Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Kagrra - Utakata (Visual Kei)

Sometimes you hear some music that touches your heart, or maybe even your soul. Sometimes you don't even understand the lyrics of such a song but it feels complete and beautiful as it is. This is what I experienced while I was listening to 'Utakata' by 'Kagrra', a Japanese rockband from the Visual Kei movement. For those who never heard about Visual Kei: This is a musical subculture from Japan (Nippon). It can be identified by its flamboyant, excentric and often adrogyn looks from te people. It has it's founding in the 80's, maybe inspired by new romantic and glamrock acts like David Bowie and Kiss. Visual Kei wasn't very known in Europe but after 2000 it took a flight here. It's all thanks to immense popularity of the Japanese anime which found its heart to many viewers during this time. Germany especially seems to like the influences of Visual Kei due to the fact of the existence of the pop-rock band cinema bizarre and also Bill Kaulitz, the leadsinger of Tokyo Hotel, seems to be a real fan of Visual Kei. The music can differ: glam, cyberpunk, gothic or new romantic.

Utakata by Kagrra just has everything to make it a real memorable song. Together with the video it completes its uniqueness, some traditional instruments are added to the normal instruments which make it even more brilliant. Well...just listen to it and I guess you will float away for 5 minutes to another world where you are totally hypnotized by the musical sounds of this band. Just a fantastic song...

1 comment:

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