Cal’s favorite singer, Aina the End of BiSH fame, has always had at least a few toes in other musical waters. Her early solo work, which I do encourage you to check out, shows a young woman who can do just about anything she’d want to. Her more recent material, which I kind of regret only half-mentioning in passing in the Weekender a little while ago (but here you go), is great at showing off her chops; her first full studio album, THE END, is out in February, but she released the first single from it yesterday. Friends, we must do everything we can to protect this gift to humanity.
Aina the End
AiNA THE END Writes a Song
Yesterday BiSH announced that AiNA THE END will release a digital single for which she composed both the music and lyrics. The arrangement for the tune is by chill guitarist Shingo Sekiguchi, so we can only imagine that the final product will be a far cry from typical BiSH Kentacore.
For a taste, BiSH posted an acapella teaser on their (relatively) new YouTube channel.
Honestly, I’m not sure Aina’s voice needs much more of a backing track than muted traffic noise.
The song, entitled “Only On the Night I Want to Die” (死にたい夜にかぎって), is the theme song for a dorama of the same name. Both will be released on February 25th. Continue reading
Let’s Just Call It the Boss Single
In case it hasn’t been obvious, I’ve become a little bit of a BiSH skeptic over the past year or so — even my original support for the last single waned in retrospect. It grieves me, actually; my all-time idol top 10, regardless of whether it’s song-album-video-person-whatever, has BiSH all over it, and I remain an ardent supporter of the idea of BiSH and the incredible barrier-breaking potential that I think they have. This is why, even almost two years into a long run of mostly being disappointed by them, I get the giddies when they spin off new stuff, especially new stuff that appeals directly to my own biases!
【チッチ, アイナソロデビュー決定!!】
9月19日両A面SG「夜王子と月の姫 / きえないで」でソロデビュー決定。「夜王子と月の姫」はGOING STEADY/銀杏BOYZのカバー、「きえないで」はアイナ作詞作曲。よろ。https://t.co/oTf5srYKWT #BiSHソロ pic.twitter.com/EUD2sR4XFk— BiSHオフィシャル (@BiSHidol) August 15, 2018
That’s a split solo single for Aina — nothing new there — and the Captain herself. Continue reading
Set Your Faces to Stunned: Aina the End’s MONDO GROSSO MV
…
I’m sorry, what? Oh, right. Yeah, no, I know, you’ve probably seen it by now. Maybe less stunned than doing that creepy-eager Jack Nicholson nod-gif thing.
And now that I’m sure that everybody’s enjoyed that arguably NSFW piece of work, you may feel free to carry on. Aina very well may be; this Try Aina Doing Different Things approach to what I can only imagine is a series of trial runs for a solo career seems to have found a much happier home than where she’s been before. Continue reading
All about Those BiSH Collabs
It was reflexive, the way my teeth gritted this morning when I saw the tweet from BiSH:
【MONDO GROSSO新曲のボーカリストはアイナ・ジ・エンド!】
TBS系火曜ドラマ「きみが心に棲みついた」挿入歌である
MONDO GROSSO新曲『偽りのシンパシー』
ボーカリストとしてアイナ・ジ・エンドが参加。#mondogrosso #BiSH #アイナ・ジ・エンド #きみ棲み #偽りのシンパシー https://t.co/Fa0MIYfgC9— BiSHオフィシャル (@BiSHidol) January 16, 2018
“Oh cool!” I thought at first. “Another Aina collaboration with somebody that I’ve heard of!” And then came the gritting, as such a notion recalled Aina + TeddyLoid, a project toward which my first reaction was tepid enthusiasm (“Good for Aina, though!”) and has since aged like unpasteurized milk. So it followed, then, that when I finally got to press play:
Oh that’s good work! One could be forgiven for hoping that Watanabe would put that TeddyLoid pile of meh right into the memory hole and spare us another electronic collaboration for Aina (or anybody, really), but this is nice. Like, really nice. And seeing how deep have gone the disses toward Mr. Loid lately, I’m beginning to understand why. Also why I should be adding MONDO GROSSO to my personal list of things to catch up on!
But this is about BiSH collaborations, not just Aina’s, which means that there must be more, yes? Continue reading
I’m Thankful for Aina Unplugged
Happy Thanksgiving! In honor of the messiest, most politically charged and family-destroying major holiday in the United States, I thought I’d save a couple of key items from the week to make it all seem just a little extra-special
This happened the other day:
【ニコ生配信】本日のアイナ週プレ酒場ライブですが、ニコ生配信致します!
14時からです!詳細→ https://t.co/PSdBML6sTk#アイナジエンド #BiSH #週プレ酒場 #ニコニコ生放送
— BiSHオフィシャル (@BiSHidol) November 19, 2017
“Ho hum,” quoth I, “I’m going to skip right the heck over that, because I bet it’s just some other dang thing and oh yeah it’s going to happen when I’ll be blissfully asleep. There’s no way that I’ll forget about that!”
Well. Continue reading
Yeah, It’s Aina’s Best Collaboration
In case you missed it:
KenKen、鎮座DOPENESSとアイナ・ジ・エンドがコラボ!
PS4® Lineup Music Video「Boost Your Play」公開!!
よろ。https://t.co/Xb2svl1pM5— BiSHオフィシャル (@BiSHidol) September 19, 2017
BiSH’s barbecue-voiced center, Aina the End, contributed vocals to this wild promo for a run of upcoming PS4 games:
Or, to put it more succinctly: Continue reading
Insert Bad Pun about Closing Themes by Aina the End
The TeddyLoid + Aina the End collaboration has borne more fruit, amigos, which we knew was going to happen but finally came upon us the other day. How, uh … how do you feel about it?
Better than the last one, at least? Continue reading
A Funny Thing Happened During Last Night’s WACK Auditions
Despite my reservations (and desire to do anything but idol for an evening), I let Kerrie talk me into watching the all-group WACK audition marathon that began last night, and I let Garry talk me into joining the chat, and I have no agency of my own apparently because I’m blaming others for my choices.
That being acknowledged, thanks guys. You only get so many chances in life to hear Aina the End “audition” with GANG PARADE/Pla2me’s “Plastic 2 Mercy”:
アイナさんが歌うP2Mとかもう動画撮っちゃうじゃん!!!#WACKオーデ pic.twitter.com/nRjv0VgKwn
— ばび@りはびり厨 (@BxAxBxI) March 28, 2017
Please Take Four Minutes Today to Take in Aina and TeddyLoid
If you recall, in our post-“Promise the Star” world, the most exciting thing about BiSH was the announcement that Ainajiendo herself would be featured on multihyphenate TeddyLoid’s new EP, which would include a cover of “MONSTERS” and a whole bunch of other stuff.
A lot of you are going to be just as excited as I was to hear and see this (or as excited as a really nice friend and I were when listening to it yesterday); another lot of you are going to hate this so hard and I really wish I could see your faces!
Reminder: Aina’s also a sick dancer