March releases

Ok I'm back editing this post. I'll send the albums to our yahoogroup to avoid posting links on this blog.

1. Rie Fu - 2nd Album - Rose Album (2006.3.24)

-> track listing
-> official site

My rating: 8 out of 10

Rie Fu's back with her 2nd album, which isn't VERY different from the major style of her debut, but you can feel the influence of the Carpenters on her musical conceptions more strongly, especially in the 2nd and 3rd track - 5minutes & funny dream (rather humourous and romantic). Other tracks such as 'Tiny Tiny Melody' and 'I Wanna Go To a Place' still mirror the melodious and gentle recipe from her debut hit 'Life's like a boat'. Overall, this's an authentic Rie Fu album with new ideas coming into play.

2. Tomiko Van Debut - Farewell (2006.3.29)

-> official listing

My rating: 7 out of 10

On second thought, I shouldn't be so harsh so I changed the rating from 6 to 7. Still personally, I'm rather disappointed, not with Tomiko's vocal performance, but with the music itself. Nagao DAI wrote all the songs and he's the one who in a sense defined Do As Infinity, who brought out the wild spontaneity in Tomiko's voice and pushed it to full potential. Now DAI's disbanded and Tomiko started her solo career. It's a tough ride. It's almost impossible to ask fans to dissociate Tomiko from shadows of DAI and that's why comparisons between the DAI Tomiko and the current Tomiko are inevitable. I'm sure Tomiko herself won't like this to happen so I'm trying to be impartial and judge her as if I know her for the first time. And I soon realize, casting away the past of DAI and looking at Tomiko again as a new-comer, she doesn't stand out much from average Jpop singers. The songs are mostly mellow ballads which are pleasant sounding but just as easy to forget. Nevertheless, I recommend 'Farewell' and 'Hold me...'.

ET's comments (since she's here, and listening, and humming) : good mix of vocal techiques employed in Tomiko Van's work as opposed to previous Jpop greats like Ayumi Hamasaki and Utada Hikaru who essentialy employ the same techniques to achieve good effects. In addition, little spice can do no harm. - quoted verbatum from ET-sama (who's lying on the temporarily made Japanese-style futon like bed, half dreamy, half dead...)


3. Love Psychedelico - 2nd Album - Live Psychedelico (2006.3.22)


My rating: 9 out of 10

NICE NICE NICE. You know Love Psychedelico performs GREAT alive!! I especially like 'Wasting', 'Neverland' and 'Mind across the universe', all of them with moody sophisticated acoustic guitar introductions.

Ah, I'm done ^^