Another big update at the official Clammbon site today. There are to be two special Clammbon events on the video site Niconico Douga!

On May 18, 21:00-25:00 Japan time (got to love that Japanese time notation) will be the Yomiuri Land concert from 2010 and the Kokugikan show from 2011, followed by the debut of the music video for “Shiawase Negau Kanata kara”, directed by Yukisada Isao.

On May 21, 20:00-23:00 will be a live performance and talk show! It sounds like it is going to be a pretty special program so if you can make it, be sure to tune in! The whole live show system seems quite complex, though, with reserved “seating” and priority given to premium members. I will probably buy a premium account so I can re-watch the event for a week and hopefully find a way to record it, but posting it for you would be very much against the rules. Perhaps Clammbon will decide to sell the video in some other form, like other musicians have done with their Niconico shows.

Lastly, 44-second previews of every song on Lover Album 2 are now available in two archaic formats at the Columbia Clammbon page. The Windows Media samples do seem to work fine if you paste their addresses into VLC’s “Open Network” command.

Columbia has updated their Clammbon page with info on Lover Album 2 and En, including cover art. Yes, the art for Lover Album 2 is just as brilliant as its predecessor, sure to make your friends do a double-take at its artistry. The page also includes a video of the acoustic version of “tiny pride” with a string section, certain to give you chills. You can also check out a randomly-selected segment of “Shiawase Negau Kanata kara”. Huzzah!!

If you want to be happy enough to weep all day, watch the En trailer:

The Lover Album 2 track list is out. If you like the band’s Soft Machine cover, there’s a version of “O Caroline” by Matching Mole, Robert Wyatt’s post-Softs project. There’s a song from Kako to Katsumi, a duo comprised of Mito’s parents. And there’s even a cover of a song by Houkago Teatime, the fictional band in the anime K-On.

Aha, the record that Clammbon recently finished recording is LOVER ALBUM 2, another cover album in the tradition of their first in 2006. The track list has yet to be released. Not an album of brand-new Clammbon songs, but after the charm of the first Lover Album it’s hard to complain!

The other major announcement is of En, a documentary film about the band’s two big shows at Yomiuri Land last year. It includes footage from the studio in Kobuchizawa, rehearsals, and of course both the acoustic and electric sets. Perhaps I’ll provide subtitles like I did for tayu tau.

Both items go on sale May 22.

(Also, concert dates for this year’s tour are going up; fingers crossed that I’ll be able to make it to one!)

I believe this is the first Clammbon album to be recorded since the band joined Twitter. Mito has been posting some lovely photos from Kobuchizawa and none to cat studio.

Wooooooooo!! Confirmed by Mito on Twitter:

As has become their tradition, Clammbon announced their “Where Shall We Play?” Tour for 2013. Fans are invited to suggest venues that the band should consider, and anything goes: “even your own house, as long as it’ll hold 200-300 people!”

I’m tempted to ask them to come to Seattle, but it seems like I should be able to take on the burden of organizing the logistics of such a thing myself before casually suggesting it!

Everyone celebrate: Harada Ikuko now has her own site. Everything about it is infused with her quiet, soulful style. There’s quite a lot to see and do, with photos, videos, and links to projects she’s involved with.

http://ooo195ooo.cc

And if you haven’t yet, check out the site for her cafe/shop/restaurant/live-space in Tokyo, called Kichimu. Has anyone visited yet? It seems like the perfect place for a little Clammbon fan pilgrimage.

http://www.kichimu.la

I’ve been so busy that I didn’t even get a chance to watch the Ryougoku Kokugikan concert until this week. It was exciting to see that after the encore break, Mito and Ikuko asked if anyone in the audience had come from very far away. They heard from some of the most distant parts of Japan, like Fukuoka and Hokkaidou. But then, someone from Taiwan chimed in! Mito asked if anyone came from farther than Taiwan, and this fellow turned out to be from the UK!

What a happy thing it is to have a native English-speaking fan acknowledged on an official Clammbon recording. Thanks to the band for giving him such a warm welcome, and thanks to you, Super Tall British Guy, for representing us foreign fans!

The whole concert is a purely joyful celebration of the sort you’ve probably come to expect from the band by now. One of these years my Japan trip will match up with a big Clammbon show! It must!

Sounds like the Again & Again concerts at Yomiuri Land went well. Clammbon did one acoustic show and one normal show. Mito has been posting photos, and retweeting famous folks who were in attendance (such as Shinohara Tomoe!).

Here are some photos from Mito’s Twitter feed. Somedaw I will see Clammbon at one of these outdoor shows!

As just announced at the Tower Records site, clammbon is releasing a new Tower-exclusive single on November 21! The title is Rough & Laugh, and the song will serve as the new opening theme for the surreal comedy anime Polar Bear Cafe. The disc is expected to have four tracks, and there will be a limited edition with a DVD of the anime opening sequence sans titles.

Today clammbon announced two new live recordings. 3peace2 is a 2-disc live album recorded on last year’s “Where Shall We Go?” tour, to be released on March 21. The other is a two-disc super-premium limited-edition live DVD box set, from their show at Ryoukoku Kokugikan on November 3, 2011.

