HALCALI day by day

Tokyo Groove etc.

2010-06-02T11:37:00.006+01:00

I wrote my first review of Tokyo Grove probably the day or so after it was released. It was written very quickly, and not particularly well, which is ultimately why I chose not to publish it. Having re-read it again just now I think that was a good idea.

Needless to say, my initial reaction was not good. So I decided to let the album sit a little, mull over it a bit and then come back to it with a more level headed mindset and give it another try.

Unfortunately, it hasn't improved, and what I was struggling with then is still what I'm struggling with now; its becoming increasingly difficult for me to justify being a Halcali fan.

I won't deny that this has been an issue with me for a while now, but even their less impressive releases have always had that basic Halcali vibe; that fun, colourful and very unique spark that's been with them since the beginning.

I don't feel that at all on Tokyo Groove. This is a very cynical, emotionless release that feels as flat and cold as a piece of plastic. The whole thing just feels so lazy and rushed, reeking of little more than Sony looking for the quickest way to milk the most money from the fanbase with the least amount of work, perhaps while speeding up the end of their contractual obligations to Halcali in the process.

Remember when Halcali were overflowing with ideas and ambition? That's gone now. The first CD clocks in at a pathetic 8 tracks. Two of those are singles, another is a (utterly shameless!) b-side, one is actually quite good (the long lost Zig Zag Saturday Night), and three others are bland, instantly forgettable cookie cutter Jpop numbers which barely warrant a second listen. I wonder who they were originally written for?

Topping all of this off is a dreadful and amateurish 10 minute mash up of Halcali-when-they-were-good, which essentially only serves to remind you of everything they used to be, and everything they've lost.

The second CD of covers hardly warrants a mention, and could have been put together by any Halcali fan with a bit of time on their hands. Most of the songs are old (Ai dates back to their Bacon days), none are particularly interesting. It all makes for a very empty, depressing listen.

Does this tired, meandering mess mean the end of Halcali? You really feel like their fate is out of their hands anyway so its hard to say for sure. Maybe some inspired producer will whisk them away and they'll start making that fun, colourful, and unique music again.

New single Endless Night is looking potentially awesome

2010-01-10T06:48:00.003Z

What I'm really looking for the most from this new single Endless Night (due out on the 27th) is a reason to get excited about Halcali again. What with little more than two covers to their name released in the whole of 2009, I must admit found my interest in them waning somewhat. So I hope this new one will be something special.

Thankfully, all signs are currently pointing to yes. The brief snippet of the song posted by Sony sounds pretty good, it will feature Bose from Schadaraparr, and was produced by Ram Rider, while the flip has (according to Sony) a "catchy piano riff" and was produced by Verbal.

All those guys have come up with the goods for them in the past, and with the huge success of the Boogie Back downloads behind them, here's hoping this will kick off a great 2010 for Halcali.

UPDATE
Stewart gave us a link to listen to Endless Night right here! Thoughts? This is sounding pretty good after a couple of listens. Hurry up and check it out before its taken down.

Mobile downloads for Konya hit half a million!

2009-11-15T09:34:00.002Z

Source

According to barks, chaku uta downloads to mobile phones for the Tokyo No.1 Soul Set/Halcali collaboration Konya wa Boogie Back hit 30,000 mid October, and surpassed the half a million mark in November.

While I honestly had a hard time mustering anything more than mild interest towards the actual song itself, those are incredible figures to go Halcali's way, and despite it likely being sold more on the strength of the cover song as opposed to the band this will surely have a significant impact on Halcali's career.

So where now, Sony?

Thanks to amj!

New single Konya wa Boogie Back

2009-08-14T06:21:00.006+01:00

Source.

Halcali's next single will be a collaborative effort with Tokyo No.1 Soul Set on a cover of the 1994 Kenji Osawa/Schadaraparr single Konya wa Boogie Back, which was featured recently on a Nissan TV commercial (video below).

The Halcali version was first released as a downloadable chaku uta version for cellphones, and after it debuted at number 3, it was decided it should be released as a single.

The single will be released on September 23rd, and will be backed with two rerecorded versions of old Soul Set songs, Rising Sun and Innocent Love. Even if Halcali are featured on these b sides too, this is somewhat of a disappointment.

Although it will be nice to see Halcali back in the shops in some form, I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer for a 'proper' Halcali single.

Thanks, as always, to amj!

Real life taking its toll!

2009-06-02T16:08:00.004+01:00

No one likes to read these "sorry for the lack of updates" posts, but here is one anyway.

Any new album, single, anything information you have about everyone's all time favourite Japanese band, please let us know!

According to an anonymous poster below, the album has been pushed back to autumn...any sources on that?

Halcali on new Scha Dara Parr album!

2009-03-10T13:56:00.002Z

Info from Chipple

Awesome! Halcali will appear as guest singers on old friends Scha Dara Parr's (of Halcali Sensation! fame) new album 11, due out on the 25th.

Their last album Con10po, and that collaboration they did with Denki Groove were both a lot of fun, and adding Halcali into the mix makes this a definite purchase.

Thanks to Patrick!

Halcali on Judy and Mary tribute album

2009-03-06T05:30:00.005Z

Halcali appearing on this album has been news for a few weeks now, but what's interesting here is the amount of exposure this release, and of course our girls, is looking likely to get. To give you some idea about this, according to Bark, when these songs were released as chaku uta downloads after a promotion spot on Music Station on the 27th of February, six of the chaku uta top 10 downloads for that week were tracks from this tribute album.

Judy and Mary 15th Anniversary Tribute Album will be released 18th of March.

Here's the original version of Lucky Pool that Halcali will cover

Valentine Gig Report

2009-02-16T08:45:00.004Z

Take a look at this thread over at Halcali Sensation, and gilgameHEARTS report of Halcali's invite only Valentine's Day gig.

Scroll a bit further for the setlist. Their sets are still as impressive as ever, with a good mix of singles, b-sides and album tracks thrown together. It certainly shows the appreciation they have for their own music, and also an interesting willingness to take risks in playing those songs that not everyone will be familiar with.

To top it all off, they closed with Continued!

Then there is, of course, this

HALCALIの2人は現在ニューアルバムを制作中。

The Halcali girls are currently at work on their new album

I can't deny it, I'm excited :)

If you haven't heard their Valentine song Giri Chocolate, have a click back through the day by day archives here to find an live mp3 of it.

Reviews (11) Re: Yasashi Kimochii

2009-02-16T07:58:00.003Z

Maybe "harmless elevator music" was a bit harsh.

Listening to it 5 times in a row (as I just have), does allow some of its charm to peep through, even if I can't escape the thought that, if this wasn't Halcali, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought, let alone listen.

Yet, as has been pointed out by fans of the song both here and over at Halcali Sensation, the sound does seem to have matured. I think this gets to the heart of what I have been struggling with for a while though. While no one expects, wants or needs them to keep making Halcali Bacons their entire career, I think they have been 'matured' on to a point where many of the rough edges that gave them a lot of their earlier charm have been ironed rather flat.

Multiple listens show that there is nothing wrong with this song at all, but there's nothing really interesting about it either, just another airy middle of the road pop ballad sitting just the right side of average. Just right for a bit of mid-album or mid-set filler perhaps. And if you're wondering why the b-side (Orange Sunset) is so forgettable, look no further than its composer, Yusuke Tanaka, who graced us with Halcali's career worst releases Tip Taps Tip and LOOK.

I know that the chances of them getting another regular producer seem a bit slim, so I'll take my schizophrenic Halcali, faults and all. I'll do this because I know, I absolutely know, that their next killer tune might be just one single away.

Yasashi Kimochi is, well....

2009-01-19T14:35:00.003Z

Here it is.

Like I said last month, this steady flow of releases is great. This song feels like 5 steps back after the excellent TLKG though.

This is exactly the kind of harmless elevator music I was hoping they left behind. Are there any audible traces of Halcali in this tune at all? To remain positive- what with the Chara sampling etc., perhaps a decent chart position lies in wait for this single. A bit more exposure would be something at least.

HALCALI - Re：やさしい気持ち
by mugen-pv

Listening to this song is certainly frustrating.

One of the distinctive things about following this band though, is that they are so unpredictable. Largely due to it being rather a free for all in terms of what producers they get to work with, you literally never know what's around the corner for these guys, both in terms of style and quality.

I think it must be the prospect that maybe the next one will grab me, maybe the next one will be another unique slice of pop genius, maybe the next one will be a song I can't wait to put onto that compilation I'm making for a friend's birthday etc. that keeps me hooked on Halcali.

Thanks to julia and Mr. Anonymous for the link!

New Single Out February 11th

2008-12-11T15:27:00.004Z

Now this is more like it! Two new singles 3 months apart, its how the pop charts are meant to be tackled.

Re: Yasashi Kimochi (b/w Orange Sunset) will be released on February 1 1th.

Your guess is as good as mine about this song "inspired" by (meaning heavily sampling) the Chara tune (scroll down for the YT video), but I like this steady flow of releases!

To help with promotion, the single will also be the 'image song' for the 34st charity radio broadcast Radio Musicthon which will be broadcast for 24 hours from 24th-25th of December.

Halcali and Rip Slyme back together!

2008-11-26T21:44:00.002Z

Just for a gig though :)

Still, how can a line up of Halcali, long time Halcali collaborators Schdaraparr and even longer time collaborators Rip Slyme (well, Ryo-Z and Fumiya) playing live together on Christmas Day no less not put an enormous smile on your face?!

Pre-booked reserved seats come with a free Christmas present!

Reviews (10) Long Kiss Good Bye/FLASH

2008-11-23T00:44:00.002Z

Reasons for the delay in writing this: 1) Unbelievably slammed with work 2) I actually had a fairly hard time finding it.

None of the regular chains I went to had it, and it eventually took a longer trip out to Tower in order to pick it up. My first reaction to this was to hope that this meant that people were buying up enough copies to see it into the higher reaches of the Oricon chart. Alas, it seems to have peaked at 53.

Not the shock to the system that Twinkle Star was, but it's worrying that even packaging Halcali with something as marketable as a popular anime show doesn't seem to get results. I hated the idea of them being tacked onto the popularity of something else in this way back in the TTT days and I hate it now. Again, taking a band as unique and exciting as Halcali and giving them constraints as bland as 'the ending theme for an anime' seems a horrible waste of their talents. Both TTT and LOOK were awful.

That said though, I think this single surprisingly, and thankfully bucks that trend and delivers a sweet, memorable pop song that at least has the decency to stick around in your head for a while after its finished. Like I said before, it does pretty much what you expect, but its the first time in a long time that a Halcali single came out with a chorus that made me sit up and pay attention the first time I heard it.

I think the b-side FLASH is good enough to make me wish this had been a double a-side, and both songs would have got PV's. Outside of the pressure and constraints of being the main song, Ram Rider (who wrote one of the highlights of Cyborg, Halcali Michi) come up with a catchy electro pop song reminiscent of Nifuku Hoshi from the Stawberry Chips single.

What I find most satisfying about this single though is that for the first time in a long time, if someone told me they wanted to listen to some recent Halcali stuff, I'd be more then happy to put this CD in their hands.

'New' song- Re: Yasashii Kimochi

2008-11-12T10:53:00.004Z

http://natalie.mu/en/news/show/id/10822

HALCALI made new tune "Re: Yasashii Kimochi (Re：やさしい気持ち)" that was boldly sampled Chara's famous piece "Yasashii Kimochi (やさしい気持ち)". The tune was selected as the image song of "RADIO CHARITY MUSICTHON" which will be broadcasted for 24 hours from noon on December 24th.

They also say that it will be released on CD next February. Seems like an odd choice for a single, so perhaps a b-side or an album track?

Here's the original tune for those who haven't heard it.

Long Kiss Good Bye PV

2008-10-28T07:52:00.003Z

Here it is!

While the video is a bit lacking in imagination, the song itself is wonderful, with the kind of instantly loveable chorus that makes you immediately want to listen to it again after its four minutes are up. How long has it been since I've said anything like that about one of their new singles? Far, far, far too long. Welcome back, Halcali!

Here's hoping this pop gem makes its presence felt in the charts!

LKGB cover art

2008-10-22T09:30:00.002+01:00

The Sony Shop has the new Halcali single available for pre-order, and has a picture of the cover too.

Impressions? It's a cute idea, but it's not exactly eye-catching.

A couple more things- as we knew, first pressings come with a sticker. As well as that, people who pre-order it from the Sony Shop will be entered into a raffle where 10 people will win a signed copy of the single and a poster.

Long Kiss Good Bye mp3

2008-09-13T04:26:00.005+01:00

Here's a rip of the live version of the upcoming Halcali single Long Kiss Good Bye taken from their performance of it at Girl Pop '08.

Long Kiss Good Bye

It's an mp3 rip of the live version (taken from this Naruto site), but the quality is terrific.

I'm saving my usual thoughts and impressions until a few more of us have had a chance to listen to it a few times and digest it. I'll tell you this though- it's NOT the weak Tip Taps Tip knock off we were expecting.

Give it a few listens, then let us know what you think!

Thanks to julia for the Naruto link and many thanks to gilgamehearts for the rip.

UPDATE:

It's out! Here it is (albeit heavily edited) on Naruto.

Can't wait for this! Seriously, I haven't been this into a Halcali single for ages. The chorus sticks like bubblegum. OK, so it's has a bit of that anime theme tune predictability to it, and progresses pretty much as you'd expect, but I found myself listening to this over and over again, and because I like it this time, not because (as with Look and a few others) I was trying to like it.

By all accounts, the Ram Rider produced b-side is quality too.

Even those of you who aren't as impressed, would you place this over TTT and Look as Halcali's best anime tie in number?

New Halcali song Long Kiss Good Bye

2008-09-03T05:59:00.011+01:00

According to the official site, Halcali’s new single will be, as you might have suspected, Long Kiss Good Bye and will feature as the ending theme song to the popular anime Naruto.

The song will play out the show every Wednesday on TV Tokyo from 7:30 to 7:57pm starting October.

The single will be released on November 12th.

The b-side, FLASH will be a collaboration with Ram Rider, who produced the final track on Cyborg Oretachi, Halcali Michi.

Although I’m hoping that this one won’t be the same watery and inoffensive elevator music Look etc. was it’s really difficult not to get a bit excited about this. It’s a NEW HALCALI SONG! for one, and those are becoming a rare thing indeed. Naruto’s audience is massive, which will open them up to new ears and give them great promotion, and, oh go on then, I think this song is going to be their best single since ____________ (you can fill that blank in yourself. I’m sticking with Twinkle Star for the time being).

Actually, any chance of this being a re-titled version of that awesome song they played in Chicago, Zig Zag Saturday Night? Probably not. That song sounded good enough to stand on it's own two feet anyway.

Two fingers tightly crossed that Long Kiss Good Bye is going to be a good one.

Thanks to sora-kara!

UPDATE: According to CD Japan, it's a "love ballad", and first pressings come with stickers.

Hang on a second...

Love ballad (CHECK), first pressings come with stickers (CHECK), being used as the ending theme tune to an anime (CHECK).

Are we absolutely sure they aren't just re-releasing Tip Taps Tip? I mean, seriously girls, didn't we go over all this three years ago?

To tell you the truth, once again I'm more excited about the b-side than the main event. Halcali Michi has grown on me a lot over the last few months, and hopefully FLASH will be something special too.

Halcali on the cover of Marquee!

2008-08-27T12:34:00.003+01:00

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

2008-08-16T09:22:00.002+01:00

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

2008-08-16T02:35:00.002+01:00

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

2008-08-09T16:02:00.002+01:00

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?)

