exist†trace
The name as a logo has a vertical sword pointed downward between the words “exist” and “trace.” I’m going to use a hyphen in the rest of this article.
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| February 2019 L - R: Miko on guitar, Naoto on bass, Mally on drums, Jyou lead vocals, Omi lead guitar |
I don’t wanna be all gushy, but... Exist-Trace is dang near perfect.
Why?
They have artistic quality, musical balance, and creativity that will not be kept in a box. I will use some descriptors to try and convey what I’m hearing, but please don’t assume any cut-and-dried stereotypes beyond what is said. For example:
They have some Metal qualities and are very capable of laying down a rich metal sound, and they mostly dress in black or other dark colors, like Goths, and they deal with heavy subjects often, like Goth and Metal do. The song Power of “One” is about people coming together to change everything, a positive message. On the other hand...
What about when people aren’t so mutually supportive? The song “Water” is from the viewpoint of a girl who has just given birth and is in recovery, her body is torn, and her lover is angry at her for letting this happen. He won’t even hold the child. She is hoping for an end to cruel words and a beginning for love. But now - sorrow and pain and no love. Yes. They go there.
They’re also woke enough to (for example) try and wake others up to the existence of child sacrifices. (You can believe or disbelieve that, but you can’t say they’re afraid to bring up the hard issues.) Is “Sacrifice Baby” raising our awareness about overt Satanic type sacrifice or about abortion? Maybe both. You decide. What it is not, is a shallow excuse for musical art, which is all too common. E-T (a curious acronym) lays down some serious content.
At the same time, no two songs are quite alike. They vary. They lighten up and have fun with it too. A couple of tunes have a lot of the “hot” swing-jazz influence from the late 1940s. They have a lot of things going on.
One of the categories they inhabit is Visual Kei. Visual Kei is a kind of glam-rock involving costumes and usually androgyny. Japan, like England, has a history of cross-dressing in theater, so the theatrical androgyny may or may not mean anything regarding their offstage sexual preferences/orientation. Legendary Visual Kei band Shazna for example, re-formed for the third time in 2017 with three of the original male members from 1993 including lead singer Izam, who is a scarily sweet-fem character onstage who is often in very convincing drag, plus three newer (2017+) members including Raychelle and Natsume of (also) Raise a Suilen. Izam’s first marriage (to a woman) failed in 1999, but his second marriage (to a woman, actress Yoshioka Miho) in 2006 appears still strong and they have three children. So don’t assume anything personal; it’s all just visuals, impressions. Maybe.
So, lead singer Jyou has medium-short hair (think unisex anime hero/heroine hairstyles) and dresses in a “masculine” style, while guitarist/songwriter/vocalist Miko generally wears lacey black dresses, and the others are all along the gender spectrum in between. Bassist Naoto splits the difference, wearing her hair quite long on one side and closely buzzcut on the other.
And as Japanese rock band members often color their hair (not all, Band-Maid has kept theirs natural I think), there’s hair dye involved and early on, Jyou's hair was blonde/light brown, then for a time, it was bright red. About that:
Red hair is of course Anglo-, or at least Gaelic-American and "American" relates to rock and roll. But in Asia, red hair is a bit edgy, for a couple of reasons. Conservative folks expect black hair and at times that gets ridiculous, with school teachers in Japan harassing students with other hair colors, telling them dyed hair isn’t allowed even when theirs isn’t dyed at all. Recently a folk singer did a protest song about this; she has brown hair and they demanded she bring a doctor’s certificate that brown was its natural color. She was like, You could just look at the roots?! At least she got a song out of it.
The other reason goes back thousands of years to the Scythian migrations. The Scythians were a Nordic-ish nomadic group who exchanged DNA with lots of people along the way, but their base genetics tended to be very tall, red haired and (compared to most Asians) large nose, and their culture was fierce and warlike to survive their many challenges. They swept across northern Europe and Asia eastward, then southerly (though there is physical evidence and Native American legends that some red-haired giants ended up in North America), skirmishing with and apparently reconciling with the Japanese in the process, after which the Japanese adopted the Scythian overlapping metal plate armor and the Scythians brought the Japanese chain-mail westward because it worked well with their fighting style of longbows and long swords on horseback. Point being, they left an impression; to this day the traditional depiction of a demon in many Asian cultures is often a big red-haired character with a large "hooked" nose.
BTW, a number of Scythian groups settled in various places and although mixed, red hair still is not unusual among some of them, such as the Gaelic people of Ireland and Scotland - in fact one of the Scythian names for themselves was “Scoti”.
So when you see Japanese rock band members with dyed red hair, there is an ancient association with being intense, fierce, and possibly not a nice little cog in the traditional local social system. A wildcard.
Exist-Trace played on this. They did a song “Ginger” (British term for a red-haired person) during the period lead singer Jyou played a ginger-haired masculine character. Interestingly, it has the feel of a late 1940s or 1950s French jazz club. In the official video, the band members find a stash of jewelry and each is killed off by her companion(s), and the last one standing, looking narrowly into the camera like a stone-cold killer, is of course, Jyou as a ginger.