Also! I picked up a few clammbon items of varying rarity on my trip to Tokyo last month, which I will be adding to the site. The Aru Kodou and Hana Saku Iroha singles, the limited-edition Aru Kodou DVD, three issues of Hibiku, the official clammbon magazine, and three clammbon t-shirts! I need to figure out the best way to add the magazines; maybe some brief reviews and a previews of a few pages would be appropriate. Not sure I have the endurance to translate whole articles any time soon!

These are the limited editions with the excellent live DVDs included. Now is your chance to get them at 20% off.

The first video from Mito’s new album is up: http://m.youtube.com/#/profile?desktop_uri=%2FClammbonChannel&user=ClammbonChannel&gl=US

Also, I didn’t know this, but the new best compilations come with awesome posters, one with a photo from 1996 and one from 2011: http://instagr.am/p/Dr1vr/

Hi! Just a few things.

The two new best compilations are out as of April 20th. Both have limited editions that come with live DVDs. And if you buy both, you can send away the included slips to get a bonus CD with the songs Eiketsu no Asa Shou and Tasogare. But you’ll probably need to provide a Japanese address, and you’ll have to postmark it by May 31st.

The official clammbon site has been totally refreshed! It is more modern, more fun, and more clammbon. Check it out!

Mito is coming out with a fourth solo project album. The title is DAWNS and will be released under the name Mito, unlike his previous efforts which each had unique artist names. Also, there will be a two-disc set of songs from various musicians that Mito has written, produced, remixed, or otherwise worked on over the years: Mito archive 1999-2010. Watch for both of these May 18th.

Miss Ikuko has started using Twitter, and almost every tweet is like a little poem. She’s @ooo195ooo. Also, if you haven’t been following Mito, he’s @micromicrophone.

One last thing: I dug up my old Akismet key and deleted the 2,000 spam comments in the queue, and now comments are back on. We’ll see how it goes!

Thanks for your support.

Hello, everyone. I have some news items.

First, it sounds like the Clammbon band and staff are all okay in the aftermath of the disaster that hit Japan this month. We can be thankful for that.

It sounds like the two new best albums have been delayed, though, as the production line has been affected. Columbia Best is now due April 20, and there doesn’t seem to be a date for Warner Best.

Clammbon’s song “Vital Sign” appears on the impressively quickly-compiled Play For Japan series at Ototoy. All of the proceeds go to disaster relief, so you might want to buy a few of them, or the whole pack, and get exposed to some new music in the process.

Mito personally composed a little song for the earthquake victims, titled 312. Again, you can pick that up at Ototoy. Proceeds from that go to relief, too. You can watch its original performance on YouTube.

Miss Ikuko appeared on the track “I’ll” by the band L.E.D.; thanks to Hear Japan for the note on my last.fm page.

Lastly, as spam has gotten out of control and the free use of Akismet is discouraged anymore, I have turned off comments. They weren’t that commonly used anyway, and I am still happy to receive email.

Thanks for your continuing support. Be well.

Hi! Clammbon has posted a performance of Vital Sign from the live bonus DVD that comes with the limited edition of their columbia best album. Both best albums are due out March 30. Check out the video; it’s pretty thrilling!

http://www.youtube.com/ClammbonChannel

Hello folks,

You may have already heard, but clammbon will be releasing two more best-of albums in 2011, one from their time on Warner Records and one from their time on Columbia Records. Each will come in a limited edition with a DVD, containing footage from 2000’s Machiwabi Machisabi tour at Akasaka BLITZ and from 2010’s SUPER STAR performance at Yomiuri Land Open Air Theater, respectively. The release date is March 30.

You can see a video message from the band, and vote on your favorite songs to be included, at the official site:

Happy 2011!

Hello! Thanks to some help from my friend Tom, who has lots of anime subtitling experience, I think I may have got the tayu tau subtitles into a reliable format. I had to update to the latest version of VLC for it to work properly; that software may have been updated in some way that makes SSA files work better. If you tried to use the subtitles before and it didn’t work, please give it another try and let me know how it goes. Thanks!

Mito has a special display up at Tower Records Shinjuku to show off his favorite anime music.

That’s even my Tower Records, from when I lived in that area and whenever I go back to Tokyo. If I were standing in the store right now, I’d probably be tempted to drop the ¥35000 to get them all at once.

My more anime-aware friends have helped me figure them all out:

1. Patlabor the Movie OST Album INQUEST
2. Macross Frontier Vocal Collection Nyantama
3. Zegapain OST 2
4. Lucky Star Character Song Album Vol. 11: Kanata and Soujirou
5. Aso Natsuko – Programming for Non-Fiction
6. Hakuyoku no Seiyaku ~Pure Engagement~/Onnaji Kimochi
7. Kobato OST 2
8. Hidama~buru
9. Toyosaki Aki – Boku wo Sagashite

Related selections:

1. Aso Natsuko – Movement of Magic
2. marble – Senritsu no Yukue, Sora no Kanata
3. Sphere – Now loading…SKY!!
4. Fate/stay night UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS OST