2008-08-05T02:00:00.003+01:00

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

2008-08-02T04:37:00.005+01:00

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

Halcali in PREPRODUCTION mode!

2008-07-26T14:12:00.002+01:00

They're kinda sneaky the way they drop the smallest of hints about what they're up to here and there- usually on the last two lines of a diary entry where it's easily missed.

Source

さて明日は(日付が変わったから、もう今日かぁ。)スタジオでプリプロという作業です。素敵な曲になるように、楽しんで来まーす。

So, tomorrow (or is it already today?), we'll be doing preproduction work in the studio. I'm excited about turning out some great songs!

Yikes! New single just around the corner? Fingers are still crossed for Zig Zag Saturday Night...

Halcali on Yosuke@Home single

2008-07-26T13:56:00.004+01:00

Regularly joining Halcali on stage at gigs, Yosuke@Home has collaborated with them again, this time in the studio as Halcali sing the chorus to トコナッツ (Tokonattsu), the b-side of his single debut パノラマ (Panorama).

I'll try to get hold of the song as soon as possible, but in the meantime here's Panorama, a fairly harmless bit of karaoke-ready pop, but pleasant enough none the less. Here's hoping Halcali have kicked a bit more colour into their b-side contribution!

Happy birthday Yukari!

2008-07-18T10:54:00.001+01:00

Twenty-one today!!

Spoon Market

2008-07-14T16:19:00.003+01:00

This is a bit of minor-ish news perhaps, but it's worth a mention, not least because it has an interesting twist.

Halcali will join the line-up of the Spoon Market DU/O8S event being held at Tokyo's Daikanyama UNIT on September 21st. The twist being that this is an all girl-band event, with Nirgilis, 80 pan and Flip-Flap currently filling out the roster, although more girl bands are set to join the line-up in the near future.

To be honest, part of me wishes Halcali would stop doing these kind of play a 20 minute set at the bottom of the bill kind of gigs and get on with putting together the type of shows in Japan they recently put on in France and elsewhere. Publicity is publicity I guess, and it is good to see these kind of female dominated shows going out, but it still feels a bit limiting for them to still be playing second fiddle to the 80 pan's and Flip-Flap's of the world.

Halcali Sensation!

2008-07-08T08:57:00.002+01:00

This was way, way overdue, but finally we have a dedicated Halcali forum! It's called Halcali Sensation and is being run by BroBroBear, Doubledown11 and America's (official?!) #1 Halcali fan (and regular Day By Day commenter) Novaforever. I'll be helping out where I can with the moderation.

There will be an accompanying fansite, which I believe is set to go active July 18th.

For now though, get over there, sign up and introduce yourself!

http://www.halcalisensation.com/forum/

Halcali article on Japan Today

2008-06-27T01:51:00.002+01:00

Imagine my surprise when I saw this today! Looks like Halcali's recent international success has done wonders in terms of exposure.

For Japanese female hip-hop duo HALCALI, the world is their stage
By Natsuki Oka
NEW YORK —
HALCALI, a Japanese female hip-hop duo that performed in New York for the first time in early June, is eager to make further strides on the international music scene. The duo, consisting of two 20-year-olds from Tokyo, made their name when some of their tracks were used as theme songs for a popular TV animation series a few years ago.The songs soon reached the ears of anime fans abroad, and the pair made their overseas debut in Paris in July 2007.
In May 2008, HALCALI performed for the first time in the United States at a concert in Chicago.They followed this up with an appearance at New York’s Central Park on June 1 as part of a Japan Day cultural festival. "Our current goal is to release a new album in Japan, Europe and the United States," Haruka, one half of the duo, said in a recent interview with Kyodo News in New York.
Fellow hip-hopper Yukari added, "In the future, we’re hoping to perform all over the world."

Read full article

It's perhaps an inevitable result of them getting so much attention so quickly that people are just assuming their post Ongaku anime songs is where Halcali began, whereas in reality of course those songs sold relatively poorly compared to their early For Life days. What's become apparant though is there is a real buzz about the band now, a feeling of gaining momentum that hasn't been present since the OTF era.

A worldwide Japan-America-Europe release of album four is looking more and more likely now- and just in the nick of time. I can't be the only one who was worried that dreadful single sales might have resulted in their quiet departure from Sony. What we really need now is what Sony haven't really given Halcali yet in Japan- a solid marketing campaign and a real push towards top 20 chart success.

Details on the France 'Music Day' gig

2008-06-23T12:22:00.004+01:00

As I wrote about here, on the 20th and 21st of June Halcali played at the Japan Culture Centre in France, and Excite put up a short piece about it. Here it is, along with my translation.

HALCALI フランス「音楽の日」を沸かす
［2008年06月23日］

東京都目黒区出身のHALCA（ハルカ）とYUCALI（ユカリ）の2人組ガールズヒップホップユニット　HALCALIが、現地時間の6月21日、フランスで開催の「音楽の日」において、日本文化会館（300人収容）に徹夜組みも含む600人の観衆を集め、満員札止めの大盛況を博した。

アンコールを含め90分のライブで、観客は全員総立ち、熱狂した聴衆がステージに押し寄せる一幕もあり、終始大きな盛り上りを見せた。シカゴの「アニメセントラル」、NYの「JAPAN DAY」、今回の「フランス音楽の日」と一連の海外サーキットを終え、次作アルバムタイミングでの、日米欧ツアーへ手応えを掴んだメンバーは、帰国後、楽曲制作へと戻る予定。目黒区から世界へ飛躍して行く彼女達に今後も注目!!

Halcali heat up Music Day in France.

Coming from Meguro in Tokyo, Haruka and Yukari of the female hip hop unit Halcali performed at the Japan Culture Centre on the 21st of June as part of the 'Music Day' event. The gig was a massive success, with around 600 fans gathering, some waiting outside all night, to try to get into the 300 person capactity venue to watch Halcali perform.

Including an encore, they played a 90 minute set to a crowd who were wildly enthusiastic from beginning to end. After performing around the world with stops at Chicago, New York and now France, Halcali are set to to keep the momentum of this success going by heading straight back home to immediately begin work on songs for their next album.

Today Meguro, tomorrow the world- these girls are ones to keep an eye on!

Great article, and another new album teaser!

More thanks goes to Patrick for the link!

UPDATE: amj links us to this article on the gig over at Barks, which claims that the new album will be out before the end of the year! Which, considering that Halcali albums are usually preceded by a slew of singles, would certainly be bucking the trend.

As one of the problems I had with the last album was it felt too single-heavy, I really hope this is true. I'd much prefer a pattern of a couple of singles, the album, then maybe another single soon after that.

This part of the article threw me a bit though:

終演後もCD即売場は長蛇の列。今年2月に欧州で発売されたアルバム「サイボーグ俺達」のサイン付きCDに殺到

After the gig a long queue of people formed to buy the CD. There was a huge rush to get Cyborg Oretachi, which went on sale in Europe in February, signed by the girls.

I was under the impression that this elusive European version (with bonus tracks! Remember that rumour?!) still hasn't been released...

Girl Pop Factory 08 / Densetsu No Futari to be used in movie

2008-06-23T11:45:00.003+01:00

A couple of good bits of news on the good exposure for Halcali front.

1. Halcali are set to perform for the second time at the Girl Pop Factory event at Zepp in Tokyo on the 3rd of August alongside the likes of Koda Kumi and Perfume. It will certainly be interesting to see them alongside that other techno-pop girl group; astute fans will easily be able to find numerous similarities between the two. With heavy chart hitters like Kumi on the bill, expect a big crowd and some good exposure for Halcali leading up the (hopefully very soon!) new single release.

2. Halcali are no strangers to having their songs close animes, but now the Ongaku No Susume track Dentetsu No Futari will feature as the ending theme song of the film Jersey No Futari, which opens in Tokyo on July 19th. Expect to see hundreds of people leave the cinema thinking "what was that amazing song at the end?" before heading to their local Tower to find out more :)

Here's the trailer:

Here's a link to page at Nippon Cinema with information on the film and the trailer with the Halcali song playing on it. Can't wait to see it! (Thanks to anonymous for this!)

Thanks to Patrick!

Japan Day Festival details / Bookstore autograph session!

2008-05-19T08:35:00.010+01:00

Halcali are set to play at Japan Day in Central Park, New York on June 1st.

Official site

The festival is free and goes from 10am until 5pm, with Halcali performing as part of the 'cool Japan' segement from 3:15.

Unfortunately, they'll be sharing a bill with the utterly awful Gaijin a Go Go, who, oddly enough for a slot entitled 'cool Japan', are from Brooklyn.

As ever, we're relying on those who go for information for those who can't make it!

UPDATE:

I heard it through the grapevine (aka the Shibuya-kei yahoo group) that Halcali will be at Kinokunia bookstore in New York to record a radio show for Japanese TV on May 30th from 6pm.

This will be open to the public and an autograph session will follow. Take your t-shirts!

UPDATE 2:

JAPAN DAY FESTIVAL SETLIST: (thanks to novaforever!)

1. Twinkle Star
2. Tip Taps Tip
3. Sister Ship
4. Giri Giri Surf Rider
5. Halcali no Michi

PICTURES / VIDEO:

Check out major shaky-cam footage of the event here (quite good sound though)

Mamekura also blogged about the event and has pictures and videos to share.

Novaforever also has a write-up of the event and pictures!

What an incredible time Halcali have had recently! A million thanks to everyone who left comments, pictures, videos, reviews, audio and masses of Halcali love for the rest of us who couldn't make it! I can only hope that, should Halcali get out on the road in Japan, those of us fans over here will be able to return the favour.

And let's not forget that Halcali will be heading to France later this month too!

Halcali's ACEN setlist/audio/New York gig info!

2008-05-17T15:02:00.016+01:00

(Picture courtesy of Novaforever)

Details have emerged about Halcali's Chicago ACEN gig and it sounded like it was amazing. Thankfully even those of us who couldn't make it can still experience some of the goodness, as here is a fan made recording of the gig! It's bootleg quality, but certainly good enough. Best of all, they finish the set with a new song!

Halcali at ACEN

Setlist (May 16th):

1. It’s Party Time
2. Marching March
3. Girl! Girl! Girl!
4. Sister Ship
5. Check!! Check!! It!
6. Tip Taps Tip
7. Endless Lovers Rain
8. Giri Giri Surfrider
9. Wakakusa Dance
10. Halcali No Michi

Encore:
11. Twinkle Star
12. New Song: Zig Zag Saturday Night

I'm liking this new tune a lot. It sounds like Halcali doing, and enjoying, exactly what they do best. It's getting stuck in my head already! Come on let's get it released!

As if all this wasn't enough, there is a bit more Halcali news to share- apparently they will be playing a gig in Central Park New York on June 1st at the Japan Festival! Good news if you're in the area! I'm nowhere near it, so I (like all the other fans dotted around the globe) will be turning to whoever can make it for pictures and any other information.

UPDATE:

Setlist for May 17th:

1. It’s Party Time
2. Koi no Bububun
3. Marching March
4. Girl! Girl! Girl!
5. Zig Zag Saturday Night
6. Sister Ship
7. Check!! Check!! It!
8. Tip Taps Tip
9. Endless Lovers Rain
10. Giri Giri Surfrider
11. A One Two
12. Wakakusa Dance
13. Halcali Michi

Encore:
1. Twinkle Star
2. Tandem
3. Continued

Another great set with a varied mix of singles, album tracks and b-sides.

************************

REVIEWS:

Thanks to everyone who left comments and shared impressions of the gig! Here are a couple of excellent write-ups of the the event.

Here's a great one from EternalSin: An Essay on my Impressions of Halcali at ACEN Anime Central.

Here's one from Novaforever: The Best Weekend of My Life. Be sure to take a look at the great photos too! Speaking of which...

PHOTOS:

Check out the t-shirts Nova got the girls to sign here and here (love those Cyborg designs!)

Some more Halcali at ACEN pictures here and here! (From EternalSin)

Another great set can be found right here (From Mokona.)

Finally, here are some of Halcali and Peelander-Z together (From EternalSin, taken by Ryan)

VIDEO:

sideshowsito has excellent footage of the girls' Q and A session at ACEN (including a guest appearance by our very own novaforever!). Check out the footage (in three parts) over here.

Also take a look at the amazing review/photo gallery he put together for DAY ONE and DAY TWO of the event.

If you went to the event and took any pictures, video, or anything yourself, we'd love to see it!

Halcali play in France again!

2008-05-14T14:49:00.004+01:00

Official site

6月21日は「夏至の日」。
一年中で一番日が長いこの日は、フランスでは１９８０年代から「音楽の日」と呼ばれており、
フランス全土にわたって、ミュージシャンたちが街中で演奏をする。
ここにHALCALIが日本代表で招聘されました。

The 21st of June is summer solstice. This is the longest day of the year and in France this day has been known as 'music day' since the 1980's, and musicians perform in cities all across the country. Halcali have been invited to France as representatives of Japan.

This gig will be held at the Japan Culture Centre in Paris on the 20th and 21st of June. It will be free entry, but you must contact the centre and reserve a ticket- although seating looks to be unreserved. Both gigs start at 8pm.

Great to see Halcali back in Europe. I guess their last trip in January (where they also played that gig to record execs) went well enough for them to get sponsored for another journey out there.

Still, isn't it odd that out of all the Japanese bands who, frankly, enjoy much better sales and popularity, Halcali should be chosen as the representatives (daihyo) of Japan?

With their Chicago gig coming up this weekend too, it's probably already fair to say that Halcali are experiencing equal popularity both at home and abroad now. Although that still isn't very much, it does ease my fears a little bit about them being dropped from their label. If Sony have managed to secure them even a small foothold abroad, that should be enough for them to want their relationship with the girls to continue.

Still, every time I see Perfume in a magazine or hear them on the radio I think "why on earth isn't it Halcali in this position now?"

UPDATE:
Just as I was typing that up, the site got updated again with news of yet another France gig!

This one is a couple of days later on the 23rd of June at The European Centre for Japanese Studies in Alsace. This is another free gig and it will also start at 8pm.

Anyone thinking of getting out to any of any of these shows?

Details on Halcali's free Tokyo gig

2008-05-05T00:42:00.004+01:00

Yesterday afternoon Halcali played a free outdoor gig as part of the (scroll down a couple of posts). Here are details on the setlist taken from the Tokyo Midtown Showcase Halcali thread on 2ch.

「It's Party Time！」
「LOOK」
「endless lover's rain」
「伝説の二人/Dentetsu No Futari」
「愛/Ai」
「コンティニュード/Continued」

After the poster writing that they thought they played another too, the next poster says they also played check!! check!! it!!

Sounds like I missed another great gig! I love how, despite it being a short set played to a number of people who were probably new to Halcali, they still don't simply roll out a 'greatest hits' type set, and instead went for a much more thoughtful, mid-tempo set built around regular album tracks, b-sides and other obscurities. Quite right too- both Dentetsu and Continued are classic Halcali!

Did anyone else make it to the gig?

p.s Although the 2ch link I provided is safe for work, often 2ch has dodgy content that probably isn't. Being totally unmoderated, most of the content is garbage anyway, but you should definitely exercise a bit of caution, especially when clicking on a link over there.

p.p.s Just read this on another post on the same 2ch thread

タンデムのTシャツを着た外国人もいた。
There was also a foreigner there wearing a Tandem t-shirt.

Come on, own up, that was you wasn't it?!

Happy birthday Haruka!

