Konbanwa,
Miyuki here.
Last year on Febuary 14th
2014 we decided to upload our second full length album to bandcamp:
Yuki Yuki Yasumi Tsundere.
We decided that we would release
“something” for the one year anniversary, so we've uploaded the
following:
An 11 song live album recorded in 2010
(never released until now).
A 5 song EP of remixes of songs from
our first two studio albums: Devoured By Japanese Schoolgirls
and Tsundere.
All 16 of these songs are currently on
Bandcamp and can be downloaded FOR FREE.
Anyway, I wanted to provide some kind
of write up/ album notes for both the live show and the remixes. I'll
do the live show in another blog.
Here are Miyuki's album notes for the 5
remixes/re-recordings on Free EP:
History of The Eyes of Innocence
(Nutty Menthol Mix):
In 2008, the first three songs Jack and
I worked on were Eyes Of Innocence, Stop My Heart, and
Persona. These were the first “experimental” tracks for
the project that would become Zeta Potential and later Yuki Yuki
Yasumi. We easily spent three weeks making every mistake we could in
an attempt to destroy these songs. Stop My Heart had at least
30+ violin/viola tracks that caused our recording software to skip on
playback. Eyes Of Innocence was bogged down by failed drum
takes, and I forget what was wrong with Persona, we just
forgot about it, I guess.
Before finishing the Devoured By
Japanese Schoolgirls album, I finished two extremely
simplified/dumbed down versions of Stop My Heart and Eyes
of Innocence to put on the album last minute. The album version
of Eyes doesn't even have guitar (which I didn't really care
about, since I felt it stood on it's own as an electronic song).
This version of the song is not the
original Eyes, which remains unfinished, it is however a
“heavier” interpretation of the song with focus on guitars and
screamed vocals (as opposed to spoken work on the original version).
It is also slower than any other version recorded which seems to add
to it's anger and brutality. If you are a fan of my “old material”
with the band Wheeling Bitch Circus, you should give it a listen. It
reminds me a little bit of the industrial music they were doing
before I joined the band.
History of Anata No Ichiban
(Wake Up Bake Out Mix):
About a month after releasing the
Tsundere album, I started experimenting with sings the parts
of the song which I rapped on the album. I figured it would be kind
of chill to change those parts on a remix, assuming I slowed the song
down. The vocals are deliberately “airy and anemic,” giving it a
more laid- back vibe.
The original song itself has an odd
history. My youngest brother used to call the Tonberry enemy from
Final Fantasy a “Gumpa.” He ended up creating a universe
surrounding the Gumpa/Tonberry creatures, and I ended up wring a
theme song for them.
I always felt that Gumpa music would
involve a lot of pizzicato strings, so I used this as a guideline
when wring the song Gumpaz of Egypt, for the third WBC album:
Fallen Angel.
I actually really hate that song, but I
decided to re-purpose the pizzicato strings part for a “hip-hop
song” for a project called Vitamin Dick Bag, which never got made.
The end result was the music for Anata
no Ichiban.
History of Sexy Japanese Maid
(Mild Seven mix):
This song is meant to be an anthem for
weeaboo. It was one of my favorite songs on Devoured By Japanese
Schoolgirls and it also features song of Jack's favorite guitar
solos. With that said, I always thought the song could be tighter.
This version of the song isn't too different from the original. Some
of the synthesizers are played with legato at parts which give the
song a slightly different feel and there are some chiptune arpeggios
to give the song an added geekiness.
History of Kitsune Udon (NES RY4
Mix):
I came up with this song's chorus while
making coffee before work. I thought it was ridiculous, so I
discarded it. Three days later, I found myself still singing it, so I
figured it was catchy enough that I might as well finish/record it.
It is “technically” the first song
written for the second Yuki Yuki Yasumi album Tsundere. A like
recording of it exists from summer 2010, which means that we were
playing it live four years before it ended up with an official
release.
The song has theme of personification
of food as a girl. Kitsune Udon is a noddle dish (one of my old
Japanese teachers told me that it isn't actually made with fox meat).
In this case Kitsune is a girl and I go on to discuss all the torrid
things I do to her with condiments. I think I got the idea from the
anime Love Hina where one of the girls is nicknamed Kitsune (I always
liked her short hair and her big ass tits that would protrude from
her poorly-fitting button down shirt).
The remix was originally going to be
called “Vore Mix”, but since we already had this smoking/vaping
theme we decided on the “RY4 Mix.” I might revisit the
vorefication idea since I already have an idea for a song about a
Korean waifu made of Kimchi.
History of S.O.S. (Anytime
Vaping Cigarette Mix):
S.O.S. is a song I wrote after
watching episodes 1-6 of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It ended
up being the 2nd track on Devoured By Japanese
Schoolgirls.
I did something special with the mix. I
played every 4 bars in reverse order and then used a reverse effect
to set the song back into the correct chord progression. I had a lot
of fun making this remix and will someday use the same technique for
another song.
After wring S.O.S., I wrote an
alternate song called Tsundere Girl for the second album,
which borrows some of the lyrics for use in an alternate theme. When
performing S.O.S. Live I often times insert lyrics from Tsundere
Girl, which I also do on this remix.
Anyway, that's all for the remix EP. If you like the songs and want to have the originals the first two Yuki albums are available for purchase from a number of vendors including the
Yuki Yuki Yasumi Bandcamp page.
