Terça-feira 24 Jul 2012, 14h:33

I've waited too long to write this. I left off with the discovery of Jimang and Sound Horizon, but so much more has happened since then.

The main one being YAMADA KOSHI!!!

My threshold for awesome is being breached here…. Can't even find the words for some of the great music I've discovered or been recommended….

Yamada Koshi (山田晃士 / Koshi Yamada) releases works under a lot of different names and collaborations (which can be seen in my tags, as I linked above), including Koshi, 山田晃士 au Bourbier (Koshi Yamada au Bourbier / KOSHI au Bourbier), 山田晃士と泥沼楽団 (Yamada Koshi to Doronuma-Gakudan, 山田晃士&流浪の朝謡 (Koshi Yamada & Rurou No Asautai), ガレージシャンソンショー (Garage Chanson Show). Each album/group is different with sometimes drastically different sound, ranging from really smooth to more upbeat and fun; all in all Yamada Koshi's music seems to fuse a lot of different sounds/styles, like gypsy jazz/jazz manouche/swing, cabaret, chanson. The sound varies very subtly and is…EXTREMELY unique; indescribable. And he has of the most amazing voices I've heard EVER. Can't even describe…. No matter how much I listen to Yamada Koshi, no matter how much I say, "I should find something new…" I keep going back to it. Like, right this moment.
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Other new discoveries/explorations:

Tim Curry
I've been a super-huge fan of him as an actor since I was four. The only music I had ever heard by him for the longest time was from kid's movies like Muppet Treasure Island, etc. I also heard his song I Do the Rock a few years ago and didn't really like it. In general, I really don't/didn't think his voice is suited for rock, especially not the typical british classic rock sound, but I was determined to dig up something I liked. I came up with Read My Lips, an album of covers, and I do like that a bit, especially Anyone Who Had a Heart, Alan and Sloe Gin. And now, much much later after listening to Jimi Hendrix and other classic rock, progressive rock, psychedelic rocketc., I think I'm starting to understand the different rock genres better as a whole…and I like Tim Curry's music a little better now. Though I still feel he has such a clear, melodious voice perhaps better suited to a different style.

Soft Ballet
I love Incubate the best and prefer their older albums to the newer post-hiatus ones. Their old sound was more balanced. There's something very addictive about it, and I can see similarities to BUCK-TICK, though Soft Ballet has a bit more of a…welll…softer and more darkwave/new wave sound. My favorite track by them has to be Parade. I started off on the wrong foot with Soft Ballet, because I assumed that their more recent work would be best. I liked Symbiont well enough, but it didn't have any impact on me, and Menopause was just blah. I was so surprised to go back to the earlier 90's albums of theirs and discover that I LOVED the sound, kinda reminiscent of Depeche Mode with the electronicness and the heavy beats and really smooth vocals. I go back and listen to the albums after Soft Ballet's hiatus…and it just doesn't even sound like the same stuff. I prefer the old sound so much more….

Alessandro Safina
Pretty awesome; he has a really really great voice. A lot of operatic pop, like a lot of pop, in my opinion, isn't as stimulating; it doesn't have a ton of variation, isn't as dynamic as I like music to be, so it's not the kind of thing I live just listening to all day like rock or more obscure (and less mainstream) genres. But still, Safina has a beautiful, powerful voice; he's a pleasure to listen to. Some day I will sit down and give one or two of his albums my full, undivided attention, and I will probably like his music even more!

Megaherz
Not really a NEW discovery, since I used to listen to a lot of them and KMFDM on Pandora a few years ago. And yet…somehow I just didn't realize that, for a time, the frontman and vocalist of Megaherz was the same guy that founded and does the vocals for one of my all-time favorite ndh bands, Eisbrecher. So I went back and gave Megaherz another shot and a more thorough listen, and I really like like like it, but the older albums are a little...flat/uninteresting; I like the ones around 2003-2005 most, like Himmelfahrt and 5. So far my favorite songs by them are "Eigentlich," "Augenblick," and probably also "Das Tier (Orchester Version)."

Agonoize
I've only listened to one album from this artist: "Assimilation: Chapter Two." It's pretty cool; I don't love it, but it has a good enough sound. It's my first experience with agrotech; I'll have to give it a more attentive listen at a later time.

亜矢 (AYA
So, Japanese grunge/post-grunge. Interesting. Like Agonoize, I didn't give AYA a huge amount of my attention; it didn't hit any chords in me or strike me as anything particularly fabulous, but the sound of her music was pretty okay.
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Things I didn't particularly adore:

- L'Âme Immortelle
- Monoral
(might have mentioned this artist in a different entry, but both Spotify and the Last.fm radio keep chucking it at me and I just don't want to hear it.)
- Mika (because I got his Elle me dit single for a friend of mine who ADORES Mika and "Elle me dit", and I listened to it too and just wasn't really interested, but that's all I've listened to from him).
- Mono Inc.
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Things I tried but haven't really returned to:

- Klaus Nomi (only listened once)
- Revo (His solo works aren't my absolute favorites, not next to his Sound Horizon compositions. Though I loved Dream Port)!
- Ladytron
- Django Reinhardt
- Diabolo Swing Orchestra
- Therion
- Katatonia