2008-04-21T15:49:00.002+01:00

Who turned an impressive 20 years old today (21/04)! Old enough for alcohol in Japan, but not quite there yet for America, so watch out at Anime Central!

Halcali play free Tokyo gig/4th album teaser!

2008-04-10T08:12:00.002+01:00

Halcali will play a free outdoor gig as part of the Tokyo Midtown Showcase on May 4th. The show will be held at 2:00pm in front of Midtown Vision (presumably a giant TV screen?!).

On their profile on the Midtown official site, after mentioning all their recent (Europe) and upcoming (America) activity (including stating that the French version of Cyborg Oretachi was released over there in February- except to my knowledge it still hasn't been released), they end by saying,

同時に並行して4枚目のアルバムにむけてレコーディング準備中。
At the same time (as all this activity) they are working on recordings that will go towards their 4th album.

Considering we've been totally dry of any new recording/release information for what feels like ages now, this is great to know!

Thanks to Patrick for the reminder!

Pictures from Springroove

2008-04-06T02:11:00.004+01:00

Last night (5th) Halcali played a set at the Springroove 08 festival, and the official site has updated with pictures- including a few of H and Y.

We might have to wait until someone over at 2ch posts a setlist to know what they played, but as you can see from the pictures (take a look at the 'attractions and audience' bit at the bottom too) the event was absolutely massive.

Some more great exposure for Halcali no doubt, but the rest of us are still drumming our fingers impatiently waiting for a few new songs. It's now been about 10 months since It's Party Time, and the gap isn't getting any shorter!

UPDATE: According to Yukari's blog, they played a 30 minute set. Still in the dark about the set-list though.

Halcali share a stage with Kayne West, Schadaraparr

2008-03-17T10:39:00.002Z

I've just been reminded of something I've been meaning to write about for a few days- Halcali will be playing a set at Tokyo's Springroove '08, alongside (wait for it) Kayne West, N.E.R.D., Tekiyaki Boyz (who are still going, apparently) and long time Halcali cohorts Schadaraparr.

Just how well Halcali will go down with that crowd remains to be seen, but their connections with Tekiyaki Boyz and Schadaraparr hopefully means the answer to that will be 'quite well'. They're sure to have fun in any case.

What with this and their recent activities abroad, what we really need to capitalise on it is a new single announcement sometime soon. Some information about that French Cyborg release wouldn't go amiss either!

Thanks to jim for the reminder!

Official site confirms Halcali for Anime Central

2008-02-28T07:40:00.002Z

We've known about this for a while, but the official site got around to posting about it today

5月16日ー18日アメリカシカゴで開催される最大級のジャパニーズカルチャーフェス「CENTRAL」に
メインゲストとしてHALCALIが招聘され、ライブをやることが決定しました。

Halcali have been confirmed as the main guests at the huge Japanese culture festival Central, which is being held in Chicago from May 16th to the 18th, where they will be performing live.

Here are the girls on the Anime Central page. Read the blurb, it makes the band sound incredible! It's a bit odd that the official site describes what seems to be a solely manga and anime related festival as a 'Japanese culture festival' though.

Hopefully some of you will be making the trip to report for those of us who can't make it!

Votre recherche "Cyborg Oretachi" ne correspondait à aucun produit.

2008-02-27T08:55:00.002Z

First, a quick recap from Halcali's official site:

「サイボーグ俺達」のフランス盤が1月24日発売になります。
The French version of Cyborg Oretachi will go on sale January 24th.

No news is good news really doesn't apply here. What on earth happened to it?

Some more news from France

2008-01-29T08:59:00.002Z

Comments on the last post regarding their Paris gig have been enlightening (and please if you've stumbled across this blog from Google or wherever and you went to the gig, please give us your impressions!) and I just wanted to get a few thoughts out (negative ones first).

The event seemed to be poorly promoted. ybart, for example, mentions that the gig was only mentioned in the Japan Expo newsletter the day before the event. I'm frankly stunned that such an obvious avenue of promotion was ignored. Naturally, perhaps, the gig was not a sell out. Presumably one of the roots of this problem was a lack of communication between Japan and France, but considering the amount of money it must have cost to get Halcali and crew over to France and set the gig up it's incredible that such obvious things as solid promotion weren't worked out into finer details.

Then there's this mysterious French version of Cyborg Oretachi, which still doesn't exist despite their official sites claim that it was coming out on January 24th. I don't work in PR, but it strikes me that getting the CD out before the gig, then have it on sale at the gig itself, would have been extremely beneficial. It's possible that the real purpose of the trip was to have them play at the MIDEM event and get them distributed worldwide of course- and let's not forget the importance of this for their future, especially considering how lacklustre their Japanese sales have been of late.

Regardless, despite it not being a sell out, I consider this gig to be a success for a few reasons. Halcali were the main event here, and I can't remember the last time that was true for them at a gig they played in Japan, where they are usually tacked onto the back end of a few other bigger names and given a lukewarm reception and a very short set. Which certainly wasn't the case in Paris. When I saw the rough set-list (can anyone confirm?) in the comments one thing surprised me- how many songs they played! Both those who attended, and their DJ, Non, talked about the really enthusiastic reception Halcali got from the crowd. Which, compared to the rather non-plussed reaction they seem to get at gigs in Japan, must have put a smile on their face.

Then there were the t-shirts! Despite some confusion (it wasn't everyone who could get a signature, only those who bought a t-shirt- which seems a little conniving) I'm sure they sold a lot of these. Click the names to see a couple of pictures of the signed t-shirts from ybart (showing both front and back) and hasuko.

Finally, and much better in terms of promotion, Halcali will be appearing on the French DSL channel Nolife

While you would have to be in France to see this (I guess) ybart has offered to sub the videos and upload them to Youtube. Which is something I know we would all be hugely grateful for!

Thanks to Patrick for the TV info, and again thanks to everyone for leaving their impressions of the gig.

UPDATE: Here's the first video from Nolife's 'Halcali week', subtitled and uploaded by the wonderful ybart, who promises more of these to come as they are broadcast. As it's the first one, Halcali don't make an appearance until around the 7:50 mark, but if you're anything like me you'll like the video game related stuff that proceeds it too.

Again, a million thanks to ybart for doing this! Looking forward to seeing more.

(UPDATE 1.5: Sadly, the video has been removed, although it was for some very sound reasons (see comments))

UPDATE 2: Pictures from the JaME blog here. Can anyone translate?

Did you see them in Paris? (Bonus question included!)

2008-01-27T02:49:00.000Z

For anyone lucky enough to have caught them live in Paris last night, we'd love a few words about the gig for those of us who missed out.

About that French release of the album- according to Halcali's official web site, it was supposed to have been released on the 24th of January. According to JaMe, JVStore will be releasing it, but I can't find any information on it. Worse, you might have noticed that JaME contradicts the official word with a "exact date not available".

I originally assumed that a French release would mean it being distributed and sold throughout France/Europe via regular record shop channels as well as on-line, but so far there has been absolutely no sign of it, including over at France's biggest CD retailer FNAC.

Halcali's effort to flog themselves to overseas buyers takes place tomorrow (28th) at the Cannes MIDEM event.

A couple more things

2008-01-23T10:29:00.000Z

1. The French version of Cyborg Oretachi will have a bonus track. No word on what it will be, but fingers crossed for something brand new.

2. Those buying a ticket for Saturday's Qin Elysees gig will apparantly be able to get Halcali's autograph after the show.

(JaME)

Thanks to ica ross!

Cosmic Dance

2008-01-19T00:04:00.000Z

Here's a live clip of Halcali joining Kuchiroro on stage doing their Cosmic Dance collaboration from the last Kuchiroro album Golden Love. I'm still not really sure what to make of this song, it seems to be crying out for something- a better hook in the chorus maybe?

Thanks to cobs!

Details on Halcali's Cannes gig

2008-01-14T03:14:00.000Z

The Houchi Shinbun article (scroll down a bit) stated Halcali would be playing in Cannes and Paris; their official site only mentioned Paris.

The reason for this is their Cannes gig is at the music industry-only event Midem which is closed to the public. It's a kind of showcase for acts looking to get distribution in Europe or worldwide. Or, to put it another, official site way:

The thriving live music sector is the industry’s lifeblood. MIDEM’s exclusive concerts give hundreds of new and confirmed artists from the world over the chance to find the right partners to further their careers; and promoters, concert organisers and A&R executives the opportunity to make new discoveries.

Halcali's 'opportunity' ('gig' seems the wrong word in this context) will come on January 28th in the MPA Japan segement at 7:10pm.

Here's the information from Halcali's page:

Halcali

Record company: Epic Records

Country: JAPAN
Country of record company: JAPAN
Distribution: No
Publishing: No
Legal representation: No
Licensing: No
Management: No
Booking: Looking for worldwide
Time artist: 19h10

I like that they're "looking for worldwide", but I'm surprised by the amount of "no"'s on that list. No distribution or publishing? I had just assumed that Sony International etc. would be handling that. Who will be releasing Cyborg in Europe and America?

At any rate, I'm sure they can't be looking forward to this gig- playing infront of a bunch of industry execs while thinking that their artistic future outside of Japan (perhaps inside to, judging by their poor record sales recently) depends at least in part on this going well doesn't sound like a recipe for fun. Worse, someone chose one of those unflattering early Epic promo pictures to put on their page, and the mp3 promo is, yes, Tip Taps Tip.

Here's a PDF of the artists that will be performing at the show.

Thanks to amj!

Halcali confirmed for Chicago!

2008-01-13T13:37:00.000Z

Halcali's global conquest continues apace!

Thanks to novaforever for the news!

Official site on Paris gig

2008-01-10T05:10:00.000Z

The official site has finally caught up with the rest of the internet (in the press release they also acknowledge the Houchi Shinbun article that broke the story which I translated below) in announcing Halcali’s Paris plans. They also add some more concrete details about the gig. We know a lot of this already, but let’s put it up for confirmation purposes.

Album:
Cyborg Oretachi (French Version) release date: January 24th

Live:
Date- January 26th
Venue- Qin Elysees
Doors- 6:30pm Stage- 8:00pm
Price- 22 Euros
Tickets- Fnac website, alternatively tickets will be sold on the door

Its worth noting that this official announcement, while acknowledging the Houchi article, doesn’t address two other things it brought up: namely Cyborg’s U.S release and Chicago gig, and the second gig they said Halcali would be playing in Cannes.

22 Euros is about 16 pound 50, (which seems just above average for a moderately famous band in the U.K), and about 3,500 yen (which seems slightly cheaper than the average extortionate price people are expected to pay for gigs in Japan).

There’s also no word on if ‘French version’ means it’ll come with extras (other tracks, DVD etc.) or not, but lets hope so!

Is anyone thinking of picking this French version up, or, even better, going to the gig? Something else you might like to think about is something Hasuko mentioned- apparently there will be some kind of transport strike around the time the gig is going to be held. Could spell trouble?

Halcali to play gig in Chicago!

2008-01-06T01:27:00.000Z

５月にシカゴで行われるジャパンカルチャーのイベントでもライブを行うことが決定、さらにＣＤリリースも決まった。

[Halcali] have been confirmed to perform at a Japan Culture event in May, and on top of that they will be getting a CD [Cyborg Oretachi] release too.

(source)

This is incredible news, and along with this report confirming that the Paris gigs and European releases are going ahead (which I was concerned about below), it looks like Halcali are getting that international push I think they have deserved for years. The article is quite a bit longer and clearly quite sceptical of Halcali in general. Anyway, I'm working on getting the rest of it up now, but you might also like to note that they also say Halcali will be playing in Cannes. I just wanted to get this news up as soon as possible.

Bear in mind that this is just one report, from the entertainment section of a sports newspaper of all things, so those in the Chicago area might want to wait for confirmation from the official site before getting too excited. The event mentioned is probably Anime Central. For now though, let's just tentatively assume this is all going ahead.

I'll get the rest of the article up as soon as I can.

Here we go...

ハルカリ仏デビュー！パリ、カンヌでライブも
　ＹＵＣＡＬＩ（ユカリ＝２０）とＨＡＬＣＡ（ハルカ＝１９）の２人組ユニット「ＨＡＬＣＡＬＩ（ハルカリ）」が、今月２４日にフランスでＣＤデビューすることが決まった。同２６日にはパリで、２８日にはカンヌでライブも開催する。日本では知る人ぞ知る存在の２人が、なぜかフランスでプチブレーク。５月には米国でもＣＤリリースが予定され、ワールドワイドに活躍する。
おしゃれなサウンドに、脱力感あふれるラップを乗せる２人組が、日本より先に海外でチャンスをつかんだ。きっかけになったのはＳＦロボットアニメ「交響詩篇エウレカセブン」。フランスでは日本アニメへの関心が高く、エウレカセブンも放送されるや人気番組の一つになっていた。
０５年１２月発売のシングル「Ｔｉｐ　Ｔａｐｓ　Ｔｉｐ」が同作の主題歌だったことから、ハルカリの名前もフランスで浸透。昨年７月にパリで行われた日本のポップカルチャーを紹介するイベント「第８回ジャパンエキスポ」にも招待された。その際行った無料ライブは約５０００人の観客で埋まる大盛況。「日本の文化を等身大で表現している存在」として、２０件近い海外メディアからの取材申し込みもあり、関係者を驚かせた。
今回、フランスでのリリースが決まったのは、昨年７月に発売された最新アルバム「サイボーグ俺達」。２人はリリースに合わせて渡仏し、２６日にはパリのクラブ「ＱＩＮ　Ｅｌｙｓｅｅｓ」で初の有料ライブを開催。さらに２８日にはカンヌでもライブを行う。
エウレカ人気はアメリカでも高く、５月にシカゴで行われるジャパンカルチャーのイベントでもライブを行うことが決定、さらにＣＤリリースも決まった。もっとも「サイボーグ俺達」の日本でのセールスは２万枚で、まだまだ知る人ぞ知る存在のハルカリ。「初めてデビューして忙しくなりそうな年ですね」と意気込みもユルユルだが、そんな２人が海外で一気にブレーク…するかもしれない。
Halcali's French debut! Two gigs planned for Paris and Cannes.
Yukari (20) and Haruka (19) of the two person unit Halcali , will make their debut CD release in France on the 24th of this month. January will also see them perform twice, on the 26th in France and the 28th in Cannes. Despite only having a small, cult audience in Japan, they have somehow been given a minor break in France. The CD is also scheduled to be released in America in May, increasing their activities worldwide.Having a fashionable sound overflowing with an exhausted rap style, they've now got that shot at success abroad that has eluded them in Japan. This chance was due to their involvement in the science fiction robot-anime Eureka Seven. There is a lot of interest in this Japanese animation in France where it became popular upon being broadcast.
The show featured the single Tip Taps Tip, released in December 2005, as it's theme song, which spread the name Halcali around France. Last year in July they were invited to play at an event designed to promote Japanese pop culture, the 8th Japanese Expo. The free gig they played there attracted 5000 people and was a massive success. As a 'larger than life' exhibition of Japanese culture, the event surprised many by attracting nearly 20 different media outlets who came to cover it.
The scheduled release for France is their most recent album, last years Cyborg Oretachi. To coincide with the release, Halcali will be travelling to France on the 26th of January to play at the Paris club QIN Elysees, which will be their first gig abroad with an entrance fee.

Eureka Seven also has great popularity in America, and so in May Halcali will play at a Japan Culture event in Chicaco, and their album has also been slated for release. That album, Cyborg Oretachi, barely sold 20,000 copies, making them a band still known only to a select few in Japan. They say "We're going to be very busy off the back of this début" full of casual enthusiasm, but will this be a chance for them to gain rapid popularity abroad? Perhaps.

