taiban.live

Did the vocalist decide to un-cancel himself?

Oooo, nice. Hope we'll get another mini-album from them at some point

Somehow did not expect this one to be the token PV track based on its title, nor did I expect it to be 6 minutes long. The PV aesthetics seem nice tho, at least based on what I can see so far.

Can't really say anything about the song itself yet, but I like the vibe of the instrumentals.

@brainimpediment I never knew about some of those unreleased kein ones (sabbat & watashi no naka). Very interesting!
Hope they have some decent recordings of those old performances floating around somewhere so that we'll get a chance to hear them again lol

Merry has some live-only songs as well. I've got an old tereko from around the time of Gendai Stoic's release featuring a song I haven't been able to identify, and I don't think it's ever reappeared anywhere else. There are also a few later tracks from the 2010s that don't seem to have been properly released, like this one for instance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiecDx9pFRw

There's also that sludgy version of Violet Harenchi that was featured in a tour promo video at one point, but nowhere else. Might be that these were live-only privileges or FC material, but I don't know for sure.

Hell yeah, art kei is back baby!!!!!!!

Feels like he's more active with his solo project than with his actual band nowadays! Previews sound good

The concept of them ''deciding to make it available on streaming'' is so funny considering 90% of the album has been available for a while already

Pretty cool! Definitely digging it more than the album artwork itself

You can always count on these guys to drop some weird-ass English track titles. What the fuck is track 9?

Let's talk about unreleased material! The VK scene has a ton of it. Whether it's releases that got scrapped due to sudden disbandments, or material that's only ever performed live. This thread is for all the studio releases that never were.

kein's original run infamously ended with them still having like an album's worth of unreleased songs, most of which have now finally received the studio treatment, but there are still a few tracks that haven't.

cali≠gari has a bunch of songs that were never officially released in their original form either. Most notably, the band had already been working on and performing material meant for what'd later go on to become Blue Film with Shuuji 1 when he suddenly disappeared and they were forced to find a new vocalist. A tereko recording of at least one of the three unreleased tracks exists, but the songs themselves were scrapped and parts of them were later cannibalized and reworked for the real Blue Film. I think Shuuji 1 ended up reworking some of the unreleased songs for one of his post-cali projects, but I have no idea how closely those versions resemble the originals.

Here's another recommendation from me: bask in the deep. They were around for most of the 2010s and had a dark, atmospheric sound that should appeal to people who are into the gloomier side of art kei and nagoya kei. Their vocalist is now in camellia dystrudia. They dropped a bunch of singles, two mini-albums, and a full album before disbanding in 2017. Their full album was uploaded to the band's official YT account:

We have cover art and a tracklist now:


01 ISOLATION
02 灰燼に帰す
03 蜿蜒
04 Discard
05 Bloodline
06 There's nothing else
07 歪と雨
08 The Devil In Me
09 MOBS
10 Void
11 Demand
12 楔
13 盲目が故に
14 no end

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@_sugi_ Hell yeah, that's a good one. Great soundtrack too.

I'm currently reading Alfred Kubin's (one and only) novel The Other Side and John Langan's short story collection The Wide Carnivorous Sky. I've been enjoying both of them so far. Langan's work has been somewhat hit or miss for me in the past, but this collection has been pretty cool up until now with the way each story has been presenting its twists on 'classic' horror elements.

Kubin's novel is interesting as well, being a bit of a blend between a satire (of sorts), a utopia/dystopia narrative, and occasional surreal dreamlike bits. Kubin was primarily an artist, and, this being his only novel, it's clear he's no master stylist or anything of the sort even in translation, but I am enjoying the ride so far & I could easily imagine this being adapted in the style of some artsy Eurohorror film like Harry Kümel's Malpertuis (on that note, I still need to read the novel THAT's based on at some point too).

Just to drop an example of what I consider BAD cover art, I think The Gallo pretty consistently have rather ugly cover art. Just some examples:

@omochadorei Wasn't there some kind of alleged plagiarism scandle surrounding the first gullet single, or am I mixing up my bands here?

Let's talk cover art!

I'm one of those people who absolutely does not believe in the whole ''Don't judge a book by its cover'' thing. Good art direction can make a huge difference in making a release feel like a cohesive aesthetic whole. VK has had its fair share of absolute bangers and unsightly eyesores, so here's a place to talk about some of your favorites and least favorites.

I personally REALLY like this series of vinyl-only singles released by Guruguru Eigakan:




They really nailed the vaguely Tadanori Yokoo-esque retro/psychedelic/surrealist aesthetic with these ones. Honestly a perfect embodiment of their sound.

@Delkmiroph Oooo, I didn't know they were going to release a MV for the upcoming album! That's awesome. Very much looking forward to that one.

Pretty much all of Guniw Tools' indies era releases, but ESPECIALLY the 'Of the foul' cover album. I don't think I've ever seen any copies of most of their pre-Niwlun material on auction sites. One or two of the VHS tapes very infrequently pop up, but that's about it.

If I understood things correctly, the Japanese magazine they're suppoed to be collaborating with announced that the battle of the bands announcements will be delayed. This is turning into a huge mess.