New Clazziquai Single "Wizard of Oz"

[vanillacat]

[center]Listen here.[/center]



Clazziquai released a new digital single single recently, called "Wizard of Oz", that is currently being used as a promotional song for the LG Oz phone. (Which btw, has adorable commercials, and are basically the only signs at the moment that Kibum of Super Junior hasn't gone and died in a ditch. I'd like to burn those hideous pants, however...)



The song itself is ADORABLE. Totally a throw-back to their older, LOVE CHILD OF THE CENTURY work, not the experimental electro of METRONIX or Robotica. It's Horan-centric, but Alex comes in and out with his lovely voice, as well. I'm pretty much in love with it. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/wub.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />



A full album will apparently be coming out sometime in July.



I'll provide download links if wanted.

[story]

Yay, I loved their earlier cute stuff. Their experimental electro stuff was a bit scary.



The new song is nice.

[sadude]

This is nice and pleasant. I need more

I'm really, really, really looking forward to the album, though. I'm trying to not have any expectations for it, because if I do that then I set myself up to be disappointed. LCotC is my favorite album by them, but I liked and appreciated Metrotronics and Robotica so I'm not going to complain if the 4th album is similar.

[Tsuki]

Yeah, this was really nice. I'm with sadude about their most recent albums too. So far it seems that Clazziquai can't really do much wrong with me. Though I have liked their later albums more than their earlier ones (as in LotC vs CYS or IP).



I can't seem to find this single anywhere though. :|

[vanillacat]

Then, I shall put it up for download! Instant solution!



(I stalk about a jillion k-pop mp3 uploading journals on LiveJournal, so I found it pretty easily, lol)

[sadude]

So apparently the new album is titled Mucho Musica and is coming out in Japan only? It's not listed under regular albums on the official site, but rather under Overseas license album - Japan. Here's the tracklisting from the official Japanese site:



01 - Kiss Kiss Kiss

02 - Love Again

03 - Tell Yourself - Original Mix -

04 - Spinning the World

05 - The Road

06 - Affection

07 - Take a Walk

08 - Back in Time

09 - Chocolate Truffles

10 - The World of OZ

11 - Back to Mind

12 - Flea





There's a preview of one of the songs from the new album on http://www.clazziquai.jp/ . It's called "Tell Yourself." They sing part of it in Japanese!!



Oh god. OH GOD. IT'S SO GOOOOOD. AHGRHGRHGRHGR

[Tsuki]

Jesus, you're not even kidding. I was mostly amused by your apparent aural orgasm there, but this is really good stuff. Can't wait for the whole album to come out.

[Joel]

I've been liking this group when they released their album with Flea in it. I really liked the song, and I remember listening to their older stuff, and I didn't really like it that much. Wizard of OZ is only ok imo, but when I listened to Tell Yourself, I was amazed. I'm really exciting for this album!

[neshcom]

The entire preview is OH GOD YES great, but a song of just the beginning 4 measures of the preview would be Earth shatteringly good.

[vanillacat]

Ugh, like many "foreign" sites, the website died in my Firefox, so I opened it up in Google Chrome.. (In case anyone else is having the same problem)



Damn. DAMN. I am so excited now. I love that seem to have managed to figure out a good way to synthesize their old, melodic style, with all the new electronica influences.



There's a DAISHI DANCE remix (English version, apparently?) of Tell Yourself available on Japanese iTunes. Sounds pretty good, imho, although I reaaaaaaaally am liking the original.

[sadude]

Tell Yourself PV is out! It's just a glorified visualizer, nothing special, aside from containing the full song. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... ohyeah.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lub:' />

[Joel]

Thanks for posting this up! I like it a lot.

[sadude]

The album's out now, and I'm not sure what to think of it. Nothing jumped out at me at first aside from The World of Oz, Tell Yourself, and Flea, all of which we heard before. So I didn't like it at first, but that was because I set my expectations way too high. It's ever-so-slowly growing on me. I think. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... cratch.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[Tsuki]

Yeah I downloaded it too and had much the same reaction. It's not really grabbing me, but albums usually don't. Well, except Perfume's GAME, but that's neither here nor there. But like you, I think it's growing on me slowly. There's just too many slow songs that don't have any kind of interesting hook.

[sadude]

It might be another case of a Japanese vs. Korean version, except that this one came out first. The Korean version of the album is out now too, featuring 3 new songs, some Korean versions, and a different track order. I heard the 3 songs separately, and I like them, they're interesting. I haven't heard the Korean album as a whole, though.