Countdown Japan setlist

2008-01-02T03:08:00.000Z

Happy 2008! That's another year gone by alarmingly fast.

How did you spend the holidays? If you were anything like Halcali, you would have spent it playing at the enormous Countdown Japan festival (which I wrote about here).

Here, courtesy of 2ch, is their set:

サイボーグ俺達 (Cyborg Oretachi)
It's Party Time
ギリギリ・サーフライダー (Giri Giri Surfrider)
二福星 (Nifukusei/2 Lucky Stars)
若草DANCE (Wakakusa Dance)
春狩道～19の夜～ (Halcali Michi)

The poster added that Halcali were more energetic, the crowd more into the gig, than they had seen in a long time. That really looks like a great set, a perfect mix between new and old. I'm so glad they're still doing 2 Lucky Stars (from the limited edition Strawberry Chips single). I love that song!

You can check out some pictures here.

'Cyborg' gets released in Europe

2007-12-28T19:33:00.000Z

Halcali's third, and most recent album, Cyborg Oretachi, will get released in Europe "at the end of January" according to Sony.

To coincide with the release, Halcali will play in Paris again, at the Qin Elysees on the 26th of January.

There is hardly any information about this European release on the site, re: extra tracks, why this isn't coming out in America etc., so for now I think it's fair to assume that it's the same as the Japanese version, only now it should be easier to pick it up in a HMV in Europe.

Any official release outside Japan is good news, and with any luck, a 'Introduction to Halcali' type compilation will follow. With the likes of Crystal Castles getting all kinds of hype, the world needs some of Halcali's early electro-pop now more than ever.

UPDATE: The information seems to have been removed from their official site. I hope this doesn't mean the release and gig have been cancelled. If they have, it's extremely annoying that they consider simply removing the information and treating it as if it never existed a suitable way to tell people about it.

UPDATE 2: False alarm (see above)!

New Song with Yosuke@Home

2007-11-30T06:40:00.000Z

Coming in a bit late with this information but Yukari mentioned working on a new song with Yosuke@Home, a guy who seems to have become a permanent member of Team Halcali.

No real details about the songs content or release, except that they recorded it in Yosuke's home studio, and his mum made them something to eat. How cosy!

I'm still hoping for a good Christmas single to see out the year and to capitalise on all their recent promotional live work. We'll have to wait and see.

Going back to Ongaku No Susume

2007-11-25T07:00:00.000Z

Admittedly, I didn’t much care for Ongaku No Susume when it first came out. I think I can put that down to two reasons, neither of which now sound particularly convincing-

1. I had had waited so long to hear it that my expectations of it had skyrocketed to some ridiculous level.

2. it didn’t exactly sound like the Halcali we were used to.

I mean, whatever people were expecting from this album, I’m sure it wasn’t two six minute ballads, lyrically weightier songs about such un-Halcali things as concern about the future, and absolutely no songs about going to the beach (they wouldn’t go back there until album three).

For all that, the album still roughly follows the same pattern as its predecessor. It starts with a quick opening track (Intro/Introduction), has another one halfway through (Conversation of a Mystery/HISTORY) has two singles one after the next near the start, and then one more near the end. What’s different with Ongaku though, is that on this album they seemed to have stopped 'messing about’, and instead show an honest determination to be taken more seriously. Where Bacon opened with two kids laughing through the opening track, Ongaku replaces them with human beatbox, a “check one, check two” and a fairly straight up attempt at an unaccompanied rap on its own opener Introduction. It's still kinda dumb and kinda fun of course, but there’s an undeniably different feel to this album, and it’s present right from this first track. In fact, the record as a whole feels weightier, more serious, and looking back on it now, considerably more substantial than their pure pop inflected début. It’s a record that’s keen for them to shed their ‘teenage girl’ image and fully intends for them to try to get to grips with a more ‘we’re growing up’ one, a trend that they would continue to develop throughout all their subsequent releases.

Let's not forget of course, that despite all this, Ongaku No Susume still is, at it’s heart, a fun pop album. For those people who have yet to hear a single note of their music, it’s not hard to see how someone might prefer this over Bacon. It’s certainly more of a traditional pop record- it’s more varied than Bacon, it balances upbeat tracks with slower ‘ballad’ type numbers quite well, and generally has a much more accessible style than their debut. The ‘lo-fi’ ish sound that marked their début, those 8-bit bleeps and drum machines that were its hallmark, are almost entirely absent here, and the more solid production means that for the first timer the overall ride is probably going to be much smoother. As such, this album wouldn’t be a bad place for a Halcali newcomer to start.

Ongaku gives Halcali a chance to demonstrate skills they weren't really given the room to on Bacon; and the one that dominates this album the most is that the pairs' greatly matured singing voices are suddenly given a lot more room to breathe. That’s something that the sometimes rather tinny sounding Bacon wasn’t exactly renowned for. They gave it a decent go on the last track, Tsuzuki Mayonaka no Ground, but even there they sounded a bit uncomfortable, like they were unsure of what was expected of them. On the other hand, Ongaku gives them all sorts of material that tests their voices, and numbers like the second track Fuwa Fuwa Brand New and Dentetsu No Futari are tackled with skill and confidence. This makes the earlier claims about maturity in this band not simply confined to lyrical content; the two performers that made this album are artistically leaps and bounds ahead of the two that made Bacon.

It's far from a perfect album of course, and while my appreciation of it has grown a lot over time, I think a few of my original gripes still stand up.

While Bacon featured a number of different producers, they all roughly followed the template O.T.F. established with Tandem. I don’t know what happened exactly, but Ongaku is certainly missing the tight continuity in its sound that was one of the hallmarks of their début. They take credit as producers, but, fuller production aside, they feel almost entirely absent from it. In fact, anyone still after that old(er) school Halcali fix in fact would do well to skip right to the last, classic O.T.F. track Continued.

It isn't particularly pleasant to say, but sometimes Halcali feels like a Rip Slyme summer side project that the creators gave up on after they got bored. They certainly sound tired of the Idol processes on single Marching March. This is an awesome pop song masking a biting commentary of the artificial world of manufactured pop, and indeed they would work on only one more single with Halcali before, as it seems now, letting them go for good. It's frustrating to think how much further Halcali would have gone if they had maintained their partnership with O.T.F., but perhaps that’s a story for another night.

I think the album’s main problem isn’t that O.T.F. didn't contribute more songs to it; it’s that they didn’t seem to expend same effort of keeping it all together as they did with Bacon. This is something that would get noticeably worse on their (totally sans-O.T.F.) third album, but there’s definitely an unevenness here, and while their matured singing voices are welcomed, this album sees the uncomfortable start to two trends that would continue to plague Halcali in their upcoming, post-For Life years; putting them into songs that don't really suit them, and people from bands writing songs for them that just sound like the bands they’re from, aka producers who have no idea what to do with Halcali. Supercar, I’m looking at you (specifically, Oboroge Copy View).

One brilliant exception to this trend is Verbal. Koi No Bububun was a highlight of Cyborg No Oretachi, but it’s on Ongaku that he lays it all out with single Baby Blue! Even now, it’s the heaviest, hardest thing they’ve released and listening again it’s still incredible that such an unconventional pop song was chosen as a single; layering a breakbeat inspired wall of noise over them rapping about unrequited love and Ken Hirai.

Utamaru fared less well on his Cyborg contribution, but here he comes out with an unapologetically fun party number Wakakusa Dance that still a popular live favourite. As to my original comment, "It's got a chorus that could kick down a house"? Well, yes, indeed. As much as I love this song though, a few years on the more unconventional Halcali songs can impress just as much- like their newly energised singing voices on the utterly gorgeous Shibafu. All these songs are a hundred times more interesting than any of those dreary anime tie ins they put out as their early Sony singles.

I've been giving the album a lot of attention over the past couple of weeks, and really you should too! If you liked it the first time, Ongaku No Susume is well worth revisiting again now. If you weren’t too impressed back then, doubly so. As the last thing they released on their old label For Life, in many ways it serves to wrap up that section of their career with both nods to the past, and providing a hint of what was to be their more ‘grown-up’ future.

And that great cover? Well, that turned out to have a story of its own.

Here You Go (4) Ai No Tame Ni

2007-11-03T00:04:00.000Z

Here's Ai No Tame Ni (For Love) the Okuda Tamio cover they did for the Okuda Tamio Covers album.

I like what they've done with this song a lot, perhaps they'll incorporate it into their live set?

Ai No Tame Ni

Live on Bokura No Ongaku

2007-11-02T15:03:00.000Z

UPDATE:

I originally put it up just in case no one else had got it, but that turned out not to be the case. There's a great quality version up at jpopsuki by hikkichan, which renders what I put up (poor Fuji TV reception here) a bit pointless.

Go here and get it instead. Make sure you watch it, it's a great performance!

In case you don't want to, or can't use torrent sites for whatever reason, I uploaded it to DailyMotion.

Halcali - Ai no Tame Ni [BokuOn4 - 2 Nov 2007]

Countdown Japan!

2007-10-23T14:31:00.000+01:00

Halcali will be playing Countdown Japan, a huge festival spanning four days from the 28th to the 31st of December across two locations in Osaka and Tokyo.

Halcali will be performing in the Tokyo half on the 31st.

This festival looks massive, with absolutely everyone from Kimura Kaela to Orange Range to Polysics (one Halcali connection) to Hello Works (another one) to Shonen Knife to Boom Boom Satellites to...well take a look yourself and see. It reads like a who's who of the Japanese rock/pop market.

How good is it to see Halcali alongside those names? Is it too much to hope for a new single before the end of the year to go with it?

Our Music

2007-10-17T09:10:00.001+01:00

Halcali are set to make their first non-cable TV appearance in a while on the 2nd of November.

They will appear on Fuji TV's Bokura No Ongaku (Our Music), singing a "band version" of their cover of Okuda Tamio's Ai No Tame Ni (the recorded version of which I wrote about here).

Check out the hosted-by-something-other-than-youtube video here on the 2nd.

Back in the studio with Schadaraparr/new song

2007-10-08T02:57:00.000+01:00

Schadaraparr, not seen since the Bacon days (Ah, Halcali Sensation!) got together in a kind of mini collaboration with Halcali recently. According to Yukari, they went to the studio where Schadaraparr were recording material under the name Hello Works, a collaboration of their own with Sly Mongoose (Hello Works video here).

Halcali went along to listen and this quickly turned into them recording vocals for them for a song that, naturally, "we can't talk about!"

No news on a release date for the project, but I personally think that we can never have too many Schadaraparr and Halcali collaborations. And if that doesn't interest you for some reason, keep scrolling down the page to see something else we can never have too much of- pictures of dogs wearing wrestling masks.

So after you've saved that picture as your desktop wallpaper, keep moving down to see a bit of information on a new Halcali song they debuted at their recent Shibuya Boxx gig. The song is called Setsunatsu (an Otsukare Summer type pun on the words setsunai (sad) and natsu (summer)).

A future b-side perhaps?

Update: Patrick writes to let us know that the Hello Works album (presumably featuring the Halcali collaboration) is called Payday and will be out on December 5th. (Here's the news on bounce.com)

What gig is this from?

2007-09-19T08:57:00.000+01:00

I came across this clip of Halcali singing Find A Way, from the Strawberry Chips limited edition single.

Any idea what gig this is though?

As good as they do here, I can't help but think that out of all the times I've seen Halcali play live, they've only ever looked 100% comfortable on stage during that gig in France.

Perfume

2007-09-18T08:58:00.000+01:00

A bit of minor Halcali related news, but it looks like Halcali have some fans in the technopop idol band Perfume, as they say in this interview that they'd love to play live with them.

I had heard of this band before, mostly because they were produced by Capsule's Nakata Yasutaka.

Like Halcali, Perfume have that edge to them that makes them both catchyly accessible and slightly offbeat at the same time. Unlike Halcali though, they've been having a lot of chart success recently. This fansite points to their new single Polyrhythm clocking in the top ten!

Anyway, here's a clip of Linear Motor Girl.

Fingers crossed that this collaboration comes about!

Halcali in Marquee (2)

2007-09-10T10:32:00.000+01:00

Here we go with part two!

*******************************************
-All of the producers on this album have their own distinctive styles, with each bringing their own particular specialty into the mix.

Haruka Yes, and we’re so grateful for that. It was so much fun to be able to get to grips with so many different genres.

-As a group, you’ve never shown any resistance to trying new things out have you?

Yukari- No. I just think that that’s the kind of people we are though. Ever since our début we’ve constantly been exposed to a lot of different genres, writing and recording methods.

H Like you said, everyone who works with us has their own personal outlook, and at the end of the day we know they’ll come up with something cool that we’ll love.

-You have a couple of actual bands (Your Song Is Good and Polysics) that worked on this album. Until now you’ve mostly worked with people from the club music side of things, so did you feel there was a big difference working with live bands in the studio?

H There was a huge difference during recording. With a full band in there with you, everything is way more energetic.

Y And it got especially hectic with Polysics.

H And recording with Your Song felt just as crazy as one of their gigs.

Y The Your Song thing came about because we were actually invited to join them on stage at a gig once as guests. It was so much fun everyone was like “We have to do this again sometime!”

- How did you get involved with Kyon (Doo The Hammer)?

H After we heard the Bo Gumbos song Sakana Goko, we thought it was such a cute song that we really wanted something like that on the album.

- That first track is such a good song too.

Y Yeah, I also love how the first voice you hear on the album isn’t ours. When we were deciding on the track listing, we knew immediately that this should be first.

- There are a few people on this album who you’ve worked with a few times before right?

H Yes, this is the fifth time around for Nathalie Wise!

Y I remember the first time we worked with them though (Bacon’s Hello Hello Alone), I wasn’t too sure…

H Yeah. I was thinking “Bikke, how are we supposed to sing this?” I thought it was a cool song, but totally different from what we were used to.

Y Back then, I didn’t really like that song that much. I love it now, of course. Ramrider (Halcali Michi) was a lot of fun to work with too. As an artist he’s very mature, but at the same time he was so easy to talk to, working together felt like hanging out with a friend more our age.

H Maybe he was worried about us being bored or something, because he brought manga to the studio for us to read!

Y He probably thought it’d give us something more to talk about

-How about Verbal? Koi No Bububun is a gorgeous song, but I couldn’t believe the lyrics!*1

Y Yeah, I laughed out loud when I first read them! I wasn’t expecting him to come up with anything like that. We kind of coerced Verbal into letting us use this track actually. We heard a rumour that he had made a ‘Halcali-esque’ song, so we sought him out and asked him about it. In the end he was like “this is no good for M-Flo, but it will be perfect for you”.

- How sweet!

Y Yeah, you can really feel the love!

H And the second time recording with Utamaru (Drivers License) went pretty smoothly too didn’t it.

Y Yeah it did, and this time out he wanted to produce a track at a higher level than the one before and take Halcali to the next step, and we both invited people to help record the song with that in mind.

-You’re becoming more and more like ‘musicians’ as you go.

H We’re honoured to hear that!

Y And we were able to get into Marquee this time too! When we make and promote a new album, it's exciting to get to meet so many new people.

-Are you going to be playing more gigs? It’d be great if we could hear this stuff live.

Y Yeah it would, but I wonder if we’ll get the chance? (laughs) Of course it’d be great if we got to perform live again sometime.

- Finally, can you tell us something about your hopes for the future?

