Lie Lie Lie Lie
My CDJapan order arrived! Due to working nights, I had already gone to bed by the time it came to my door, so I discovered it by almost stumbling over it in the dark at 2 AM. The order contained:
- MERRY’s Happy life single, Limited Edition (2 tracks + live DVD), released 2015.08.05, plus a sticker from MERRY’s collaboration with Futeneko
- Shiina Ringo’s Nagaku mijikai matsuri/Kamisama, hotokesama single, released 2015.08.05
- Maximum the Hormone’s Yoshuu Fukushuu album, released 2013.07.31
I love all three purchases.
As I’m less into mainstream cheerful rock music than I am angry experimental rock, “Happy life,” while catchy, is not my favorite MERRY song. The B-side, “Okubyoumono no nemurikata,” however, certainly makes my top 20, a high spot when my MERRY collection nears 150 tracks—and I don’t even own every album, let alone all B-sides and rarities. “Okubyoumono no nemurikata” is unconventional, frenetic, and fun. I eagerly await footage of MERRY performing it live, as it doesn’t seem a track that would easily map to live performance.
I haven’t listened to the Shiina Ringo single enough to form a strong opinion on it, except that it’s good and extremely Shiina Ringo, which is to say jazzy, loud, wild. The first track is a duet with Ukigumo (ex-Tokyo Jihen) that employs a bit of autotune to flavor Shiina’s voice.
Yoshuu Fukushuu is an extremely solid album. I already loved the title track from having watched the music video, but every other track on the album is just as strong.