Categories
Music

Pizzicato Five Discography: 1998-2006

p5_5

And so here it is, the final part of David‘s massive Pizzicato Five discography review series. The fact that I’ve highlighted every part here probably gives away that I so love that David took the time to do this, and it was fun to read along and listen again to a lot of these records. I first met David through a Pizzicato Five mailing list (P5ML) during the years leading up to my move to Tokyo in 1998 (after visiting in 1997) and it’s great to be celebrating this stuff again together almost 20 years later.

Categories
Music

Pizzicato Five Discography: 1994-1997

p5_4

Part 3 of David‘s review series of the Pizzicato Five discography is up on Neojaponisme, this time covering probably peak P5. So many great records here, including the album that introduced me to the band (and probably many other of us non-Japanese fans), Made in USA. I used to play so many tracks from that album on my college radio show.

Update: I was just reminded that Happy End of the World is also quite a special album for me, because it was the first Pizzicato Five album I bought in Tokyo — I visited Japan for the first time the summer it came out. I bought a PlayStation on that same trip (it was while I was a student in China), and I have memories of staying at a Love Hotel with my wife (it was cheaper than a hotel), and plugging in my PlayStation so I could listen to this album.

Categories
Music

Pizzicato Five Discography: 1991-1993

p5_3

David‘s second Pizzicato Five review post is now up, covering the years 1991 to 1993, which is an important period, since it’s when Maki Nomiya enters the picture. Arguably the best P5 album was released during this period, at least according to David (Bossa Nova 2001).

Categories
Music

Pizzicato Five Discography: 1985-1991

p5_2

Following yesterday’s intro post, the first proper part of David‘s review of the entire Pizzicato Five discography is up on Neojaponisme, covering the “pre-canon” era that runs from 1985 to 1991. I’m with David here (as you’ll see through his scores), this is definitely my least favorite period of P5’s output, and I never spent much time listening to these records (with the possible exception of On Her Majesty’s Request).

Categories
Music

Miniflex

miniflex-back

As I think I’ve written in recent posts, since unearthing my archives and going through my old posts, it’s gotten me back into the music I was listening to at that time, which mostly revolved around the Shibuya-kei scene. Through various means I’ve been able to start rebuilding my collection — the biggest thanks go out to Tom, one of the originals from the old Pizzicato Five Mailing List, who has been my savior — and it not only has me listening to this music again, but talking about it as well — often with David, another P5ML alumni. Miniflex came up, a name I remembered from those days but nothing more than that, but since listening to the album (or mini-album, as it’s pretty short) Sud on Friday night, I’ve been absolutely obsessed, and have been listening to it pretty much non-stop.

Miniflex is a solo project by producer Yugo Katayama, who was the man behind the music of Yukari Fresh, one of my favorite artists from those days. It looks like Sud was the only release he did under the name Miniflex, and that makes me pretty sad — I’m hunting for anything else that would be original music from him, but falling short.

And speaking of David, he’s currently listening to every single Pizzicato Five release (or at least pretty much all of them) and writing a review and scoring each of those releases. I’ve already read a few of them and they’re great (and they in turn made me revisit some of those records with a fresh pair of ears). I think he’s only planning on publishing the reviews once he’s written all of them, but I’ll make sure to link to them when he does do that.