H/Y- Our what?!

Y Our hopes…? OK, so making this album and making music with so many people has really got me interested in the idea of us trying to write music ourselves. I think we’ll need a lot of help doing it, but I really want to try.

H That’s right. Making this album made me realize simple things like how much fun it is to be able to play an actual instrument yourself. I want to try different recording methods, and I really want to play an instrument on record again.

-OK, let’s wrap it up here.

H/Y Thank you!

*******************************************************
*1 After I read this I got the lyric book out and had another look at what Verbal had written. I found a good translation and explanation of part of the song over at On Haku To Myaku, but basically the lyrics aren't a million miles away from Bacon's Otsukare Summer, except instead of the beach, the girl in the song is taking a drive with a guy who's probably got more than driving on his mind. I actually found the lyrics to Otsukare Summer far more surprising than these,　but perhaps Verbal is known for being a bit more of a serious rapper.

Apart from that, the thing I was most surprised and happy to read in this second part was the part about Halcali wanting to write their own music. Since they've already been writing lyrics, this would seem to be the next logical step.

Halcali contribute track to Okuda Tamio tribute album

2007-08-26T08:14:00.000+01:00

Two tribute albums to Okuda Tamio, ユニコーン・トリビュート (Unicorn Tributes) and 奥田民生・カバーズ (Okuda Tamio Covers) will go on sale October 24th, to mark the 20 year recording anniversary of the Unicorn, and after they split up, solo artist.

Halcali have recorded the track 愛のために (For Love) for the Okuda Tamio Covers record, alongside artists such as Puffy (who he also produced), Glay and Kimura Kaela (take a look at the full line-up here).

Here's the man himself performing the song Halcali have covered. I have no idea what Halcali will do with this, but it sounds like it should be fun!

Halcali in Marquee (1)

2007-08-24T06:07:00.000+01:00

Was it difficult making this album?

Yukari The album took a pretty long time to finish overall, with each song coming in slowly one by one. But it felt like we only had a month or so to get the actual recording done

I see. So is it OK if we use this interview to look back on Halcali’s past a little bit?

Haruka Sure, no problem. Let’s go (laughs)

So, looking back, what do you think of the Halcali who made Halcali Bacon and Ongaku No Susume?

H Well…they were terrible (laughs)

Y Yes, terrible. I mean us by that, not the music. If you think the music is good, the reason for that is that everyone around us was so good, and they just made Halcali that way. Meanwhile, all we did around that time was mess about playing games in the studio (laughs). We totally left everything up to them.

H We didn’t really have an opinion or any ideas in regard to the music one way or another. It was fun, but we eventually realized that you can’t act like we were doing forever.

It was fun working with so many people right from the start though, right?

Y Yes but, unlike now, back then we really had no idea who anyone was. We met Mr. Tanaka (Fantastic Plastic Machine) and just thought that he was some fat old guy in the studio. Then afterward we found out about everything he had made, which was amazing, and from there we made sure to really pay attention to who was around us. We were really clueless back then! But we know who's who now, and it's made everything a lot more enjoyable.

I just watched some of your old PV’s again from, the ones with the great dancing from when you were kids (laughs). Compared to what you were doing then, you do a lot more actual singing now. What do you think about that?

Y I think it’s just a natural progression.

Back when you first started though, some people quickly accused you of sounding like you were just lazily ‘phoning it in’…

H Yes, we were told that a few times too.

Y But I just thought “How can you think that? We don’t sound that way at all!”

H Yeah, quite the opposite in fact. When I listen to Tandem now, I can just hear the sound of us giving it 100% on it.

Y Yeah but, thinking about it, maybe some things were a little rushed. It was like this; we got the rap and the lyrics, listened, and then immediately put it down on tape that same day. We barely had any time to practice it or even get used to the songs ourselves before O.T.F declared it was finished. O.T.F never let us do another take! (laughs) They said “It sounds better and more natural if you don’t sound too rehearsed”.

So you thought you were trying your best, but everyone else thought you were half assing it. Didn’t that bother you at all?

Y Not really. “So you think we’re like that? Whatever”.

H I think there were a lot more people in the same line of work as us trying a lot harder though. So if you compared them to what we were like then, maybe we wouldn’t come out looking too good (laughs)

You weren’t actually rappers to start of with, right?

Y Not at all, no. We were practising to be dancers. I wasn’t listening to hip hop and had never rapped before. Even now I sometimes think “how on earth did we get that audition [with O.T.F]?”

H Yeah, I knew Schadaraparr from Ponkikies but that’s about it.*1

When did you first realize that you had to stop playing those games in the studio? (laughs)

Y Hmm, when was it? Maybe just before the release of the 2^nd album?

H No, it was after we had finished it (laughs)

Y After?! Well, our first two albums were both entirely produced by O.T.F. But they decided to take a break this time so we were left to do everything ourselves. So maybe there are some obvious differences between this album and the old ones because of that. We chose the songs that were the most fun, colourful songs to sing, and tried to put together an album that was at least consistently strong and energetic throughout.

*1 (Schadaraparr, who wrote Ah, Halcali Sensation on Halcali Bacon, wrote one of the opening theme songs, 大人になっても (Even As An Adult), for the long running Fuji TV children’s programme Ponkikies.)

*********************************************

Again, the honesty is great on their part. It's hard to imagine a lot of bands in their position being so open about their own shortcomings, and laying bare a lot of the aspects of production that manufactured bands often try to cover up (re: their lack of involvement in the creative process). It certainly sounds like they are happy to leave the old Halcali behind, and with more personal involvement from them now- in terms of both album production and lyric writing- it's not hard to understand why.

In case anyone judges Halcali too harshly on some of their comments, especially regarding their antics in the recording studio and their ignorance of their producers, remember that they were only junior high school students when Tandem came out, although it makes you think just how much of the brilliance of those early records was down to those two guys from Rip Slyme.

The other thing that's been bothering me a little are these comments about people apparently criticising Halcali's early work by saying that they sounded like they weren't making an effort. They brought it up both in this interview and the What's In? one before, and they seem as confused as I am about it. Their vocal efforts on Bacon are solidly consistent from beginning to end, and of course I don't buy their self depreciating claims that Halcali themselves had little to do with how it turned out. Listen to a track like Otsukare Summer for example- considering this was not only their first experience in a recording studio, it was also their first experience with rap- they fly through the fast, demanding beat effortlessly; and their obvious talents now seem even more impressive given the comments about O.T.F barely giving them any rehearsal time.

But being 15, and working incredibly hard on your first album only to be told that some people think you half assed your way through it must have been difficult.

As always, sorry about the quality of the pictures. I wonder if they're supposed to be sat inside the cockpit of the Pink Mouse?

Here You Go (3) Halcali and Kuchiroro

2007-08-23T07:51:00.000+01:00

Here's Halcali's guest appearance on the new Kuchiroro album Golden Love, singing Cosmic Dance.
It's a Halcali song in all but name though; this track could have come straight off Cyborg.

Take a listen, and let us know what you think!

Cosmic Dance.mp3

The time limit expired on the file and it has been removed. Just leave a comment if you want it uploaded again.

Halcali in Marquee

2007-08-22T12:59:00.000+01:00

Halcali feature in another special pull out magazine this month, this time in Marquee #62. They talk about Cyborg, and also talk with Polysics' Hayashi (who wrote the title track on their new album). I'll get to work on it right after I've finished the What's In? article.

There's been a decent burst of publicity for Halcali recently, what with this, that What's In? feature, and their guest appearance on the new Kuchiroro album, which came out today (I'll get around to that quite soon too).

All we need now is for Sony to put out a new single in the next few months before people start to forget about them again...

*****************

I had a read through the interview and there's a lot of good, quite open talk in it from Halcali, particularly regarding their early For Life records. One thing I've always liked about Halcali is their honest, no bullshit approach to talking about what they do and the industry that they're in, and that usually comes with a bit of humble self depreciation which I love too.

So I'm going to get to this as soon as possible. Right after I've bought that Kuchiroro album in fact.

Halcali in What's In? (2)

2007-08-12T08:59:00.001+01:00

Here's the next part from the Halcali pull out magazine from What's In? #242. It's commentary from Haruka and Yukari on their For Life releases. The commentary doesn't extend to anything they've done on Sony, perhaps because those single releases were already covered in Halcali's track by track commentary on their new album which was also featured in the magazine (and which I'll get to next).

It's described as 'commentary', but as you might expect each entry is quite brief. Although it's a shame that they aren't given the space to go into a bit more depth about these early releases, there is still the odd anecdote or two that you might find interesting.

************************************************

1st single Tandem 2003/01/08

Back then some people said that the problem with this song was that we sounded lazy, like we weren’t trying, but how could anyone think that? We sang our hearts out on it. I mean, we were only in Junior High School at the time! On the day it was released, a friend of ours played the song over the speakers during lunch time. I was embarrassed, but grateful. (Haruka)

2nd single Electric Sensei 2003/04/09

It’s kind of about having a good relationship between student and teacher. It’s set in school, so it’s a bit hard for us to relate to it now. This is the time when we were always playing games and wearing our voices out before we went into the studio. That’s what we were like back then! (Yukari)

3rd single Giri Giri Surf Rider 2003/07/09

This song gave us out first TV appearance. (Haruka)
It was for a programme broadcast on the BBC in England (Adam and Joe Go Tokyo). I love the video, it’s the first time we made a ‘story’ to go with the music. (Yukari)

1st album Halcali Bacon 2003/09/03

I love the song Hello Hello Alone. I still cry listening to it now! (Yukari).
For me it’s Ah Halcali Sensation. “Okachan, Troussier, Zico, Zico” The lyrics are really tied into that era. It’s like, “we’ve got Osim now!”*1 (Haruka)

4th single Strawberry Chips 2003/11/26

The limited edition release had 2 extra tracks, and they’re such good songs. They haven’t been released anywhere else! (Yukari)
I really want people to listen to Slalom ’03. It’s a great tag team up between Halfby and Kohei Japan! (Haruka)

5th single Marching March 2004/06/09

This song is really popular with the fans. DJ Non’s acting is great in the video! (Yukari)
The lyrics grapple with some bigger ideas in this song then what we were used to. I like the way it kind of looks down from above, and gives you another perspective [on idol culture]. (Haruka)

Compilation Makogoro Covers 2004/09/01

I love this song, and for about a year we always closed our set with it, even though it’s not even one of our own!(Yukari)

6th single Baby Blue 2004/10/20

This is the first song we made with Verbal (the second being Cyborg’s Koi No Bububun). It has a sample from Boowy’s B-Blue. It’s magnificent! (Yukari)
The raps that Verbal wrote were really fast. So fast in fact that I was tripping over myself repeatedly trying to get it right. I got used to his style eventually, but it was difficult. (Haruka)

2nd album Ongaku No Susume 2004/11/24

This album featured our first guest singers in Utamaru (Wakakusa Dance) and Tanigawa Shuntaro (Shibafu). History features my grandfather and Haruka’s grandmother too! (Yukari)
My favourite song is probably Densetsu No Futari. It’s got such a cute, gentle feel to it. (Haruka)

************************************************************

I don't want to go back over my list of usual Sony complaints, but just glancing down that discography it's obvious that For Life took a lot better care of Halcali than their currant label. Their first three singles released about three months apart then their first album right after- it's not hard to see how a label should go about trying to maintain their bands' popularity and exposure.

In case you forgot, there was about a one year gap between Baby Blue! and Tip Taps Tip, then another 11 month gap between Twinkle Star and LOOK.

Anyway, I really liked that anecdote about their friend playing Tandem over the school speakers. Reading the comments on Electric Sensei though makes me wonder if they'll ever perform it live again.

*1 As I'm sure you know, the Okachan, Troussier, Zico, Zico line in Ah, Halcali Sensation is a reference to the last three managers of the Japanese national football team (Okachan is Takeshi Okada). Their currant manager is Ivica Osim.

Halcali Michi fan remix

2007-08-11T04:45:00.000+01:00

Here's a fan made remix of Cyborg's last track Halcali Michi 19 No Yoru, which takes the already house-esque beat and makes it a bit more...house?

I'd love to hear this in a club, personally. Anyway, you can get it here.

Thanks to Susi!

Halcali shirts on e-bay

2007-08-08T04:40:00.000+01:00

Have you ever been to Hong Kong? I went over there for a few days, but now I'm back I should have the rest of the What's In interview, amongst other things, up pretty soon.

In the meantime, sora kara has found an auction on e-bay selling Halcali t-shirts! They come in small, medium and large, and carry the Halcali logo on the front. The seller has 39 for sale. I have no idea if they're official or not (I'm going to assume they aren't), but they're pretty nice all the same!

**********
Sora Kara sent in a couple of pictures of herself modelling the t-shirts, here and here. While I can't assess the quality of the actual fabric, I like the print a lot.

Cyborg on Oricon

2007-07-28T05:38:00.000+01:00

Those of you who like numbers might be interested to know that Cyborg Oretachi made it to number 49 on the Oricon album chart.

Which, considering their recent performances in the singles chart, isn't too bad at all!

Halcali in What's In? (1)

2007-07-27T10:55:00.000+01:00

Here's the first part of the interview that appeared in the August 2007 issue of What's In magazine. I'll try to get the rest of it up soon (including pictures). Here we go then...

*******************************

-This is the first album we’ve had in a while

HARUKA- I’m glad we could finally put the third album out at last. But unlike previous releases, trying to decide what order to put the songs in was incredibly difficult this time.

YUKARI- Because the putting together, and production of our old albums was all handled by O.T.F. We didn’t have them this time, and the songs were just written and recorded separately one by one by a lot of different people. So when we had to put it all together at the end it was like “There’s a lot of songs that fade out isn’t there?” or “These songs don’t really go together that well”. So we just sat down and talked about it, eventually deciding on a track list that made the album move along in ‘waves’, balancing slower songs with more up tempo ones.

-This is the first time you’ve been involved in the creation of an album in this way right?

Y- Yes, so it was a lot of fun. But at the same time, putting it together really gave us a true taste of the pains of life (laughs).

H- Compared to our other albums, this was by far the most difficult to make.

- Comedian Kendo Kobayashi makes an appearance on the first track Doo The Hammer. It’s funny that his (a male) voice is the first thing you hear when playing the album.

Y- Yes, it is (laughs). Speaking personally, this track, the first on the album, is one that I really pushed myself to try hard on. Kobayashi's voice should hopefully giving those people who try it out in record shops an interesting first impression.

-So, you press the start button, and…

Y- “What? Who's this guy?!” (laughs) But what he says really sums up the whole meaning of the album in a nutshell.*1

-Compared to your previous albums, was there any real changes or differences with this one?

Y- We wrote a lot more of the lyrics this time. On the last album it was just Utamaru’s Wakakusa Dance, but this time it was like “should we write some more?”, “well sure, why not?”.

H- We contributed to the lyrics of 4 songs this time.

Y- Even though a long time was spent in total on getting the whole album finished, we were hardly given any time at all to finish writing the lyrics. We nearly blew a fuse trying to meet the deadline. Haruka was even having dreams about it.

H- I was crying “I can’t write it! I can’t write it!” in my sleep.

-There seems to be more emphasis on singing (over rapping) on this album.

Y- That’s right. And a lot more of the singing was recorded live too, like on Doo The Hammer, Fessu and Tougenkyo for example. That’s probably because there were only a few producers from the 'hip hop village' working on this record. As a result, I think this one’s probably a bit easier to listen to, or maybe it has a more intimate sound than the others.

