Mito’s got his new solo project underway, and it looks to be some pretty far-out proggy stuff. It seems to be a set of three albums, each released under a different band name: FOSSA MAGNA, dot i/o, and micromicrophone. The albums are called “Declaration of the Independence of the imagination and the Rights of Man to His Own Madness” parts 1-3. Part 1 comes out February 22, and the others are set for release later in the year. If you collect all 3 and send in the proof of purchase from the CD’s “obi”, you can win a carrying case or a CD of outtakes.
As always, see the official site for details. :D

This entire site is being migrated to the startlingly useful Movable Type blog system. It will make the site a lot easier and a lot more fun for me to update, and it’ll encourage fans to communicate through the comments system. :D

Today’s a very clammbon day. I just updated the albums section with several items that aren’t normal full albums. :D

Miss Harada Ikuko has been mentioned on NPR! A music reviewer who went to Japan somehow came across Piano and has recommended it. They even offer downloadable samples of “Tori no Hane Tori no Kage” and “Twinkle”, albeit in crappy proprietary media formats. It’s odd that her solo project would get major recognition in the USA before clammbon itself did. Maybe this will create some more English-speaking fans. Thanks to Lee Richardson for finding the story. :D

Miss Ikuko has another side project in the works, this time with her long-time friends Nagadzumi Takashi (Hanaregumi) and Ooya Yuusuke (a member of Polaris). The band is called Ohana, the Hawai’ian word for “family” popularized by the fine film Lilo & Stich. They have an official site, and are working on an album and playing shows.

The group had a great set at the Fuji Rock Festival this year. They played to about 9000(!) people for 20 minutes, and were received well enough to do an unplanned encore. Congratulations to the band. :D See some lovely photos.
Sadly they did not get to play at Yaon (Hibiya Yagai Ongakudou) this summer like they had in years past, but we always have the magnificent Yaon deeveedee to remind us of great times.

Hi! There’s a new song for you today, Anthem from the latest album. I was in Japan a few weeks ago, during clammbon’s tour! But seeing them would have required taking a trip down to Kyouto, which just wouldn’t have worked out. So I watched the Yaon deeveedee to make up for it. That just might be the greatest deeveedee ever made.

Holy cow!! The official clammbon site has seen a complete renewal. Go look now! :D

I’ve been talking with the very nice people at the official clammbon BBS; what a pleasant place to make new friends. :D
Meanwhile, more lyrics! I give you… “charm point”!

When I can’t sleep, you get more lyric translations. I just put up “Surround”, everyone’s favorite tune. By the way, it doesn’t make any sense. :D
Update: Still couldn’t sleep, so translated “Rainbow” as well.
In other news, I went and plugged this site on clammbon’s official BBS (where Mr. Daisuke himself has been spotted lately); two humans replied, including a clammbon.com staff member! Actual clammbon people agree: dramatickers.com is “subarashii”. :D :D :D

Well, I guess my local Kinokuniya was lying, because now I can’t get the new album there without special ordering it and waiting for several weeks. Instead I’ve got my old roommate-buddy bringing it to me straight from Japan when he visits next week. Unfortunately, I have to sit tight until then… I went and put up the lyrics for “George” from Dramatic, which I apparently translated a long time ago and never bothered to post.

I went and cleaned up a lot of the HTML and CSS that was getting on my nerves. Some things look nicer now.
There’s still a ton to do, concerning both design and content. I want to automate the news and discography/lyrics pages with Python or something. I want to add information about clammbon DVDs. Of course, I want to translate the rest of the lyrics. Most of all, I want to listen to “ten,”!
My local Kinokuniya claims they’ll have “ten,” on or near its release date. I hope to get it as soon as possible, and post my impressions here. The world is incredibly fortunate to have a sixth clammbon album on the way…

Amazon Japan has some more info on “ten,” including the distinctively-clammbon super-simple cover art, while Yes Asia has a track listing. As it turns out, the second disc is just a re-mix of the first disc. Of course, that’s not as cool as two whole discs of original songs, but it’s certainly better than just one disc. This album was produced by clammbon member Mito himself! I have a feeling this is going to be a great one. Mark your calendars for March 2!

Two updates in one day; can you believe it? I posted some more pictures of each member; they are taken from the best DVD and the live in shibuya DVD.

Well… only about fourteen months since my last update. The announcement of a brand new two-disc album coming March 2nd was enough to get me to update, though. The new album is called “ten,” and is apparently already finished recording, according to the band in their new year’s greeting at the official site.
One imagination song, “tourist on the mirai’n”, has been translated.

Amazon Japan now has a track listing for imagination. Check out the transcription on the discography page.
I’ve added a lot of lyric translations to the discography page and little bits of more info around the site.

I was researching some clammbon facts at Amazon Japan and came across an entry for clammbon’s next album! Slated for a November 19 release, its title is imagination. No further details are listed, but whoa, exciting!

All right, I’m actually starting to get some stuff in place around here. Now we’re only missing two sections; yay. Watch for lyrics to appear little by little as I transcribe, translate, and practically extract and report them into sensible shapes.

Well, this site is somewhat open. I’m simultaneously trying to put together a design that I won’t tear apart later for its failure to meet standards and trying to gather all of the clammbon info I have to actually fill the site. My first priority is getting all of the first album translated into English and set up for easy reading here in the albums section. Until then, welcome to the site.