DAI, DYE, DIE, dine and DAI(do as infinity)

Does “Inuyasha” sound familiar to anyone? Well, it used to be my favourite anime! BUt why am i talking about “Inyasha“? Because simply Do As Infinity sang the theme song – Fukari Mori. Which is definitely their most famous song untill now.

Well, for me…. the band’s strength can be summarised into 2 points:

1. Van Tomiko(lead singer) is bloody cute and has a unique voice
2. The Compositions are absolutely awesome (will discuss a little more later)

In case you know absolutely nothing about the band; here is a short intro to them.

Do As Infinity is a japanese trio that was formed in 1999 after the main “brain” (Dai Nagao) decided that he was going to form a band. Dai Nagao is a composer that was hired by AVEX Tracs to write songs for Ayumi Hamasaki(Queen of J-POP) and Hitomi. The band consist of Van Tomiko(lead singer), Ryo Owatari(guitarist) and Dao Nagao(guitarist but he already left DAI).

SO…. Here is the song i will be reviewing. “Shinjitsu No Uta”. (Which is absolutely my favourite song in the world!!!)

*there is absolutely no way i could post a mp3 onto wordpress. ANGRY!*

Alright let me try to explain why this is my favourite song. Firstly, if you listen to the original version, the intro arrangement (or infact the whole song) is THE BOMB. Let me name the instruments that you can hear from the intro; ErHu, Pipa, Acoustic Guitar, Synthesizer and Acoustic Piano. So many instruments yet none of them clashing with each other. And the Erhu and Pipa absolutely give the whole song a very chinese/oriental flavour to it.(in my memory, not many japanese have done this before).

Secondly, its in 6/8(my favourite rhythm). The 6/8 definitely gives the whole song a very powerful driving rhythm on the 3rds. 6/8 have been known to be used most commonly in music like blues and waltz being able to “bring people into the music” very easily.

Graph Illustrating dynamics of songs

Thirdly, DAI songs always amazes me. almost all of their songs have very defined and strong dynamics that gives you a very “shiok/good” feeling. I know this sounds stupid, like DUH! All songs are suppose to be like that. BUt DAI is able to do it exceptionally well (the increase in dynamics is drastic) not just by increasing loudness but also by increasing the overall busyness , high notes in the melody and even the lyrics help by putting emphasis on certain words. Listen to every one of their songs and you will find the same trend.

Well, if you have watched the video, you would have realised that she definitely needs to work on her vocals, live. She sounds amazing on CD but i have to say that her performance in the video was far from ideal. Her voice “cracked” and towards the end of the song where she had to hit all those high notes you could practically see her “dying” to reach them. But i absolutely salute her for not using a vocal tuner(which i know of many artist who actually uses it during their live performances). But anyway i thought the band did a good job recreating the song(though there were lots of details lacking).

Song composition: 9.5/10

Performance: 7/10

No Music-to, No Dream-to