And of course, now that I’ve said all that, Jyou seems to have her natural hair color (?) back lately. But anyway, now you know about that and it applies to some other bands too.
The past: Exist-Trace was formed in 2003-2004. They have kept the same people since then to date, excepting a support guitarist “Yama” whose what-when-where I’m unclear on. So there is good reason why they are a tightly integrated, well synchronized band. They probably have instinctive knowledge of each other's approaches and responses by now.
The name has to do with tracing our existence, our lives...
iTunes: http://smarturl.it/exist-trace_iTunes
Spotify: http://smarturl.it/exist-trace_Spotify
Google Play: http://smarturl.it/exist-trace_GGLPlay
Amazon MP3: http://smarturl.it/exist-trace_Amazon
Official International Fan Club: http://archangel-diamond.com
CDJapan is a solid source, and allows you to look at the total cost with shipping before entering your payment. Nice. This is the Exist-Trace page there. Note that just under the name of the CD/DVD is the name of the artist/group. A couple of them say "V.A." instead which means a "Various Artists" collection on which this group is included.
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/person/401394?s_ssid=e313615cb5c3bb7a0f
Group site
http://www.exist-trace.com/
Official Twitter: Good for current tour info and miscellaneous pictures
https://twitter.com/existxtrace_19
Mally's Twitter
https://twitter.com/existtraceMally
Miko's Twitter
https://twitter.com/miko_0307
Miko’s personal blog
https://ameblo.jp/existtrace-miko/entry-12450876918.html
Discogs
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1804549-ExistTrace?page=1
The Visual Kei corner of Fandom.com has a nice detailed history and discography.
https://visualkei.fandom.com/wiki/Exist%E2%80%A0trace
And VKH-Press has an interview regarding their most recent (late 2016) EP release “Royal Straight Magic”:
https://www.vkh-press.com/2017/02/interview-existtrace-on-royal-straight.html
Their Facebook page...
https://www.facebook.com/existxtrace.official/
Yes, MySpace is still going
http://www.myspace.com/existxtrace
Some nice pics from late 2017 by photographer Meiko Kikuta
https://jrocknews.com/2017/12/exist%E2%80%A0trace-completes-19th-challenge-series-climax-event.html
And the Wiki schtick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exist_Trace
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| February 2019, Nagoya. L - R: Miko, Omi, Jyou, Naoto, Mally |
Jyou, Mally and Naoto started the group, auditioned guitarists and brought in Miko and Omi. Omi is lead guitarist, while rhythm guitarist Miko has become the principal songwriter and second vocalist (they all contribute at various times and degrees). Their tunes tend toward the melodic side of the metal spectrum.
A sampling of the YouTube music video posts. There are quite a few more, as might be expected of a band active for 16 years now. There are also a few talking video posts, of which some have English subtitles, that I haven’t listed here. A YouTube search on Exist-Trace will find them.
Their first official release was Ambivalence in 2005. Heavy, yet some of Jyou's vocals are almost delicate. A tour de force.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q8xMxi_FeEs
Halt
An early one, from 2007. Sorta undead death-metal.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=CmF4jtVHh9Q
Liquid. Heavy, with growls, etc. Song released 2007, this performance maybe 2009.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=x3MsqvWtEQs
How many singers can make a yodel sound artistically elegant?
Jyou can.
Lost in Helix from the EP “Vanguard of the Muses” - 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CeLu9KN2hI
Instinct. 2011
Begins with the invitation, “Shall we dance?” - with a certain edgy quality. Then rips into something that is danceable, yet heavy; sounds like it could be for a darkblood vampire party. Muahaha!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXlwZOlQyrI
During her red-haired period, on June 18, 2011, Jyou did a rare public performance in a dress, for just part of their set. This is "Kiss in the Dark" which was one of their vintage French jazz club feeling numbers. So the dress was brief, as might be worn by the chanteuse in such a club when her song included dancing behind/with the mike (BTW, notice Jyou typically uses a classic slotted metal mike of the style of the late-40s - early 1950s period).
A stunning and sexy performance.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=gum6O_dolb8
Ginger - official video
https://youtube.com/watch?v=mPtwsZDelGk
Knife. A beautiful melancholy melodic anthem from 2011
https://youtube.com/watch?v=W5oLtIKghbY
Antique Doll - with English translation, 2011
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MQ3b8kTWmBI
True. Also 2011, with ginger Jyou. Official video, sound is pretty good.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=rZjlIKiCj3g
Signal. From album Virgin, 2012.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7u83GNx-9Pk
Dream Rider. 2016, modified by fan to the CD track due to perceived poor sound quality in original official video. “exist†trace - Dream Rider MV (audio fix)” posted by Ro the Lion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM82BJqt-1c
Updated 2019-04-16
J
