Okay, so not the most exciting news, but things were slow so I figured I might as well mention it here. I’ve added full HQ scans of the Roman Hikou jacket and packaging. It’s overkill as always, but sometimes it is nice to have that uber high quality pic right?
HALCALI Featured on New Song by ALFA. Also, Another New Song??
November 12, 2010 – 9:44 pm
Two bits of news.
First, HALCALI, along with Ketsumeishi member RYO, are featured in ALFA‘s new digital single, “BOY MEAT GIRL“. The song will release on 11/24 via ChakuUta.
YUCALI wrote about the song in HALCALI’s ameblog, stating that although it’s a digital release, there will be a PV, which the girls will be in. They even choreographed a dance for the song.
YUCALI wrote that the meaning of the song is the current social phenomenon that is happening in Japan called “Soushokukei Danshi” (lit. Herbivorous Boys) and the less popular, yet accompanying and gradually rising in popularity “Nikushokukei Joshi” (lit. Carnivorous Girls). Therefore the title is “BOY MEAT GIRL”. I will be writing a blog post explaining this social culture in the next few days, please look forward to it. Do you notice my name is soushokukeiDino? lol
A little bit of background on ALFA (アルファ): A 2MC & 1DJ, 3-piece Hip Hop Unit. Active since 1996. Like many J-HipHop & J-Rap artists, they aren’t very popular outside of the country like J-Pop artists, however they are quite popular domestically. Considered trendsetters like other artists such as Rhymester, Ketsumeishi and Schadaraparr (all groups who HALCALI have worked with before). Many Japanese people in their 20′s have nostalgic memories connected to their older songs.
Ketsumeishi is a 4-piece Hip Hop Unit; RYO is one of them. They have the same story as ALFA, except by word of mouth and observation of culture in Tokyo, I’d say they are presently more popular than ALFA. Active since 1993.
So, let’s all wish for the best and hope that HALCALI get some good exposure with this collaboration. It’s good to see HALCALI going back to their roots once again and collaborating with some Hip Hop artists that have made historic names for themselves. Now if only they could get back on good terms with the RIP SLYME guys…
Second bit, YUCALI has been writing on twitter that her and HALCA have been in the studio recording a song. The way she spoke of the song made me think that it is a different song that the one previously posted about here. YUCALI said that they had both written their own respective rap verses, and that she was quite nervous to record it- like a kid about to give a school presentation.
Update// YUCALI made an ambiguous tweet saying she is “going to have a business meeting with THAT GIRL from her neighborhood and THAT ONE DUDE.” Which I am interpreting as her saying that she and HALCA are going to meet with their producer. She even said, “I wonder what we’re going to accomplish~ Ha ha ha!” So hopefully they’re planning the new single…
Let’s hope they’ve got two songs down and we’ll be getting a single for the winter season!
New Song in the Works!
September 29, 2010 – 10:33 am
According to Yucali’s tweets, the girls have been actively working on a new song for the past few weeks or so. About a week ago, the music was being put together & recorded, which did include a guitar. The manner & context of Yucali’s tweets also leads me to believe that the girls are quite involved in their music production and direction, hence their presence during the recordings.
Within the past week, the girls have been writing lyrics. In this photo (from Yucali’s twitter) they were in studio with i-dep’s Nakamura Hiroshi, who is likely producing the song.
To possibly give a feel for the new track, Nakamura Hiroshi has worked with HALCALI before on the following songs: “halcali’n'bass” , “pisudori” , “check!! check!! it!!” , “Sister Ship” & “clutch”
In short, this guy knows what he’s doing when he’s working with HALCALI. It’s about time he records an A-side for the girls. All of the prior mentioned B-sides were great work!
LET’S HOPE FOR A GREAT NEW SINGLE!
Nearing completion of the new track, Yucali also tweeted “Gosh, I really think this is a great song! We’ve tinkered with the lyrics some, and now we’re in the middle of recording it. This may be HALCALI’s most chill song to date.”
Let’s hope this song gets a release date fairly soon. I don’t want it to be another ENDLESS NIGHT where it sits on the shelf of a studio for a good two years before it gets a release.
However, judging from TOKYO GROOVE’s good sales and the quick follow-up single, Roman Hikou, HALCALI may skip their pattern of having a 2 year hiatus after releasing an album, which they’ve had since the release of Ongaku no Susume.
Everyone send Yucali a tweet encouraging her & Halca!
Roman Hikou charts 103.
September 26, 2010 – 6:25 am
Well in case you guys didn’t see, the weekly rankings came in for the week of Roman Hikou’s release. The single failed to chart in the top 50.
This probably isn’t too surprising given that it had next to no promotion, but a bit disappointing none the less. The lack of a b-side probably hurt the release a bit and they would have been better off dropping the price by another 200 yen to make it a one coin single. That probably would have brought in more sales.
Regardless, I bought the single so I will be scanning it soon and adding HQ pics into the photo gallery, so look forward to that at least!
HALCALI vinyl scans added to gallery
August 31, 2010 – 9:11 am
In our quest to bring you everything HALCALI you could ever possibly want, and even stuff you don’t want, I’ve added some new album scans to the gallery.
These ones are from HALCALI’s recent “You May Dream” vinyl release. Really there isn’t anything new to see here, it’s basically the same old same old from the single release, but I scanned them in obnoxiously high quality (seriously, they are needlessly large) in case anyone wanted to do something with them. The vinyl does offer a new remixed version of “You May Dream,” so there might be something interesting there, but until I get to a record player I guess I will never know.
