Hello dear readers, welcome to
Letters from the JaME Editors once again!
My name is Silverfaye and I'm one of the beta-readers for JaME. I had never been much of a music listener until three years ago when I stumbled upon an audio stream of
the GazettE's
Chizuru on my friend's blog. That was pretty much how my whole fascination with visual kei began.
Visual kei would probably take up three-quarters of the pie chart of my total amount of time spent listening to music if I ever drew one, but I do enjoy other styles of Japanese music as well. Some of my all-time favourite non-visual kei songs are
alan's
RED CLIFF ~Shin • Sen~,
Utada Hikaru's
First Love and
Ayaka Hirahara's
Hajimari no kaze.
Although I have a few core Japanese artists I always listen to, I'm on the constant lookout for more artists to whet my insatiable appetite for something new. Recently, I discovered a little gem while exploring "Second Life," an online virtual world.
This little gem is a Japanese music group named
Chouchou. What attracted me most was the voice of the female vocalist,
juliet Heberle. It isn't very often that someone's singing makes me stop whatever I'm doing just to listen.
juliet Heberle succeeded in making that happen. No, it wasn't powerful or stunning vocals that demanded my attention. In contrast, it was her still, quiet and whispery voice that had me enthralled. The wintery quality to her singing paints pictures of soft, white snow falling to the ground on a cold winter morning in my mind.
At present, my favourite songs from
Chouchou are
sign 0 and
anemone. If you are looking for something calm and gentle to soothe your soul, I recommend giving these two songs a try. They can be listened to at no cost on
Chouchou's official
website.
Just a couple of weeks ago when I was on another one of my hunts for visual kei music to listen to, I stumbled upon two rather amusing and funny PVs I thought I should share.
The first one would be
Acid Black Cherry's
Fuyu no maboroshi. In this PV, vocalist
yasu acts as a dying man being rushed to the hospital, receives emergency treatment from a very pretty doctor and gets slapped on the cheek at the end. If you're in need of a good laugh, this PV should do the trick for you.
Next up would be
Nightmare's
Kaikou Catharsis. This PV simply oozes adorability. I was rather surprised when I first watched it, never expecting to see children act as the band members. I wonder how the band decided on which child to choose for the PV though. Did they call for a mass audition? Or maybe the children were people they knew? But anyway, if you're looking for something cute to watch, you might want to consider this PV.
Now that I've shared a few songs and interesting PVs, it's now your turn to do the recommendations. Are there any songs or PVs you think I or your fellow JaME readers should absolutely check out?
