Recently, I’ve really been getting into something called ‘Post Rock’ Um, what’s “Post Rock”? Wikipedia says:

Post-rock is a genre of alternative rock characterized by the use of musical instruments commonly associated with rock music, but using rhythms, harmonies, melodies, timbre, and chord progressions that are not usually found in rock tradition. It is the use of ‘rock instrumentation’ for non-rock purposes. Practitioners of the genre’s style typically produce instrumental music.

I’m not going to kid you, I don’t really understand that description. To be totally honest I don’t really know exactly what constitutes post rock and what doesn’t. In my experience, it’s rock music with an emphasis on instruments other than guitars and drums, with very little or no vocals. Maybe that’s accurate. Maybe it’s totally wrong and post rock scholars everywhere just spat tea all over their leather-bound computers.

Regardless, the artists I’ve found through searching the term are responsible for some totally awesome music. Really moving stuff. So I thought today I’d introduce an album that moved me, and still moves me every time I hear it.

This wasn’t the first post rock album I listened to, and it wasn’t the first one I enjoyed. But it is my favourite. Hymn to the Immortal Wind is the fifth album by MONO, an instrumental band who’ve been going since 1999. It’s a little over an hour long and only consists of seven tracks, yet it doesn’t plod along but constantly moves along through clever movements and passages.

What really makes the album is the harmony between the guitar line and the orchestra parts. Recorded with a 28 piece orchestra, the strings in particular take the music and push it from ‘amazing’ to ‘it feels like I’m soaring through the sky‘. It’s hard to get across what I mean by that, but I suppose ‘uplifting’ is a reasonable if boring term, and this stuff is anything but boring. The opener “Ashes in the Snow” goes from a calm, almost timid set of strings emerging from radio static into an all out battle of guitars and drums versus swooping orchestra. It sounds like it should be a noisy mess but it’s actually a single harmony, carved out of a wall of pure energy.

It’s truly incredible music. But there are tracks that don’t follow MONO’s wonderful formula. “Silent Flight, Sleeping Dawn” and especially “Follow The Map” are two incredibly calm tracks, beautiful pieces of moving music that serve both to entertain but also to act as interludes between epic pieces like ‘The Battle To Heaven’.

Something I was always advised as a child was “save the best for last” and it looks like MONO heard that one, too. The final track Everlasting Light is my favourite song on the album and probably the best song I’ve heard all year. It starts off as a set of strings and piano. It’s so simple. To be honest if the song ended at the 2:30 mark it would have been a wonderful piece of classical music, but it keeps going. The piano keeps winding it’s way over an ever growing chorus of strings. Then, all of a sudden, things start getting serious. The strings take a more scary, “something’s coming out of the woods!” turn…

…and then the guitar arrives, and all that calmness from the introduction is swept up and pushed along by this new roaring energy. Still the piano slides it’s way overhead, and together these wildly different musical elements build towards the crescendo. I know calling it ‘The Crescendo’ is a bit serious, but it deserves that title. Trust me.

I’m not going to tell you when it comes, as that would spoil it, but a solitary cymbal gives way to what I can only describe as a tidal wave of sound. One that keeps rolling and growing, as more and more is added to it, driving towards the final sixty seconds of the song I can only describe as musical perfection. The best moments in music I’ve heard in a hell of a long time. There’s no way a listener can’t be blown away. Imagine sitting in your living room expecting a rock song with a piano, but instead an 18 wheeler truck piles out of your stereo. Yeah, try ignoring that.

OK, so I admit I might have got a *tiny* bit carried away with this review. But these guys deserve all the hype. As I mentioned it’s hard to define them but ‘music you can’t ignore’ is probably pretty close. If you do ignore this review and never hear the band, you’re missing out. It’s like staying in bed when everyone else has ice-cream. This album is musical ice-cream.

The album is available in most regions on Spotify here, and if not you can always visit the MONO website. They’re touring the world at the moment. Don’t miss out!

Made way back in 1982, 転校生 (Exchange Students) starts with a premise that you’ve heard a thousand times; two people switch bodies, hilarity ensues. But wait! Come back! This isn’t some Freaky Friday ripoff. This is one of the most rewarding films I’ve watched in a long time, and believe me when I state that this  film is one of my favourite Japanese films. Ever.

