Now that I've finally got around to posting something new, I just wish I could remember what it was that I was going to witter on about. OK, I'll go to my current obsession.

I'm well know for my obsession with bubblegum pop teenage female double pop acts. I don't know what it is, but for some reason a lot of my favourite music is made by cheap disposable female duos: Shampoo, Daphne and Celeste, taTu, Britney Spears... the list goes on. Well, I now have a new name to add to this roster: Halcali!

Yes, Halcali: a pair of teenage japanese girl rappers who wear boiler suits, just like the Beastie Boys, so they must be real rappers. You can click around here and find some excellent clips (30 seconds or so) from their first album, Bacon (Japanese-style random picking of English words for added coolness!).

Highlights including Guri Guri Surfer Girl (track 3). Listen to the clip of Track 4 to hear the crazy background sample ("this is a recording"). Hear echoes of several classic rap tracks including "Hey you! The Rocksteady Crew" and something else (The Message? Rappers delight? Something by Len? Cross-reference also to the "Shoyu Weenie" episode of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law if anyone else can pick up on these references) in Candy Hearts (track 6). Wonder if the whole operation is secretly under the control of the mysterious Svengali DJ Fumiya who seems to have credits on every track. Then hear the glory of Electric Sensei (track 11), and realise that you just don't care. To get some sense of what they are singing about, then check out the translation and transcription of the current single, Guri Guri Surfrider :

It's new style How High?
koukiatsu nante chiisai
senkou faiya- maru de daiya
moeagaru sama- su-pa-saiya
sokosoko ha-do ni norikonasu ha-tobi-to
mazu ippo ri-do ABC to the Z moshi mo
norikoeru kamo ne sama-taimu

How high indeed? The album is great, so rush out and buy a copy. If you can find anywhere that sells it, that is, because I can't.

I should give mad props, or at least slightly loopy supports to Adam and Joe, whose BBC3 endeavour Adam and Joe Go Tokyo put me onto this band. Thanks guys! I wonder what's on next?



Oh, Programme Name, my favourite!

Feel free to send the above in to NTK and claim it as your own, but please don't direct people to the copy on triv: it only has 128kbps upload, and a flash crowd would probably destroy it forever (or at least get me kicked off). Cheers. Coming soon: readers letters and all new crazy search terms. Or not. Probably not.