Over a goddamn year ago, mbmelodies called my bluff to republish my old Halcali posts. This was right before I decided to upgrade my blog security and I wound up locking myself out of the blog for most of 2015. So I’ve only really been putting it off for 5…6 months. Sure, that sucks. And so do almost all of my old blog posts. Not that I’ve really gotten “good”, but you can kind of understand what I’m getting at most of the time now, I think. I mean that I do not understand most of my old blog. It’s mostly references to deservedly momentary jokes, fed into a literally drunken, figuratively surrealist filter which was never cleaned, and finally clogged. But here is a review of the 3rd Halcali album. It’s pretty silly, and my opinion of the album is not quite as high—the first 2 albums hold up a lot better and will get whole new reviews—but it’s still worth checking out again, or the first time, what have you. Except the album and single mix of “Twinkle Star” are indeed completely identical, I think I just got new headphones at that point. Who knows, anyway here it is with all the broken links and everything:

Last Modified
2007/08/15

HALCALI | Epic Hits (and Misses) + More!

HALCALI | Cyborg Oretachi [Limited Edition w/ DVD]

[listing courtesy wiki.theppn]

1. Doo THE HAMMER!
2. It’s PARTY TIME!
3. Koi no Bububun (恋のブブブン; The Vroom Vroom Vroom of Love)*
4. Twinkle Star
5. endless lover’s rain
6. LOOK ~Special Edition~
7. Cyborg Oretachi (サイボーグ俺達; We, the Cyborgs)
8. Driver’s Licence (ドライバーズ・ライセンス)
9. Fes de Ouissu! (フェスでウィッス!)
10. Tougenkyo (桃源郷; Paradise)
11. Tip Taps Tip
12. HaruKari Michi ~19 no Yoru~ (春狩道~19の夜~; Halcali Road ~19 Nights~)

If you are a HALCALI fan, there’s good news and bad news.

Good news: Halcali has made the Album of the Year.
Bad news: The year is 2006.

But good is good right? I wanna get the negative stuff out of the way because the record is awesome. You can’t avoid some of these songs sound old because…they’re old! They don’t sound bad or dated, they just don’t quite match. I read an interview where the girls claimed they themselves had to order the songs. Way to dump the problem on them. This record could have really benefited from some transitional elements or some remixes to make it all fit better. At least, that’s what I thought at first. Yeah, it sounds like a comp, but it’s a great fucking comp.
Comp of the Year!

The cover says a lot: Halcali arrive on an alien planet. They are tightly confined in robot bodies, their heads encased in plastic bubbles. Open up the insert and they look excited, then confused, then frustrated. It opens to a poster of them screaming at the sky, tiny bot arms outstretched in desperation. Metaphor much? If you are unfamiliar with the problem of Epic signing them out of the blue. (Warner didn’t want them? They are protégés of Rip Slyme/O.T.F., signed to Warner.) Then they didn’t know what the hell to do with them. This art kinda sums up what it might have been like, emotionally, to have the making of this one record drag out for so long, and have people you don’t know stuff you in boxes you don’t quite fit.
(Or fit anymore.)

Yet out of all this, they’ve made something great. And yes, they only common theme they could come up with is they processed the hell out of the vocals. (Which they did not have to do, they can sing and rap and all that. The vocoder stuff is a cool effect sometimes, but I feel like they–the producers–are trying to fix what’s not broken in some cases.)

DVD: I strongly recommended the version with DVD. Now I can watch the video on a big screen! (If I had one.) Plus the cover’s better. Gripe: Making of “It’s Party Time”? They just walk into a supermarket and dance a bit! Where’s the making of “Twinkle Star”? Where’s the official explanation of the shi-ri-to-ri thing? That’s so cool, I mean, show that off. Ahg.

OK. So if you don’t know Halcali, I feel comfortable saying you could buy any of the records and get into it. Some people (let’s call them Baconites) might say that’s crazy, some guy called me a fag the other day for liking Ongaku no Susume. Apparently it’s too “pop”, as is this new record. I don’t know where or how that guy is living that BACON is not the gayest poppest music you can possibly listen to (which I blasted out of my car for almost 2 years straight…wait…2nd gayest…whatever, also blasted), but…uh…yeah, whatever dude. This record has some very non-pop moments, it the least pop record: the noisiest craziest stuff they’ve done, live rock band stuff, the most straight hip-hop stuff. And there’s pop stuff. Yes. In the end there is, I think, balance.