But woah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. I’ll start with background. The film was directed in the early 80s by Nobuhiko Obayashi, who has gained a reputation in Japan both through his earlier surreal works, and his later successes in more mainstream film. Other famous films of his, none of which I’ve seen (yet) include The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and last year’s Before That Day.

Alright, history is boring. Let’s get down to it. There’s a few reasons why I truly loved this film. Firstly, it’s very realistic for such a surreal idea. I know that sounds odd, but what I mean is after the bizarre part (the two characters falling down the stairs of a shrine together and swapping bodies), the way they interact with each other, and indeed themselves, is very believable.

The whole ‘wow I have breasts now!’ thing is done pretty well, and every time it’s brought up it’s quite funny in a new way, rather than rehashing the same joke. It’s funny, but it’s eclipsed by the characters dealing with the social implications, restrictions and, er, urination approach of the opposite gender. Kazumi (who becomes the boy) becomes the target of a lot of bullying because she fails to hide feminine linguistic and physical habits – in the same way Kazuo (who becomes female) earns a reputation as a ‘wild girl’ because his way of reacting to his loss of masculinity is to act aggressively towards other characters. It’s all very funny, but at the same time very realistic, if you get what I mean.

So well done to the director then. But the real winner here isn’t the director, it’s actress Satomi Kobayashi. Whilst actor Toshinori Omi does a good job acting the shy and coy girl, and the acting throughout the whole film is consistently good, Kobayashi shines above everyone. The way she speaks, her body language and even her facial expressions just reminded me of a bored schoolboy all the way through the film. I remember at one point all she is doing is walking up a hill, and even though she’s wearing a skirt I still felt ‘that is a male character’. She really sticks to the character too – more than once in the film her upper body is totally exposed and still she’s 100% in character. Her expression doesn’t even flicker.

I’m finding it quite hard to pick fault with this film. I suppose the fact it was made nearly thirty years ago means the hairstyles and clothing have dated a bit, but then you could say that about some of the greatest films in the world, so that’s not a real complaint. I suppose the conclusion is very predictable, at least in the case of the body swapping. But there’s also a crushing and tragic finality to the relationship of the characters that I won’t spoil here, but I will say it’s overpowering, and rounds the film off nicely.

Ultimately then, we have possibly my favourite Japanese film. It’s got a lot of competition but I really have fallen in love with it. It’s impossibly sweet, funny without being ridiculous, and a fantastic showcase for the awesome talent of Kobayashi Satomi. I give this film 5 discarded Freaky Friday DVDs out of 5.

Generally speaking, you have to be very careful of bands who have one member from a ’supergroup. They tend to be either excellent (Liquid Tension Experiment, for example) or horrendously cheesy. There are some artists, and I won’t mention who, who really won’t work outside of the category their already existing band is in. So today we’re going to find out if Hyde, vocalist of L’arc~en~Ciel, can hold his own in another band.

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LIAR GAME is a ‘psychological thriller’ drama about Nao, a girl who gets pulled into a game of deceit, lies and backstabbing, all in the name of making huge amounts of money, and how the various players play clever schemes to ensure their victory. So here’s my review, the first of my ‘drama reviews’, but hopefully not the last!

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Update: At the request of readers, I have been asked to re-review this album after I’ve had chance to listen to it a few more times, and I think that’s a great idea. So I will leave this review up until the new one is ready. When I post the new one I will move this one onto that page as well. Thanks.

Whilst I’m somewhat of a fan of the Japanese rock scene, I find there’s a small gap between generic dullness and far-too-far out there madness that I enjoy. For example, the newest Dir En Grey album Uroboros (which I reviewed) was very progressive but still maintained some of the intensity of the Visual Kei style.

One album that I have always loved is D’EspairsRay – Mirror. It’s a fantastic industrial heavy rock album, with similarities in places to both Rammstein in terms of power and use of electronic sounds, but they still maintained a rock rather than metal styling – comparisons to lighter X JAPAN and L’Arc~En~Ciel spring to mind, especially with vocals.

The band have gone through an undeniable change with this new album. Firstly there is no doubt they are making more mature music than before – the most obvious example is PARADOX 5, a fantastic mid tempo ballad (I never thought I’d call a mid-tempo balance fantastic…) with all sorts of Eastern European sounding influences. It starts off a bit slow, and it will definitely not impress die hard fans of their older material too much, but it’s a refreshing sound from a band who’s sound could quite easily have gone stale.

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