・・・・・・・・・-- Slide（スライド）

 

Eighteen months ago or so, I wrote an article on one of the contemporary aidoru groups with a most unusual name: ・・・・・・・・・. Seeing how that could be difficult to pronounce in polite conversation, it was very nice of the media to provide a slew of alternate names such as dotstokyo or Tententen.

Here is a track from their August 2017 single "CD" called "Slide". It comes with a music video that I can describe as perfect for my old late-night MuchMusic show, "City Limits" featuring the more eclectic stuff. There's something rather avant-garde of overlapping images of flowers, clouds, hands and bare feet in "Slide". Of course, none of the members will show their faces.

I don't know anything about the shoegazer genre that has been placed onto dotstokyo but my impression is that the music is all jangly guitars within a downbeat mood, but from what I've read on Wikipedia is that it's surprisingly another name for dream pop. That's the label that I've associated with Ramjet Pulley especially with their "Overjoyed" song. Then I gather that "Slide" is a pretty good representative of shoegazing music because I find it rather upbeat on the guitars with the flighty visuals.

Words, music and arrangement were handled by Azusa Suga（管梓）, the leader of the band For Tracy Hyde under the name Natsubot（夏bot）. Since I've come across another group with another unusual moniker, I'm gonna have to investigate this one as well, especially because For Tracy Hyde has a number of genres under its belt.

・・・・・・・・・-- Neh（ねぇ）

OK, I can honestly say that this is the band that has the MOST UNUSUAL name in "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Nope, I'm not intentionally showing any quiet consternation in graphics here. This new aidoru group's name is indeed ・・・・・・・・・. So first off, we gotta get the enunciation of this out of the way if we are to proceed with the rests of this article. According to J-Wiki, we can call the band dots, dotstokyo, dotsnine, Tententen（てんてんてん...Dot Dot Dot） or even Tenchanz（てんちゃんズ...Little Miss Dots）, among other appellations. However, the name for the band is rendered as ・・・・・・・・・, so this is how the name will be treated in writing. Incidentally, although I had initially assumed that because of the 9 dots, there were 9 members, J-Wiki has shown in a couple of places that there are 10 members (unless there was a replacement).

・・・・・・・・・has been officially designated as a shoegazer aidoru band with underground punk elements and has been in action since 2016. I don't know very much at all about shoegazer pop or rock, but I am intrigued by this song "Neh" (Say...?) from their January 2017 EP, "Shuwa Shuwa"（しゅわしゅわ...Bubbliness）and the video helps. There are 9 dots in the video and though we never see the members in person, it looks like the dots are more than capable of shooting out the lyrics. Again, I'm not a shoegazer fan but that sonic wall of guitar has had me thinking of U2.

You can probably get far better insight on ・・・・・・・・・ through the Homicidols website, and I just found out that the group may be calling it a day since there is an article there that was just released today signalling the release of their final album just last week.