-The title track (Cyborg Oretachi) is really powerful.

Y- I think out of all the songs we’ve recorded up to now, this one has the fastest pace.

- And we can hear you two playing guitar for the first time too.

Y- Haruka goes first, I’m second. Hayashi-san said to us suddenly, “Just pick up a guitar and give it a go”, to which our response was “er…what?!”.

H- We said “but we can’t play!” but he just said “yes, I know” (laughs)

-So even though you just hit it at random you managed to fit in perfectly with the rhythm of the track. It sounds like a miracle (laughs).

H- Yeah, but I’m just happy that our very first attempt at playing the guitar got released to the public! I don’t think I’ll be doing it again though, I think I'll just keep it as this one, precious experience (laughs).

-The song Halcali Michi really shows your determination to be involved in the songwriting process. You wrote the lyrics for the rap part of this song.

Y- This is probably the song we wrote most seriously for. Ramrider said to us “You have some problems or worries in your life don’t you? Write about those,” and I thought “Well no, not really…”. I had a pretty hard time writing it.

H- The theme of the song we were given felt quite big. We were told to think along the kind of ‘Even if you hit a wall in life, you just have to keep on trying’ lines with the lyrics. But we’ve never really had any experience with anything like that. We’re the type of people who just wouldn’t notice the wall in the first place and would just sail right past it.

Y- Lyrically, in the end I suppose the content of the song is kind of an approximation of where Halcali is right now. I’ll turn 20 on the day the album is released, but the song was written on a night when we were both 19, and as well as being the actual last track, it was the last song to be finished for the album, so it also has the feeling of wrapping everything that we’ve done up until now up. It carries a ‘We’re going to continue to keep giving it our all, but at the same time we don’t know what’s coming up next’ kind of meaning.

*************************************************

As usual with these kinds of interviews, the content was quite light (good to see them unafraid to get some of their own complaints out there though), but I wonder if Yukari didn't inadvertently get to the core of the problems I have with this album; namely that it's missing an 'O.T.F' type figure to guide it. Now, this didn't need to have been O.T.F specifically (although that would have been great obviously), but it was crying out for someone to sit down and take the Total Produced By credit, to say to all these random producers who are floating in and out of the studio "OK, the song after yours sounds like this, and the overall mood of the album is going to be like this, so you might want to write your song a little bit more like this".

What happens when there is no one around, from the start, who has an idea for the album to guide everyone who will work on it is what happened on Cyborg Oretachi- a bunch of dislocated material with no real focus and almost no continuity between tracks. This is the heart of Yukari's problem- you simply cannot make an album in this random, aimless way and expect the results to be in any way decent or cohesive.

Personally, I thought they had the perfect post O.T.F candidate who could fill in those Total Produced By shoes already in i-dep's Hiroshi Nakamura. His recent b-side contributions to Halcali's back catalogue would make a great mini-album in themselves- 'forward thinking' while still retaining an idea of what made Halcali so great in the first place.

Like Yukari, I don't know what's coming up next for Halcali either, but I really think they need another 'O.T.F', badly.

*1 Here's what Kobayashi says:

これは「心の中のハンマー」についてのSTORY
つまり「想像力」についての大切なMESSAGE

This is a story about the hammer that is in our hearts
In other words, it’s a message about the importance of the power of imagination.

Reviews (9) Cyborg Oretachi

2007-07-19T15:47:00.000+01:00

Speaking as a Halcali fan, the last year hasn't exactly been easy. I still remember waking up early one Sunday morning to catch a preview of their then new Sony single Tip Taps Tip on Eureka Seven. It was a shocking lesson in not getting your hopes up, as so much patient expectation was met with what at the time easily ranked as their most timid and mediocre releases (little did I know their was worse to come). Disappointing, you might say.

What has happened since then can probably be best described as frustrating; Tip Taps Tip, which I came down hard upon at the time, was followed by the block busting Twinkle Star, which despite it's abysmal chart showing was a marvellous single, containing almost everything I loved about Halcali in the first place. Again, my hopes went up.

Then straight back down again with the release of the criminally weak LOOK, and of course you know how the rest of the story goes. The reason why I mention this is that their third album seems to have taken this feeling of frustration, compressed it into sound and burnt it onto a CD. Whenever you start to feel like the album is going up, they find a way to bring it back down, and even after one listen it's hard to ignore the feeling of discontentment, and yes, disappointment.

I mean, just look at the track listing again. Frankly, having nearly half of a relatively short album be comprised of old material just isn't good enough. I know it's the industry standard to do such things, but there's just something irritatingly lazy about it- even worse when you try to mask the fact of what you've done by sticking the words SPECIAL EDITION next to one of those old singles, only to reveal that it is in fact little more than the radio edit! It makes an already short album feel even shorter, and puts the weight of it's success or failure almost entirely on the shoulders of the 6 tracks worth of new material that's on here.

Right then. The first 15 minutes of this album are fantastic. Opening track Doo The Hammer is actually a full, proper song, unlike the 'introduction' type skits that opened their previous two. It's a great start too- with the vocals pushed right to the front, it falls under that brilliant rapping/singing hybrid they do so well, with a sweet chorus that sneaks up on you and stays with you. It reminds me a bit of those great b-sides Hiroshi Nakamura was putting out- the perfect mix between older 'goofy' For Life Halcali and newer 'grown up' Sony Halcali.
Even better, it picks up and even improves the following track, their last single It's Party Time. I was never sure about that as a choice for a single, but it flows out of Hammer almost as if in one continuous beat; the two compliment each other perfectly.
Even better is the next track, Koi No Bunbunbun. I'm putting this down as not only my favourite song on the album, but also as one of my favourites full stop. They haven't made nearly enough songs like this recently- a pop song with a brilliant synthesised bass loop, a simple, maddeningly catchy chorus and that overall unusual sense of Halcali-ness that some producers can bring out and some just can't (and this album has both types).
This track is followed by Twinkle Star, and despite the two tracks clashing a little (another problem the album predictably has, but we'll come to that later), I still take my hat off to one of the best j-pop singles of the last year, and it wraps up a solid, 4 track opening for the album.

Then things start to come unstuck.

Again, I think the trouble ultimately comes down to the fact that this album has too many singles, and singles that weren't particularly strong to start with. So like I said, we look to the remaining 6 songs worth of new material to make or break it. I would say that three (possibly four) make the cut; the two mentioned above and the Polysics title track.
OK, so Cyborg Oretachi sounds exactly like a Polysics song, but it's still got that catchy electronic beep beep beep that seems to go together with Halcali so well, and a hardcore rap in the middle. After the double hum drum hit of endless lover's rain and LOOK Special Edition (rolls eyes) it sounds even better, with a surprisingly discordant "guitar battle" at the end between Haruka and Yukari.

It's not enough though. Remember when Halcali first signed to Sony and they came out with that awful press release shot where they looked just like harmless MTV R'n'B stalwarts The Heartdales? One thing I was grateful for was that, whatever happened to Halcali this year, they didn't go down that route. That is, at least, until track 8 on this album, Driver's Licence. It's the absolute worst kind of blandly inoffensive, production line R'n'B, and Halcali should never have been allowed to waste their time on it. I have no love for LOOK, but this is one of the worst songs they've ever released. It's utterly soulless. Skip.

I don't know what's going on with Fessu De Ouissu either, except that, even after listening to it 5 times, I still can't remember a single note of it. I have heard enough of producers Your Song Is Good though, to know that it just sounds like a weak YSIG song. What is it with these producers? Both these guys and Polysics have basically released, what, abandoned studio tracks from their last albums? I hope that isn't true. There really isn't much to say for this song in any case.

Just look back on the last few tracks though, LOOK, followed by a weird electronic dance track followed by a rank and file R'n'B number followed by some kind of cod reggae track. Even a novice producer must have looked at that tracklisting and thought "this won't work". And it doesn't. The album feels exactly like what it is- a lot of singles padded with filler. It's even less cohesive than Ongaku, which suffered from a similar problem (although I'm getting more and more tempted to go back and give that album a second, long look).

Despite coming up with a fairly decent closing number in Harukari Michi (which, like Driver's Licence, they had a hand in writing the lyrics for), after track 4 on this album the smile pretty much goes from my face, reappearing only sporadically. I'll sum it up like this, starting from track 5 through to track 12- not bad I suppose (a grower?), skip, good song, skip, skip, OK single, skip, good song.

So, again, frustration. Tracks like Koi No Bunbunbun show their potential for greatness, while at the same time, lazy rubbish like Driver's Licence brings it back down.

It Tip Taps Tip all over again- a long, long wait for something that, in the end, really struggles to deliver.

ONE DAY LATER...

I gave this album about four listens before writing the above. I realise that I deserve to give them much more than that. I'm going to stay with this new album for a week, then come back to it. Please, if you haven't listened to the album yet, or are new to Halcali and thinking of trying them out, don't let what I wrote above discourage you!

Halcali in What's In?

2007-07-17T10:16:00.000+01:00

There's a great pull out Halcali booklet included in August's What's In? magazine, including everything from The History of Halcali through to track by track Cyborg comments by the girls.

I'll be able to get a full transcript up in a day or so, but here's something until then: apparently Halcali play guitar on the Polysics produced Cyborg Oretachi! Apparently, being unable to play the guitar wasn't a hindrance to Polysics' Hayashi, who just told them to hit it. Based on the preview and live clip I've seen, it sounds mental, and Yukari describes it as one of the most upbeat they've recorded.

As if you needed reminding, the album is out tomorrow!

Vaguely related update: I'm just going to buy my copy now, and checking the Tower.jp website, it looks like copies stocked in Tower come with a free sticker. Something to keep in mind if you're in Japan and haven't picked up a copy yet.

Official site cyborgs

2007-07-13T09:46:00.000+01:00

The official site has been redone in a new Cyborg flavour to match next weeks (next week!) new album release. I have to admit that the plastic-y 1980's toy look is growing on me.

You can also listen to brief previews of each song over there too (Internet Explorer only, I think). Although to be honest, they're too short to give any decent impression of what the actual songs are like, so you might want to wait until your copy of the album arrives so you can properly appreciate each new song as it comes. Not long to wait now...

Pictures of Halcali at the Japan Expo

2007-07-11T15:19:00.000+01:00

Hasuko sent in these excellent pictures taken at Halcali's Japan Expo gig. メルシー!

This gig looked like being so much fun! The live guitar's a great touch. Fingers crossed for something happening over here sooner rather than later.

Thanks again to Hasuko!

And here's a great quality video of Tip Taps Tip from the gig (thanks to Ludovic!).
And another (Shibafu)!
Here's Twinkle Star (thanks to ica ross for this). What do you make of the added guitar on this track?
spikeur (the "guy in a hat" above) took some great pictures of his own. To anyone who went to the signing, did you have to buy something there first to get them to sign it?
Here's a review of the gig.

Halcali on new Kuchiroro album

2007-07-11T14:45:00.000+01:00

Halcali will be making an appearance on Kuchiroro's (口ロロ) new album Golden Love, due out August 22nd. They'll be singing, or dancing, or doing something awesome on the track Cosmic Dance.

Here's Golden King off the album. I was probably going to get it just for the Halcali track anyway, but I really like this (there's even a spot on Nas sample at the end)! I can imagine them cooking up something special together.

Thanks to anne!

Halcali in France

2007-07-09T09:44:00.000+01:00

As you were probably aware, Halcali played at the Japan Expo in Paris, France. Thankfully, an anonymous reader (please leave a name!) was able to go and share their thoughts. I'll just block quote their comment here. If anyone else went along, please share your impressions of the gig with us!

i just came from the concert. i was surprised because they performed with a guitar player. they rocked more than ever! they played a couple of new songs, 'cyborg ore-tachi' being the first one. it sounds very halcali, very polysics, very electro, very pop, very perfect. the other ones were stormers as well, i think one of them was the ram rider one (Harukarimichi-jariten). the next album will be miles better than 'ongaku no susume', i'm sure. i was already kind of hyped, but now i'm über-extra-hyped!
they also played 'twinkle star', 'shibafu', 'tip taps tip', 'girigiri surf rider' and 'densetsu no futari' as an encore, though not in that order, i have memory flaws, sorry.

it was kind of short, but intense, my only gripe was the venue. it sounded wonderful (and i mean it) BUT IT WAS SEATED! i mean, a halcali concert seated, it was a nonsense.

Sounds like it was an excellent gig, and a good mix in the set between lively and subdued. Shame about the seating though. Now, if only they would do such gigs in Japan.

Also, worth noting is Halcali's latest blog entry. How good does this sound?

５日から、おフランスのパリ～に来ております。HALCALI、ヨースケ＠HOME、DJ GOTAN(DigiCut)
今日、ポンピドゥーセンターというところで初のストリートライブを決行しました。
上の写真はそのときの様子。
勝手にハーモニカを吹いて参加してくるおじさんや、勝手に踊りだすおじいさんとジャムリつつ・・・、アコースティックバージョンで、new album「サイボーグ俺達」の中から「endless loveｒ's rain」や「look」などを披露しました。立ち止まって聴いてくれたお客さんがヨースケのギターケースにお金を投げ入れてくれました。

メルシー。

１時間弱の演奏で、26ユーロものお金が集まりました＾＾

We've been in Paris since the 5th with Yusuke@home and DJ Gotan. Today, we did our first ever street performance infront of the Pompidou Centre. The picture above shows us in action!
We ended up jamming with a couple of old guys, one who just jumped in playing the harmonica, and another who got up and started to dance.
From Cyborg Oretachi we played endless lover's rain and Look and so on on acoustic guitar. A few people who stopped to watch on their way past threw money into Yusuke's guitar case.

Merci...

We made 26 Euros in an hour!

I'd pay money to see that. I wonder if anyone caught it on camera?

UPDATE (S)-

Here's some videos on YouTube of the gig. I've not had time to go through them yet, but it looks like a good chunk, if not all of the gig is up there. This one's kind of cute too.

Here's a great video of the gig from florent carayol!

Here's some blurb from Sony

HALCALIは8日にライブで登場しました。
そこでナント！5000人にも及ぶ総立ちの観客の前でアンコールを含め、熱狂の堂々のライブを披露しました。その後のサイン会には数百人に人々がつめかけ、会場終了時間の7時を大きくおして
7時45分すぎまで約2時間近くもＣＤを購入したファンのサインに応えました。

Halcali took to the stage on the 8th. They put on a show, including an encore, in front of a crowd of over 5000 wildly enthusiastic Halcali fans!
After that is was time to start signing autographs, and there were so many hundreds of people crowding round them that they had to push the closing time of the venue from 7 to 7:45pm, and in the end Halcali were putting signatures to their fans' CD's for close to 2 hours.

Cyborg Oretachi cover(s)

2007-07-03T09:14:00.000+01:00

The one on the left is for the regular edition, the one on the right is for the limited DVD edition.

Although the size of these images from the Sony website means that it's difficult to get a good look at them, I have to say that my first impressions aren't that great. It's not that that pink mouse (?) robot thing looks just the wrong side of phallic, it's more that it's just kind of ugly.

I do like the idea that the limited edition CD gets a slightly different (and fairly funny) variation on the original though.

Also, from looking at that site, it seems like the very early pressings will come with a sticker which will give you a chance of winning a t-shirt. It doesn't specifically mention that you have to order the album through the site to get that sticker, but I'm assuming that's the case.

Anyway, thoughts on the cover (s)?

Thanks to sora kara!

I don't know if this is accurate, but...

2007-06-30T09:22:00.000+01:00

I just read on 2ch that It's Party Time only made it to (or is currently at, shall we say) #139.