1. Doo THE HAMMER! Unexpected! The sound reminds me a LOT of Lily Allen’s “Knock ‘Em Out”, at least the beginning. Of course this record should have come out first, so I can’t say if that was an influence. But it features members of Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra on horns, so maybe it’s a common source for that kind of piano intro. (It’s not exactly the same.) I tried to take a crack at translating, especially with some very strange Engrish poking out (worked on a line about “MC CrazyPussy” for about an hour before I figured a song that also had the line “Up Side Down Yo Red Flying-D” might not yield coherent results). Fun song.

2. It’s PARTY TIME! Not impressed by this at first; it’s gotten to me. I’m a fan of Fantastic Plastic Machine, who produced, (as he has before) but the mix is a bit wack. The vocals are way too produced. When it gets to the chorus the contrast between the sample of this old rock band (The High-Lows) and these vocals just sounds kinda not finished. The two things don’t merge at all. Other that I do dig it after all.

One other thing, I thought they were saying “So again…it’s party time”. According to the lyrics it’s “souge”, written with the character for “annoy” (騷げ), like “here we come to annoy you!” That’s awesome.

3. Koi no Bububun Here we go. This is Verbal from m-flo‘s song, he also co-wrote Baby Blue) and with O.T.F. out of the picture, him and Uta Maru ( track 8 ) are the only links to actual Hip-hop. (Rather than dance/pop with rapping on it.) Dude brings it. Without these tracks I don’t think I could recommend the album nearly as much. They should have been the singles! This could be a single on American radio, it’s just a straight rap song, and yes they can pull that off. I think it’s the first song explicitly about boys (not that explicit, jerks). After being passed around from producer to producer like a joint the past year, Verbal is a dude who gets them. So this song is also an assertion of identity, even if they didn’t write it.

4. Twinkle Star I can’t even talk about Twinkle Star. Unlike the “Special Edition” of LOOK tho, they’ve improved the mix a little and not labeled it. There’s some extra blips in there, you might have to listen with headphones, but it’s a little different.

5. endless lover’s rain Holy shit. Why is this not a single? They’re putting out mediocre stuff like “Lights, Camera. Action” (which they were smart enough not to include, THANKYOU) while they sit on this? Just wow. The verses are all rap, but it has a chromatic melody that rides up and down live a wave. Of pure bliss? Am I getting carried away?
IT’S. GORGEOUS.

6. LOOK ~Special Edition~ 3:13. Hear that? That is the sound of “special”. It’s possible some people bought this single and really liked it, but not the other songs. Could you imagine buying a record for a “special edition” of your favorite song and it being EXACTLY the same song? Anyway, this was NOT my favorite song when it came out. In fact I was horrified. As Twinkle Star fell in the charts (after starting low), Epic panicked. O.T.F. was canned and Halcali announced they wanted to start writing their own songs. I panicked. But still I was hopeful. Silence. Then this comes out. I thought it was the end. But I gave it a chance and as I liked the following singles even less, it seemed relatively…better. Then I finally put the record on and after the (still kinda stupid) intro, I get chills on Yucali’s first verse. When Halca comes in with “all day all night”, I’m practically in tears. The chorus just carries this along until the stop, then the whole thing repeats and quits before you get sick of it. There’s a bridge or two in there somewhere. Perfect. (Except the intro.) I think I’ve got these J-pop songs figured out: the hook is often not the chorus. It takes several listen to not anticipate and listen for the chorus as the point of the song. It might be the bridge or pre-chorus or something else. In this case it’s the 2nd-verse-almost-the-same-as-the-1st. You have to listen twice to get it.

7. Cyborg Oretachi Title track with Polysics. I love Polysics, they are great on record and somehow ever better live. They are masters of mixing electronics with guitars and live drums. But this song is all electronics in the beginning, and the girls in various robot voices. It’s cool, but I expected to be blown away by this meeting of minds. Then towards the end is a guitar solo battle between Halca & Yucali, who have never played guitar before that single take.

