Rock 'n Roll High School

A minute ago I was thinking that I needed to get back to putting up hip hop since I've been blogging about everything else the past couple months, but after seeing this video, I changed my mind. Again.

Oreskaband is an all-female high school sextet out of Osaka, Japan that came together in 2003 when the band members met while in junior high. By early high school, these girls were not only tearing up local clubs, but had put out their own self-produced album. Soon after, they were signed to Sony and to date have released two albums, Penpal and Ore. While Oreskaband have yet to release anything stateside, they just performed at SXSW, and had shows in both SF and LA (yep, I missed them all).

Oreskaband's brand of ska isn't necessarily anything too far out of the box, but there's definitely that infectiously saccharine J-Pop sound in the vocals that distinguishes their music. What I like best about Oreskaband though, is that you can really hear and see how much these girls just love to play and rock a show. In a time of jaded and pretentious artists, it's really refreshing to hear a group like this that seems blissfully content to be putting out and playing the music they love, and this really shines through.

[MP3] Oreskaband :: Pinocchio
[MP3] Oreskaband :: Knife & Fork

Oreskaband's MySpace
Oreskaband's Official Site

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