Can anyone confirm this?

UPDATE

Yes. Sadly, unbelievably, it's true.

Thanks to amj.

Halcali on Myspace

2007-06-30T02:45:00.000+01:00

You might have seen an old Halcali page on Myspace. It was obviously not made by them, so I never paid it any attention. Anyway, now Patrick lets us know that Halcali has an official Myspace page, complete with blog entries in English.

It's actually encouraged me to have another go at Myspace. Too many things put me off originally and I stopped, but I've just been back and uploaded a picture and tried to write something on my profile.

Anyone else on there?

It's Party Time on Music Japan

2007-06-25T12:44:00.000+01:00

Here's Halcali performing the new single on NHK's Music Japan. I actually missed this myself (it's on in the middle of the night for some reason), so I'm glad someone else got it up. The quality of the footage is pretty bad, but you get the idea. Not sure about the munchkins though, and is that Halcali's regular DJ, DJ Non? I can't make his face out through all the pixels.

Which reminds me, YouTube canned my account. I guess it's two copyright infringements and you're out over there.

UPDATE

Risa ripped a superior copy, available right here.

Album three announced! (again)

2007-06-20T01:49:00.000+01:00

I never really took to Drive My Dreams as an album title anyway, it reminded me too much of a Volkswagon advert.

Thankfully then, the real title of Halcali’s third album is サイボーグ俺達 (Cyborg Ore-tachi/We, the Cyborgs), due out July 18th. Anyone who knows a bit of Japanese will know that the word “ore”, meaning “me” is a slightly vulgar personal pronoun used only by men.

Tracklist:

1. Doo THE HAMMER! (Producer: Dr.kyOn)
2. It’s PARTY TIME! (Producer: Fantastic Plastic Machine)
3. 恋のブブブン (Koi No Bububun/The Vroom Vroom Vroom of Love. Producer: Unknown)
4. Twinkle Star (Producer: O.T.F)
5. endless lovers rain (Producer Natalie Wise)
6. LOOK (special edition) (Producer: Yusuke Tanaka)
7. サイボーグ俺達 (Cyborg Ore-tachi/We, The Cyborgs. Producer: Polysics)
8. ドライバーズ・ライセンス (Drivers Licence. Producer: Utamaru)
9. フェスでウィッス！(Fessu De Ouissu. Producer: Your Song Is Good)
10. 桃源郷 (Tougenkyo/Paradise. Producer: Honesty)
11. Tip Taps Tip (Producer: Yusuke Tanaka)
12. 春狩道～19の夜～(Harukarimichi 19 No Yoru/19 Nights on Halcali Road. Producer: Ramrider)

(These English translations are mine, perhaps the English half of the Halcali site will knock out something official soon. I'm still not sure about track 9. French?! A Google search for Ouissu came up with this Japanese Live Journal type site. フェス means "festival")

The limited edition version of the album will come with a DVD containing the following PV’s and Making Of clips:

1. Tip Taps Tip
2. Twinkle Star
3. LOOK
4. 桃源郷
5. It’s PARTY TIME!It’s PARTY TIME! MAKING

Press Release (taken from the official site) :

エピック移籍後待望のニューアルバムが遂に完成！！エピック移籍後、シングル5枚をリリースしてきたHALCALI。前作から2年7ヶ月ぶりとなる待望のアルバムが遂にリリースリリース！！アルバムプロデューサーには、O.T.F、宇多丸(RHYMESTER)、ナタリーワイズ、HONESTY、Fantastic Plastic Machineら彼女達の作品には欠かせないアーティストは勿論の事、Dr.kyOn(ex BO GUMBOS)、RAMRIDER、YOUR SONG IS
GOOD、POLYSICSらも参加！！更にはゲストミュージシャンとしてスカパラホーンズ(GAMO、NARGO、北原雅彦)、そしてそして、何とケンドーコバヤシまでもがアルバムに参加！！この夏のマストアイテムになる事間違いなし！！【初回生産限定盤】DVD付き2枚組(先行シングル5曲分のミュージックビデオを収録)。

The first album they’ve made since the move to Epic Records has finally been finished! We can’t wait for this one!
Halcali has released 5 singles since they changed labels to Epic Records. It’s been 2 years and 7 long months since their last album, and now at last the new one we have so many expectations for is finally here! Featuring production work from O.T.F, Utamaru (RHYMESTER), Natalie Wise, HONESTY, and Fantastic Plastic Machine, along with these other artists who the girls just couldn’t have done without- Dr.kyOn (ex Bo Gumbos), Ramrider, Your Song is Good, and Polysics!! On top of that the album features Skaparahorns as guest musicians, and on top of that it even has an appearance by Kendo Kobayashi! This truly is this summers must have album!!
(The limited edition CD comes with a DVD which has music videos for all 5 singles)

Thoughts:

O.T.F!!!!

That was my first thought, anyway. It’s so good to see them back! I thought they had left Halcali’s company entirely, but now that it’s clear that they hadn’t, why didn’t we see them helm more singles than that one early commercially disastrous one? At any rate, I wonder which song is theirs? I’m guessing they took the title track We, The Cyborgs, but whatever it is I can’t wait to hear it.

We knew about Utamaru and FPM being back already of course, but it brings another smile to my face to see old Halcali collaborators Natalie Wise back too, who wrote the sweet Hello Hello Alone on Halcali’s debut album. Those guys, and Polysics of course do help to counter the other worries I have about the album somewhat, number one of which is that nearly half of the new album is made up of old singles.

This is common practice of course, and like I’m sure you were too I was expecting it, but after practically a 3 year wait, part of me was still hoping that those singles that are knocking on for a year old now (Tip Taps and Twinkle Star, specifically) would have been left off. They seem to have rerecorded LOOK at least, and hopefully this will knock some of the mediocrity out of it.
Thinking about it, some of those singles did so poorly in the charts that this could well be the first time many people get to hear them anyway. With the additional carrot of the limited edition DVD, let’s hope for stronger sales for this one.

Most importantly though, it is a new Halcali release and it is new Halcali material. And what with O.T.F., Natalie Wise, Utamaru and cyborgs, you can put me down as ‘very excited’.

Thanks to sora kara!

UPDATE:

Looks like I got ahead of myself concerning O.T.F.'s involvement. Reading their name on the producers list, I assumed that they were handling a new song. According to this information from JBook though, that sadly does not seem to be the case now. I added the information to the tracklist above, so take a look for yourself. No mention of Vroom Vroom Vroom though.
The song Fessu De Ouissu, which I couldn't figure out the translation for, could indeed be a self referential nod to that song's producers Your Song Is Good, who have a song called Ouissu themselves (thanks to Patrick for that information!). If that's true, it strikes me as terrible self promotion. The O.T.F news is a much bigger shame though. Are they really gone for good?

Thanks to Risa for the information!

Seeing Halcali tomorrow (?!) (Now with added picture)

2007-06-13T14:21:00.000+01:00

A friend e-mailed me to say that Halcali will be appearing as guests on Zip FM's Lachic Century Session in Sakae, Nagoya.
Which might not sound like much (and still might not after I've told you), except that the studio is on street level, designed so that people can crowd round and see in.

So, it's not a show, and I'm not even sure what they'll be doing (if anything), but getting to see them in person for the first time is more than enough reason to charge my digital camera up and go down!

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I just got back.

This was as far as I got with the camera before I was met with a slightly too angry "no photos!" bark from one of their guys.
I actually arrived 30 minutes too early, thinking it started at 5 instead of 5:30, so I wonder around the Lachic department store in the vague, vain hope that I might bump into them in the book or coffee shop. I don't, of course. They were probably sipping milkshakes somewhere air conditioned at that point.

Anyway, 5:15 rolls around so I wander back outside, thinking that maybe a crowd might be forming. The problem is, Japan is heading into it's season of heavy rainfall, and it's been pouring down all day. I don't know whether it's this, poor advertising (it wasn't even listed on their website), a combination of both or something else, but there's no one there. I don't particularly mind, but it would have been nice to have had a little crowd milling about at least. But then it's 5:30, and out they come.

Seeing them in person for the first time was as strange as I was expecting, but in that great heart-jumps-into-mouth-for-a-second way. The interview itself was fairly short, but the two things that stuck out were first how funny they were without trying too hard to be, and how they're obviously both great friends. With so many bands putting a face on for the media, I really like (and have always liked) how Halcali seem so honest, slightly humble and (for want of a better hackneyed phrase) down to earth.

The DJ tries to pry some new album information out of them, but all we get is "there's a lot of different people working on it, and we think it's great". They played Tougenkyo as they came out, It's Party Time and also its b-side Clutch. Not to add a downer to this, but it certainly didn't grab me much on first listen. It's very Tip Taps Tip esque (they said they asked for the lights in the studio to be dimmed and sat down during recording), but the sound wasn't coming from the best quality speakers at the time, and with the noise of the traffic and people in general it was hard to tell. That'll be one to mull over when the single is released.

So what else? There were a few phone in questions, one which asked "is there an activity that you do without fail everyday?" (Yukari drinks soy milk, Haruka wants to say "exercise" but admits it would be a lie) and so on. There was another phone in question from Bonnie Pink (who was yesterday's guest apparently), but I've completely forgotten what it was. The whole thing was about as lightweight as you'd expect, but they were lively and funny, and the half hour passed by pretty quick.

Then that was it. They jumped into a taxi, and were gone, ending one of the most rain soaked, interesting and oddest 30 minutes I've spent this year.

Come. Back. Soon!

It's Party Time PV

2007-06-09T04:06:00.000+01:00

Here it is.

First time listeners might want to sit down, get comfortable, and perhaps pour yourself a nice cup of tea as you'll probably want to give this a few listens before making up your mind about it.

Let's just get right into it- I don't know about you, but those recent 2ch comments had me worried, especially since I was expecting a lot from this new song. It was another FPM collaboration after all, a guy whose come up with the Halcali goods in the past, and after a few mediocre singles I really wanted Halcali to get back on track with this.

I was actually really enjoying it until the sha-na-na sample from The Hi Lows Sunday Messenger came in. It was a rap, it was certainly upbeat (if not the floor stomper the press release had us believe) and it had a cute rolling loop in the background.

The first time I heard it though, a hated the sample. Unlike O.T.F's rip of the Magnificant Seven theme tune in Twinkle Star, which integrated itself smoothly and effortlessly, FPM's sample in this song just seemed a bit jarring, a bit too out of place and forced in.

A few listens later and it's growing on me a bit more though. It isn't the big let down I was fearing, but at the same time it still doesn't have that special something that made their better singles so much fun. So although it's not an instant classic, I can easily imagine myself liking it a lot more after I've spent a bit more time listening to it.

As cynical as this sounds, including a sample of such a popular song might work to turn a few heads and hopefully hopefully hopefully get this a bit further up the charts than their other recent, dismal showings. How much longer will a record label tolerate putting money into a band that gives them nothing back?

Anyway, I like the video. The looks on their faces when they knock the cake over are just too cute.

Halcali At French Japan Expo 2007

2007-06-07T11:52:00.000+01:00

Halcali will play at the Japan Expo in France (July 6th-8th).

Sadly though my French is awful. Can anyone with some French skills help us out? There's some talk on the sites forum about them too.

This should work out great for them- if enough buzz is generated, could we finally see some distribution for them outside of Japan?

OK, an anoymous tip let us know that they'll be playing on July 8th after Yoshiki (from X-Japan). If you're going, take a camera!

Commentator andy left us a lot of useful information.

The festival is taking place from 11am-8pm on july 6th-8th (you can get in at 10am with advance tickets). Tickets are available through FNAC stores and via www.fnac.com. It's 12 Euros for 1 day, 24 for two, and 28 for all 3 days.

Halcali is performing at around 5 pm on Sunday the 8th of July, right after Yoshiki finishes.

It's at the Parc d'Expositions, which is a 20-minute train ride from central Paris -- it's not far from Charles de Gaulle Airport. If you buy your tickets there, they're not taking bills above 50 euros, and you must have ID if you're paying by check.

The other musical acts include: Nana Kitade, Ichiro Mizuki, Gari, Dio, and Yoshiki.

The festival seems to be heavy on manga/anime culture, although there will also be martial arts and cultural demonstrations, and trivia games. There's not much else besides Halcali I'm personally interested in, although they haven't posted the full program yet (including the schedule of musical acts).

The Halcali page on the site is basically a rewritten version of the official Sony bio (which should be obvious). No real concert info.

On the forum page, most people are basically writing that they haven't heard of Halcali, but they sound cool. A few people have seen their videos and claim to be big fans.

Album Three Announced! 'Drive My Dreams'

2007-06-07T11:27:00.000+01:00

ＨＡＬＣＡＬＩ / Ｄｒｉｖｅ　Ｍｙ　Ｄｒｅａｍｓ（仮）【ＤＶＤ付初回限定盤】 (CD)

商品番号 ESCL-2984_7/18発売
通常価格 3,360円 (税込) 送料別

2007/7/18 発売

Information.

The kanji next the Drive My Dreams (仮) means 'tentative'. I'm not sure if this literary means that they haven't decided on a title yet, or if it's actually part of the title in the same way that the Halcali DVD was called Halcali DVD (仮).

I'd be surprised to see them use such a fairly weak pun again (仮 of course, is read as kari, as in Haru Kari), but why release information for an album you still haven't decided the title of yet?

The other information states that there will be a limited edition DVD with the early pressings, and that it goes on sale July 18th. As in next month! Too early? It's also a bit suspicious that I can't find any other information or even a reference to the album anywhere else on Google. But let's just take this as is for now.

A new single this month followed by the far too long awaited new album next month (with DVD!) would be incredible though. Lets hope this information is legit!

More Hiroshi Nakamura

2007-05-30T15:22:00.000+01:00

Here's some good news.

It looks as though possibly my favourite Halcali producer ever, i-dep's Hiroshi Nakamura, has written Clutch to go on the flip of It's Party Time.

Nakamura has provided the most constantly excellent Halcali material since the move from For Life (all relegated to b-side status though, sadly), and so I'm really looking forward to this. Despite some recent frowns on 2ch, this potentially killer FPM/Nakamura combo has raised my hopes even further.

Rhymester Complete Song for Third Album

2007-05-27T15:27:00.000+01:00

Over the last couple of months or so, Rhymester's Utamaru (who has worked with Halcali before as a guest singer on the FPM produced Wakakusa Dance) has been mentioning working on a new song, but had been keeping it a secret as to what it was. After seeing this post in particular, I thought it might have been a new song with our girls, but decided that those hands looked a bit too, well, old to be Halcali.

Turns out I was wrong though! The song (featuring Utamaru, and produced by Arikikku) is called, believe it or not, Driver's Licence. In the song it seems to be the girl who takes the wheel, leaving the "stupid boy with no driver's licence" to fend for himself in the passenger seat on their late night date in the car. I'm sure their mothers wouldn't approve of that.

Anyway, as to the song itself, anyone (like me, to be honest) who was expecting another party choon like Wakakusa Dance might not want to get their hopes up- the song is a "180 degree turn away" from that, which means;

A languid, dreamy song, carrying all the cute mysteriousness of a picture book for adults.

I know that doesn't make too much sense, and in fact sounds like it might rest ominously in the Tip Taps Tip half of Halcali's back catalogue, but Utamaru mentions that they'll be rapping though, which is good news.

Like the new FPM single, I'm not entirely sure about this, but like that new single, I'm waiting with a quiet expectation that it'll be great.