I need to make out with everyone involved in the making of this track….IMMEDIATELY. Wait…that is too far now. Hug?

I have to point out that what they play is, rhythmically, absolutely perfect.

And now here’s some random words totally out of context:
Pop. Bland. Safe. Major-label-sounding. Mayonaka. Festival. Boom.

8. Driver’s License Uta Maru! You should remember him from Wakakusa Dance. (He is but one member of the group Rhymester, (the bald guy) and seems to get miscredited a lot.) But this is not a dance song, it’s a slow jam. A very cool one about getting your driver’s license, which the girls have recently done. (Gotta be 18 in Japan. They are 19 & 20 if you are wondering.) This one is an actual collab, with everybody writing their own lines. (Amazing!) I’m really am impressed with them just stepping into it like that. And if someone’s still ghosting, they’re doing a good job developing diverging styles for the two. Where it was obvious one person was writing both parts before, Halca especially is becoming more mature in her word choices and delivery. Yucali still favors long flowing lines, where Halca is starting to introduce ideas of space and restraint.

9. Fes de Ouissu “Ouïssu” is a French word. It’s not in any online dictionary or translator, and even the French barely use it, at least online. It seems to have caught on as slang in Japan (who are a buncha Francophiles if you didn’t know). From context, it seem to mean something like “sample list”. People wanting to give an idea of something, a club, for example, posts a “ouïssu” of the songs they might play so you know what the club is about. So, this being one of the last songs written, it becomes “in the ouïssu”. (I REALLY don’t know if that’s right.) Maybe this was the very last long because it’s “Festival of the Ouïssu”. The song is basically all by ska band YOUR SONG IS GOOD (They did a version of “Baby Blue” on HALCALI MIX.) with Halcali on vocals. It’s more a calypso feel to it, very much a party song.

10. Tougenkyo Another one I didn’t like at first, it’s ok now, but it remains my least favorite. Too far into PUFFY territory, girls. You got your own thing! Even so, their “first song with a rock band” sounds more artificial and stitched together than anything else. Tho I will now quote my new favorite critic and Veoh commenter: “i like this song because its catchy and funny.” I totally lost the will to write about music. Almost.

11. Tip Taps Tip I think we’ve all heard this one. This came out in ’05! I don’t think anybody waited almost two years to buy the album just for this song. Remix would’ve been nice. Still, it holds up. I really love this song. It sticks out as in not really fitting, but so does every song on this record. People freaked already on this song and started jumping ship, but now I believe it’s their most known song. Yeah, it’s different, but what another song sounds like while I’m listening to this one doesn’t make any difference, unless it’s cover or something. People think too much about this shit, that’s all I’m saying. Just enjoy it.

12. Halcali Road ~19 Nights~ Awesome closer. Basically a disco song with strings and a ton of cool sounds just thrown in. Robot vox, cool drum sounds; there’s like sleigh bells in slow motion or distorted or something. Love it.

If you didn’t like the record…I’m surprised you read this far! Give it a chance. Just let it run through a couple times and stop expecting it to make sense. And stop comparing them to when they were 16 for godssakes. BACON is a great record, that’s forever. They can’t make that record again, and if they did it’d suck. I really liked the acoustic ballads on Ongaku no Susume. Didn’t get any of those this time. Do we need any more? Not really, they already did that. When I wanna hear that, I just put on that record, simple. Here’s a new record! C’mon. Support growth. This is like the awkward phase for them, they can do more and better things if they have that support.

Remember, Epic might not care, but Halcali still does! They took a messed up situation and made a great record. If you gave up on them you are a chump. I hope they keep going on one label or another for a long time.

Official Myspace (Complete with no music, but w/ blog in English!)
Official site (Complete with out-of-date & missing info, but it looks nice.)

*Yeah it’s different than my own translation, but “boom” can also be slang for “trend”, so I think it’s a double meaning, not saying this one is wrong. And yeah, there’s two songs that say “boom” a lot. That’s what happens when there’s no album producer. Let it go.

There were several posts just about that “boom” thing. You can sort of read some of them. %