Halcali on the cover of Marquee!

http://www.marquee-mag.com/

Well, the back cover anyway!

I'll pick up the magazine with the feature (they're part of an article called The Next Generation of Electro Pop) ASAP.

Halcali on Fujio Akatsuka tribute album

Halcali will appear on a tribute album for pioneering manga artist Fujio Akatsuka. This album is being released to coincide with the 41st anniversary of the publication of his popular manga Tensai Bakabon.

Since the announcement of this album however, Akatsuka passed away earlier this month as a result of pneumonia, making the album a tribute to his life as well as his work.

Halcali will sing Sukisuki Song in a collaboration with Kaji Hideki sound-alikes Nona Reeves.

The album will be released on September 24th.

Halcali to play Kyoto Music Festival 2008

Taking place in three clubs in Kyoto, the 4th Kyoto Music Festival runs for 3 days and features a raft of artists from the club music scene like Fantastic Plastic Machine, Kuchiroro, Halfby, and our very own Halcali.

All those guys have collaborated with Halcali at some point in the past, so I'm sure they'll have plenty to talk about should they bump into each other in the corridor (remember when FPM said he can't wait for Halcali to turn 20 so he could take them out for a drink? I'm really not sure about that guy)

It's great to see Halcali in the midst of so much popular talent! Tickets go on sale today (16th).

Hi-prix

An anonymous poster gave me a link to this new Sony music signing, Hi-prix, a couple of female high school rappers who passed an audition and are now making hip hop flavoured pop music on the label.

Sound familiar? Well, it looks familiar too- their videos are so eerily similar to Halcali's old work that you start to wonder how the label could be so shameless. Yes, this is a label directly ripping off their own band. No one is going to claim that Halcali are the first female pop duo with hip hop leanings of course, we can go back decades and still see examples of that, but the image, the style, the promos, the dancing- it's like a bad photocopy.

Make no mistake though, Hi-prix are the Halcali that Sony wished Halcali was from the start- faceless, bland, easily marketable, and horribly, horribly safe. It's tempting to think Hi-prix is Sony taking Halcali back to the drawing board- how can we take out those interesting rough edges that having been making us much money domestically, make them more magazine and market ready?

Check out the videos for the result. The songs are utterly dire. Don't be surprised to see these girls storm the Oricon charts in the near future though. Come back Do-nuts, all is forgiven!

Girl Pop Factory 08 Setlist (with new song?)

Halcali performed at the Girl Pop Factory 08 event in Tokyo last Sunday (3rd), and someone posted the set list up on the Halcali thread over at the Japanese BBS 2ch (Beware of 2ch by the way, there is a lot of very not safe for work content floating around).

Assuming this is correct (1. no source is provided 2. 2ch is a notorious troll-fest) this set was a classic, again mixing crowd pleasers with obscurer, high quality old material including my much loved 80's synth pop tribute Ni Fuku Sei from the limited edition Strawberry Chips single.

You probably couldn't help but notice a new song in the midst that isn't Zig Zag Saturday Night. As recent diary entries have hinted, they seem to be hard at work on new material and I love the idea that they're taking them out and giving them a road test in front of these types of crowds. Let's assume it's true for now- why not? The Twinkle Star rumour from ages ago turned out be to accurate at least.

ギリギリ・サーフライダー (Giri Giri Surf Rider)
二福星 (Ni Fuku Sei)
若草DANCE (Wakakusa Dance)
スタイリースタイリー(Stylee Stylee)
Long Kiss Goodbye
春狩道～19の夜～(Halcali Michi)

UPDATE:

Setlist confirmed

Halcali's Yosuke@Home collaboration

Here's Tokonattsu, the b-side of Panorama, the début single from Yosuke@Home which features Halcali on the chorus.

It's a decent enough summer tune, and definitely worth a listen for Halcali fans!

Tokonattsu.mp3