Some New Single Impressions from 2ch

2007-05-25T13:47:00.000+01:00

2ch is essentially an enormous (thought to be the biggest in the world in fact), anonymous message board on the Japanese internet, known for it's exceptionally heavy traffic and odd influential break into the mainstream media.

Naturally, there's a page devoted to you know who, and last night It's Party Time received it's début airing. Right after the comments started to come in, and after a bit of deliberation I've decided to post a few to give you a general idea about what they're talking about. Keep in mind that these messages come from a faceless message board and so it's of course up to you how much faith you place in what they say.

Anyway, you might want to prepare yourself for a second, because the comments aren't very encouraging.

449 ：2007/05/24(木) 22:44:54 ID:???
ラジオで新曲かかった
なかなか良い

They just played the new song on the radio. I thought it was pretty good.

450 ：2007/05/24(木) 22:50:46 ID:???
今パーティタイム流れた・・・けどどーなの？これ。全然キラーチューンじゃないじゃん。
なんか物凄くガッカリ。

They just played Party Time, but what the hell is it? It isn't a 'killer tune' at all. I'm really disappointed.

451 ：：2007/05/24(木) 22:58:16 ID:???
俺はすきだなうん

Well, I like it.

452 ：2007/05/24(木) 23:14:32 ID:???
LCA!が好きな奴はこれも受け入れられると思う。おれは駄目。全然駄目。
間延びした2人の歌が駄目駄目。なんだかもう虚脱感でいっぱいだよ。
まじで凹んだ。

I think those people who liked LCA will take to this. As for me, I hated it. I really hated it. They've just sound too slow and stupid. I'm just full of despondency about the whole thing now. My belief in them has been dented.

455 ：2007/05/24(木) 23:51:25 ID:???
カップリングも来た

They played the b-side too.

456 :2007/05/24(木) 23:57:58 ID:???
よき理解者であるはずのFPMが作った曲がこの出来だからな
期待が大きかったから余計にショックだわ
これが最後のシングル？
ずっとフォローしてきたファンにはあんまりな仕打ちだろ

I really expected more from FPM- he's a guy who's supposed to know what makes Halcali good and what people want to hear from them. I expected a lot and now I'm in shock. Will this be their last single? This is no way to treat the fans who've been with them from the start.

458 ：2007/05/25(金) 00:50:31 ID:???
まあまあよかった

It was alright.

460 ：2007/05/25(金) 07:57:02 ID:+xOVR7j5
ハルカたんハルカたんハルカたん
おぢさん魔法使いになったよお
魔法でお家をたててハルカたんと暮らすう

Haruka sweetie, Haruka sweetie, Haruka sweetie.
I've turned into a witch. I'm going to use my magic to build us a house where we can live together.

461 ：2007/05/25(金) 08:58:40 ID:???
>>460
オメデト

>>460
Congratulations.

462 ：2007/05/25(金) 12:00:30 ID:???
HALCALIみてるか？新曲よかったよー

Are you reading this, Halcali? I liked the new song!

463 ：2007/05/25(金) 12:18:41 ID:???
１度聴いただけじゃ分からないな。何度か聴くうちに印象が変わるかもしれない。

You can't know after just one listen. If listen to it over and over, your opinion of it might change.

466 ：2007/05/25(金) 17:56:45 ID:???
三枚くらい買ってあげようかな
I'm buying three copies of it.

So, there it is. I cut a few out here and there, but apart from a couple, most of the comments were in the ho-hum to hostile range. 463's advice about needing to listen multiple times seems sound though. Again, keep in mind that these are just a few peoples opinions, and opinions on a message board on the internet at that. I'm still keeping faith that they can give us something great.

HA-RU-KA-RI

2007-05-25T11:48:00.000+01:00

Changing the image on the main page to the new one for It's Party Time (which I like, hopefully the design will be featured in the video in some way) isn't the only thing that's different. They've added an English language section too!

Go take a look, the discography section is fairly comprehensive (although it stops at Tip Taps Tip and the label change for some reason).

I wonder what prompted this? Whatever the reason behind it, It's a great (if surprising) addition to the site, and just the pre-third-album-release thing that's needed to hopefully drag in a few more western fans.

Jacket

2007-05-23T12:36:00.000+01:00

Here's the jacket for It's Party Time (B-side Clutch). What do you make of it? It kind of reminds me of a Yuki sleeve for some reason.

What on earth are they up to?

Space Shower 2004/Xmas Live

2007-05-11T11:49:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure if just posting links to You Tube is something that could be comfortably classified as 'blogging', but you should take a look at this Halcali clip from the May 2004 Space Shower TV 15th Anniversary concert. Here's (still) hoping for that new album promo tour announcement soon.

In the meantime, here's Peek-A-Boo, Giri Giri and Marching March.

It gets better! Here's the same poster posting the first video (of a promised three) of Halcali doing their 'girls only' gig from way back in December 2003. Fantastic. Since MTV quickly pulled the Halcali gig I posted, watch this while you can.

A full house, people cheering and clapping, and decent chart placements. Come on Sony, what happened?

The second...

Finally (love this version of Peek-A-Boo)

It's Party Time

2007-05-04T05:19:00.000+01:00

If ever there was a title that wore it's intentions right on it's sleeve, it's this one from Halcali's Fantastic Plastic Machine produced new single, due out June 20th.

Since writing and speculating a bit about their new collaboration a while ago, I've been anxious to hear it, but just read the descriptions. This song sounds like it's going to be excellent.

From CD Japan:

New single release from Halcali featuring a dance-floor rocking sound thanks to production from Fantastic Plastic Machine. Features a four-to-the-floor beat with samples from The High-Lows' song "Nichiyoubi yori no Shisha."

From Neowing:

Fantastic Plastic Machineプロデュースによるフロアー対応な超キラーチューン! FPMが最も得意とするアゲアゲ4つ打ちトラックに、何とTHE HIGH-LOWSの「日曜日よりの使者」のサビ部分を大胆にサンプリング!! 一度聞いたら忘れられない楽曲になる事間違いなし!
From producer Fantastic Plastic Machine comes this new floor filling killer tune that has him doing what he does best- a stomping 4 time beat with a daring sample from the "sad" part of The High-Lows Nichiyoubi Yori No Shisha (A Messenger From Sunday). Hear this tune once, and we guarantee you'll never forget it!

Excited yet? FPM's own records aside, look no further than the contributions he's made to Halcali's back catalogue already (Bacon's Otsukare Summer and Nosusume's Wakakusa Dance and Baby Blue!) to remind yourself that FPM is one producer (unlike others in their recent past) who knows exactly how to handle them and deliver that part of Halcali that makes Halcali Halcali. I always thought that Wakakusa Dance was a song that belonged in the charts, and now a song that sounds like it's been cut from the same cloth hopefully will.

And I'm thankful it isn't another stock song like Tougenkyo, or even worse, another dreary anime tie-up.

Thanks to Risa!

Here we go. A live version of Nichiyoubi from YouTube. As it turns out, I had heard this song in a few shopping centres and clothes shops in the past. If the sample doesn't end up being from the "sha-na-na" chorus I'll buy the new Do-nuts single.

UPDATE

The b-side of the "maxi single" is called Clutch (info from HMV), which will hopefully be a song about learning to drive. I hope this is another turn by regular Halcali b-side producer Hiroshi Nakamura. It might be worth noting that he released an album called Clutch himself.

Click Click

2007-04-29T09:23:00.000+01:00

Before they're taken down by the shadowy Count Olafs of the TV Network World, check out two songs from Music Station- Tandem, and their "first appearance" on the show doing Giri Giri Surfrider.

Hang on, Giri Giri was released after Tandem, so surely the Tandem clip should have been their first time on the show? Presumably the Tandem performance was part of some 'best of' end of the year type show. Anyway, I'd seen the Giri Giri clip before, but this one has their introductions at the start, with host Tamori unaware as to who was who. Apparently, Yukari's mum went along to the studio with them. Aw, shucks, they were so young...

Happy Birthday, Haruka!

2007-04-22T08:20:00.000+01:00

Haruka turned 19 on the 21st! Doesn't that make Yukari 20 this July?

Woah.

...and here's the blog. "I turned 19 before I knew it. The next thing I know, I'll be saying "I'll be turning 30 tomorrow!".
If you're like me, you might be thinking "why is her birthday cake written in Korean?" Well, she loves Korea, and has already been twice this year. It just "fits" with her, apparently (she means personality presumably. I went to Seoul once and didn't have the easiest time, although I agree with Haruka that the subway is far easier to navigate than Tokyo's). The Korean on the front says "Haruka", which a friend went to the trouble of looking up, then making a cake of.

Anyway, happy nineteenth!

Blog

2007-04-19T09:34:00.000+01:00

While I always read Halcali's blog whenever it gets updated, I usually think their posts about what films they watched and what they did in Osaka wouldn't be that interesting to you, and the few times when they mention recording or playing live aside, I usually don't post about it.

Here's what Haruka wrote yesterday though:

いつ聴いてもらえるか、分からないケド・・・。
そもそも聴いてもらえる程のモノが出来るか分からないケド・・・
今、RAPを書きつつ、これからどんな曲が出来上がるのだろう。
と期待や期待に胸を躍らせています。
詞がすらすら思いつく訳でもなくて、

急に部屋の掃除をしてみたり、無駄にメールの確認をしてみたり
Google Earthで世界旅行を地味に楽しんでみたり・・・

はい。要するに

逃げてます。　

I don't know when you'll get to hear it, but...

I don't even know if it's something you'll want to hear in the first place, but...

I've just been writing rap (lyrics) over and over, having no idea what kind of song it's going to turn into, and getting really anxious about it.

No lyrics were coming to mind at all...

Suddenly, I just started to clean my room, then aimlessly recheck my e-mail, and then mess around taking a trip around the world on Google Earth.

OK, to put it bluntly:

I'm running away.

She goes on to talk about how she read about a designer in a fashion magazine, who kept postponing an exhibition, but instead of coming out with the predictable "great art takes time and I'm suffering for it" line, he used something quite a bit more personal, maybe even selfish, to explain why. He said that the simple fact is that his life will sometimes intrude on his work, and when that happens ("If my dog gets sick, for example, that's going to be higher on my priorities than putting on a show") his job is going to have to wait.

Why Haruka liked this, and why it relates here, is that it's often easy to forget that artists, painters, poets, novelists and pop stars are people too, who do people things and must also live their people lives.

Halcali are certainly a band who are more honest and open about the process of being in a pop band than frankly any other band I've ever come across in their position. It's certainly hard to imagine another band like this coming on the internet and admitting that, yes, there was a point where they had to sit down and try to write the music you're listening to now, and that yes, there were also points where they couldn't think of a single line and so made themselves that 15th cup of tea to put it off for another 15 minutes instead. Reading Haruka's post reminded me of when I was writing my dissertation on Satre and J.D Salinger in university.

She closes with a more familiar (but still good to hear for those of us waiting for the new album) "I'll work hard to get it done, just wait a little longer!", but I hope they'll be more posts on their blog like this in the future.

All that aside, it's good to read about them getting more and more involved in the writing, isn't it? Roll on "spring/summer 2007" I say.

TTT on YT

2007-04-04T05:41:00.000+01:00

I re-uploaded the Music Station performance of Tip Taps Tip to You Tube. Since my attempts to re-upload the banned Twinkle Star Music Station performance and the MTV gig were met with "WE BANNED THIS ONCE ALREADY!", I'm not sure why they let me get away with this. If you haven't seen this clip already, it's definitely worth a look or two. No doubt it will be gone again in a couple of weeks.

It also makes you wonder why they didn't get back on Music Station with LOOK, but anyway...

UPDATE

Here's that fine performance of Twinkle Star from Music Station again.

Make On The Holiday

2007-03-30T10:30:00.000+01:00

There's some decent pictures up on the internet of Halcali's recent appearance on Music On TV's Make On The Holiday. In keeping with the usual Just The Right Side Of Bland content that shows of this type generally serve up, Halcali discuss their top 3 places to visit over spring. So in place of any concrete third album/new single/any remotely interesting information knocking about, here they are!

#1 Go to all the famous ramen shops that appear in the Tougenkyo video! (Only feasible if you live in, or can get to Osaka)

#2 Go to Meguro River in Tokyo for a spot of hanami. Halcali go every year! (hanami is a Japanese custom of going to a park with friends when the cherry blossom trees come out in April. Although you have to be able to get to Meguro to do this in Meguro, you could feasibly do hanami anywhere in the world where cherry blossoms bloom.)

#3 Go to Tokyo Tower. If you're in Tokyo. I personally wouldn't recommend that though. I found it to be a bit of an eyesore.

Elsewhere they all get up and practice my least favourite bit of the otherwise quite good Tougenkyo video- AIR GUITAR. Check out the link above for the pictures.

Halcali in the Japan Times

2007-03-24T04:01:00.000Z

If ever there was a band crying out for more exposure in the English language press it's Halcali. Which is exactly why Daniel Robson could do with an extra few pats on the back for his efforts.

Here's the first published results of his interview, from the Japan Times (March 23rd). I believe that a fuller version of this will be published in Neo Magazine on the 29th of March, and "probably one or two British websites over the next few months running up to the album". Let's keep a lookout.

The Japan Times article does it's job pretty well- i.e it serves as a quick introduction to the band, hopefully getting a few people interested during the run-up to the release of the new album.
It was a slightly frustrating read in some respects as well though, as potentially hot topics (the reason behind the label switch, and Halcali's thoughts about chart placements in particular) are only glanced through.
Again though, it's only meant to be an introduction, and naturally isn't the place to go into such things. Although Halcali seem to try to dismiss the question somewhat, I don't believe for a second that they don't know why it happened. That's a topic for another time maybe.

There's still things to savour for the long(er) term fan though. One thing I've always liked about Halcali is that there is absolutely zero pretence. Where as a lot of other bands of this type who don't write their own material try to sweep that fact under the carpet, the girls have never been less than open about it, often humbly acknowledging their debt to their producers and writers.
At the same time though, I think they do have a bigger input in what goes on than a lot of others in their position, and with a few lyrics credits under their belt, a bit of acknowledgement of those facts could easily be forgiven. Surrounded by such talent, and with some artist freedom to contribute, they're certainly in a better position than most. If only the pop charts would reflect that.

Anyway, go take a look.

More FPM

2007-03-20T09:36:00.000Z

In July last year (got to love the hopeless optimism of posts titled things like "Album three before Christmas?") I wrote something about Tomoyuki Tanaka (Fantastic Plastic Machine) posting in his blog about a much welcomed return to Halcali's studio for their next album. Now he's posted about it again, this time with a couple of pictures taken in his studio that look good enough to go in the album sleeve itself, if not the back cover. He mentions that, although he isn't really able to talk about it "yet", they worked on a lot of material involving the girls rapping. Sounds good to me. I won't be too sad if there are no Ongaku style 6 minute guitar ballads on the next album anyway.

Could "a lot of material" mean he put together more than one song? At any rate, Otsukare Summer and Wakakusa Dance were highlights of their respective albums, and it's great to see Halcali still have a lot of great talent by their side. I can feel Album Three shaping up to be something special.

Saying that he's "known them since they were in junior high and high school" in one sentence, then "and when they're over 20, we're going to drink together!" in the next is probably something that is going to give their mothers a bit of cause to frown though.

What we need now is a release date and a title.

Thanks again to Patrick. Seriously, go read Chipple!

P.S Something just occured to me- could they have been working on the mystery New Single Yukari mentioned in the recent B-Pass interview?