Come in and Blog On!

2023 Welcome to your IE 3 class blog. The object of this class project is to log in and write your comments, web links, answers to questions, and your questions to others at least twice a week. It's fun and you can include pictures or graphics. Keep it original, helpful, and interesting. Don't forget to spellcheck your work before publishing. Also, when you create your user name, please use your real first name, in Romaji (ex. Ryuki, Mari, Lisa, etc.) so that we know who we are communicating with. Enjoy, and Blog on!

Friday, June 12, 2015

Farewell songs

I have a few songs in my library that represent parting with or saying goodbye to something. One of these is "たんたんたん" (Tantantan) by Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, enclosed in a 192kbps MP3 file. One of my favorite bands, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs (called マスドレ for short) made their debut with a self-titled EP (sorry about the low sound quality) and went on to release another mini-album and a full one before they came to an abrupt stop in 2012 ("they" is an overstatement; only one of the original members remained by the end). "たんたんたん" is a farewell gift from the last member, Natsuko Miyamoto, and she wished for the song to be spread across the world. Here's a link, since YouTube compresses data and lossy-to-lossy compression is something that I would rather not risk.

Another Japanese artist that I like, Kinoko Teikoku (きのこ帝国), made a five-song EP with songs focusing on the concept of saying farewell/losing things. The band, around the time they made this EP, were in a transitional phase. Amid their increasing popularity, they also were in a time when they were experiencing changes in their human relationships and environments. I remember listening to this plenty near the time of my high school graduation, which is one of the reasons why this EP left a really strong impression on me.