Mucho PUNK

01. 초콜릿 트러플 (Chocolate Truffles)

02. Kiss Kiss Kiss

03. Love Again

04. 사랑끝에 (Love Ends)

05. Tell Yourself

06. Back In Time

07. Lazy Sunday Morning

08. Take A Walk

09. The Road

10. Spinning The World

11. 라푼젤 (Rapunzel)

12. Wizard Of OZ

[vanillacat]

I... really like it. MUSICA here:



Kiss Kiss Kiss: This is a new style of vocals for Horan, if that's really her. They pushed up the pitch a lot, and it's very flirty, rather than soothing (the word I always associated Horan's vocals with). It's not really my absolute favorite, but it's interesting to see them playing around with the vocals, and the arrangement is solid, with a nice driving beat, so.

Love Again: Is this new? I claim to be a Clazziquai fan, yet... <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... nfused.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' /> It sounds like I've heard it before. I am a whore for Alex's voice, and he seriously turned on the charm in this song. Aaahh. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/wub.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':wub:' /> The arrangement is nothing grabbing, but the simplicity isn't repetitive. I don't know how to express this exactly, but I wish they had switched up the format of the song a little bit more, to add more variety. 2:43~3:10 is my favorite part, since it's not the same pattern of verse chorus verse chorus etc.

Tell Yourself: <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/wub.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':wub:' /> It's as whimsical as their older works, but "I love that seem to have managed to figure out a good way to synthesize their old, melodic style, with all the new electronica influences." to quote what I said a few posts ago.

Spinning the World: I like the bopping beat. I'm not sure what it is (3/4? 6/8? Just a weird syncopated rhythm? I dunno, I'm terrible at music theory), but it gives the song a lot of quirk.

The Road: Oh, oh, I like this one. Is that Alex? I can't tell, but if it is, he's really tapped into a deeper, richer voice, and I love that. Plus, the rolling build up to the chorus each time is epic, and there's a lot of different cool sounds going on, with little sprinkles of things and the light taper off at the end... I don't know. It's serious, and amazing.

Affection: Hey, more of the weird beat! I like it! Triplets? I STILL DON'T KNOW. The whole song is a bit dark, I kind of like to think the beat is taunting me. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /ph34r.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':P' /> There's a little bit of guitar during the chorus that I wish they would use more, it sounds cool.

Take a Walk: Oh, this is gorgeous. Piano! It would have sounded like every other one of their songs if they had used the normal jazzy-electronics, but, oh, pretty piano. And her voice. The lyrics stand out more in this stripped-down arrangement, which... is not necessarily a good thing, since English lyrics with deep meaning are still not their forte. They're sweet, though.

Back in Time: A nice, peppy contrast to the previous song. Not entirely memorable, and some kind of... not really understandable lyrics, but still good.

Chocolate Truffles: It's more similar to their older works, with the light jazz... and it's also about candy. You think I'd love it, and Alex's voice is as smooth as chocolate, but yet I was underwhelmed. Too cute, almost? It's a nice song, but it doesn't fit very well with the rest of the album.

The World of Oz: Still great. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... umbsup.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' />

Back To Mind: I dunno, it was more of a almost 5-minute filler than an actual song, since it didn't really have much structure to it... but I liked it none the less. Here we go, here we go~

Flea: Fits pretty well with the rest of the album, although it's still not my favorite track of theirs. Yay.





Punk is obviously mostly the same, except that they sound a lot more comfortable in Korean. I'm trying to figure out if it makes any difference if one track is called The World of Oz, while the other is called Wizard of Oz. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... hatthe.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />



And now, the three tracks from Punk:

사랑끝에 (Sarang Ggut Eh. Korean is... not a pretty language romanized. Alternatively, Love Ends): It's nice, and nothing too different. The arrangement is a bit... ambient? I'm probably misusing that word, but I'm struggling with a good way to describe it. Kick it up like 30 BPM, and add a heavier bass beat, and you'd probably have a perfect club song. I wish it used more of the piano it had at the end.

Lazy Sunday Morning: Oh my god, it's so indie. Like Jason Mraz or Juno or something. Gorgeously simplistic, considering the only instruments are two acoustic guitars, some snaps, and their vocals.

Rapunzel: I like this one a lot in the beginning, but then as the song goes on, it... kind of seems like it needs a little editing, though? There was a surprising lot going on in the background, elements that didn't necessarily mesh the best. I love the idea, and I think it had so much potential, I just... I dunno.



OVERALL: 8/10. I really adore them, no joke. They still experiment so much within their own niche, and it's quality music that isn't just a guilty pleasure. A few of the tracks fade into "good, but not memorable"... but isn't that a hell of a lot better than "so bad it's memorable"?