Recording the new album
Lo-Fi is a doing well as a band since we finally settled with the three members we are now. We've released our album at the end of last year, and hopefully if things move on as scheduled we'll be releasing our next album around the same time this year too.
Then it will mean that we really have something available for our fans when we finally reach them live where-ever they are. I especially miss being in the US to perform. I haven't been there before with my band, and I think it'd be a great environment to play our sound.
Japan has an interesting musical environment, but it seems as though the neo-soul kind of sound hasn't really hit main-stream here yet, and it seems like a very underground movement compared to other genres like punk-rock and ofcourse the Japanese traditional J-POP / Kayo-kyoku sound.
I love the old Japanese music, that was J-POP once, but now categorized as Kayo-kyoku. The sound is a blend of traditional Japanese music melody mixed with influences from western music. Maybe the trend shifts are moving too fast for the public to follow, but just like anywhere else in the world, CD sales are plummeting and digital sales are the main source of income for many artists.
http://www.riaj.or.jp/data/quantity/index.html
Just check out the shift toward the end of the chart (at the bottom) where CD sales are down but there is trend for more movement on video media.
Here's some information they also researched about the consumer trends for music.
http://www.riaj.or.jp/report/mediauser/pdf/softuser2009.pdf
It's easy to tell that the television media is very dominant in controlling what people buy.
http://www.riaj.or.jp/data/cd_all/cd_all_q.html
It's no surprise that international artists have very limited sales in Japan. Then again I don't this is the whole picture, because the Japan Record association only has access to those who have registered and filed their reports into their database.
So even though we are in rough waters doing music here in Japan as an indie artist, we are getting really good feedback from our audience, and they are helping to keep our band going. We are incredibly grateful for the love and support of our music. We sell the most records at our shows, even though our CDs are physically available all over, I guess when they see a live performance it's more convincing for them that they will get what they paid for when they buy the CD.
Right now we were successful in getting about 1000 CDs sold and that got us enough support to help start making our second full album. We've gotten almost all the songs written and now we're starting the recording process all over again.
The new album should have even more live sound and jamming, can't wait to get it all together for people waiting on our new music.
Then it will mean that we really have something available for our fans when we finally reach them live where-ever they are. I especially miss being in the US to perform. I haven't been there before with my band, and I think it'd be a great environment to play our sound.
Japan has an interesting musical environment, but it seems as though the neo-soul kind of sound hasn't really hit main-stream here yet, and it seems like a very underground movement compared to other genres like punk-rock and ofcourse the Japanese traditional J-POP / Kayo-kyoku sound.
I love the old Japanese music, that was J-POP once, but now categorized as Kayo-kyoku. The sound is a blend of traditional Japanese music melody mixed with influences from western music. Maybe the trend shifts are moving too fast for the public to follow, but just like anywhere else in the world, CD sales are plummeting and digital sales are the main source of income for many artists.
http://www.riaj.or.jp/data/quantity/index.html
Just check out the shift toward the end of the chart (at the bottom) where CD sales are down but there is trend for more movement on video media.
Here's some information they also researched about the consumer trends for music.
http://www.riaj.or.jp/report/mediauser/pdf/softuser2009.pdf
It's easy to tell that the television media is very dominant in controlling what people buy.
http://www.riaj.or.jp/data/cd_all/cd_all_q.html
It's no surprise that international artists have very limited sales in Japan. Then again I don't this is the whole picture, because the Japan Record association only has access to those who have registered and filed their reports into their database.
So even though we are in rough waters doing music here in Japan as an indie artist, we are getting really good feedback from our audience, and they are helping to keep our band going. We are incredibly grateful for the love and support of our music. We sell the most records at our shows, even though our CDs are physically available all over, I guess when they see a live performance it's more convincing for them that they will get what they paid for when they buy the CD.
Right now we were successful in getting about 1000 CDs sold and that got us enough support to help start making our second full album. We've gotten almost all the songs written and now we're starting the recording process all over again.
The new album should have even more live sound and jamming, can't wait to get it all together for people waiting on our new music.
