rhytmic track, I guess. It's from Ashes.
(now that I listen to it, it does remind of some vk song, but I'm not sure which one)

Spiritual Cramp from Only Theatre of Pain has that punk quality to it that fans dig a lot

And here's some of the more poppish CD from Catastrophe Ballet

Their most famous track is Romeo's Distress, which is genuinely really amazing, but it's not my personal favourite. Figurative Theatre, Sleepwalk, Deathwish, Ashes, When I was bed, The blue hour... All great tracks. The last one was especially part of my day to day soundtrack as a teenager :D

And then there's also Shadow Project, which at times is even better than Christian Death.


Talking about this stuff made me go back and listen to Christian Death/ Shadow Project a lot. I have to say, I don't think either band have much in common with VK music, at least that I know of. The only common thing I was able to find is that a lot of VK bands were more or less punk bands and that they would sometimes use "tribal" drumming like Christian Death did in some songs, but that doesn't really mean they sound similiar at all. Honestly, most VK bands I know sound nothing like the western bands I know. There's something very "Japanese" about VK music, the melodies and everything. I'd like to say the classical baroque parts some of them used to sound more gothic is the most western thing about VK, but even those elements are probably lifted from Castlevania games, lmao.
The biggest western gothic influence on visual kei was probably the horror aesthetic, as many of the 90's VK bands spent a lot of record time for spooky bits with spoken word vocals and such.
 

sanctum

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I'd like to say the classical baroque parts some of them used to sound more gothic is the most western thing about VK, but even those elements are probably lifted from Castlevania games, lmao.
From what I can remember that didn't really come into the series until Yamane joined development for Vampire Killer/Castlevania: Bloodlines, which was released in 1994, I was going to suggest that Interview with the Vampire and its soundtrack and aesthetic would have been a bigger influence, but that also was released in 1994 (and probably later in Japan).

I think we're all approaching this from the wrong perspective though, rather than thinking about the western media we are familiar with, we have to consider what western media the Japanese were familiar with at the time, how they became aware of it (in the pre-internet days) and how many steps from the original material it was. Consider if someone discovered Dracula through Castlevania, it might seem to us that they were inspired by Bram Stoker's novel, though they might have no idea of its existence. It seems unlikely, but I've met people who loved Lord of the Rings and had no idea it was based on a book.

and I've met Japanese people who thought spaghetti was a Japanese invention. Anyway, hopefully some of that made sense.
 

sanctum

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On a different topic, I'm going crazy trying to remember the name of an Italian horror movie I watched a few years ago. I can't remember anything that happened in it apart from a scene where a young girl showed the main character a lizard with a nail, or a pin pushed through its body. Does anyone know what movie this is?

Scratch that, turns out it was Argento's Deep Red, I thought it was something by Fulci.
 

Witchka

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On a different topic, I'm going crazy trying to remember the name of an Italian horror movie I watched a few years ago. I can't remember anything that happened in it apart from a scene where a young girl showed the main character a lizard with a nail, or a pin pushed through its body. Does anyone know what movie this is?

Scratch that, turns out it was Argento's Deep Red, I thought it was something by Fulci.

I was gonna suggest checking out Brandon Tenold's YT channel or Patreon for his cult movie reviews (if you haven't already) before I read your last sentence (I figured you were talking about an Argento film), but if you don't mind snarky, MST3K-style riffing and commentary, I'd recommend checking him out-- I've discovered a few gems on there.... Including Argento's hilarious Dracula 3-D....
 

Witchka

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Have you seen his version of The Phantom of the Opera?
1987's Opera? Probably my next favourite after Suspiria (I know, I know everybody loves Suspiria, but why wouldn't they? I mean, I'll watch anything with Jessica Harper, but that's beside the point). No spoilers, but possibly one of the finest surprise-death scenes can be found there~
 
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