Urbangarde アーバンギャルド

Urbanguarde are a Tokyo based technopop group that use bizarre surreal and often graphic imagery touching on social commentary with occasional off handed political amd religious comment. They describe themselves as "Tokyo Virginity Pop" creating music for otaku, virgins, and the mentally diseased people of Japan.


Discography:
2008 少女は二度死ぬ (Shōjo wa nido shinu)
2009 少女都市計画 (Shōjo toshi keikaku)

Links:
Official Website
youtube channel

ゲルニカ (Guernica)

Name after a famous paintin by Picasso the 80s trio of vocalist Jun Togawa, Koji Ueno and Keiichi Ohta where an avant guard group peforming songs in the style of 20s 30s and 40s cabaret and film music with electronic and later orchestral instrumentation


Discography:
1982 Kaizō e no Yakudō
1988 Shinseiki e no Unga
1989 Denrisō Kara no Manazashi

Links:
wikipedia
lastfm

Luna Sea

Luna Sea (lunacy) was a rock group from Kanagawa that started in 1989 when formed by Jun "J." Onose and Shinobu "Inoran" Inoue while they were both at school under the name Lunacy. They later recruited Yasuhiro "Sugizo" Sugihara, Shinya Yamada and Ryuichi Kawamura. This lineup became a constant throughout the bands existance.
 In 1991 the band was discovered by Hideto Matsumoto of the band X-Japan they were signed to Yoshiki Hayashi's independent Extasy Records label. They released their debut album and changed their name to Luna Sea.
 Their 1992 album "Image" made top ten in the album charts and a live video from their "Luna Sea Concert Tour 1992 Image or Real" made number one.
 The next few years provided a great deal of chart success and their populairty spread to other Asian territories such as Hong Kong and Taiwan
 In 2000 after topping the charts with the single "Gravity",

releasing their seventh album "Lunacy" and having the track "Sweetest Coma Again" used in the Japanese version of the James Bond movie The World Is Not Enough the group called it quits. Ryuichi and "J" have since persued solo careers, Sugizo was in the supergroup Skin.
 The band performed a reunion concert in 2007 and has performed sporadically since.

Discography:
1991 Luna Sea
1992 Image
1993 Eden
1994 Mother
1996 Style
1998 Shine
2000 Lunacy

Links:
official site
wikipedia 
lastfm
my space

Puffy (Puffy Amiyumi)

Puffy are the pop duo Ami Ohnuki and Yumi Yoshimura hence the name Puffy amiyumi which they are known by outside Japan to avoid confusion with Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs. They where put together in 1996 by talent scouts for Sony Music and they where given the name Puffy by producer Andy Sturmer. Their first single was the million selling anthemic "Asia no Junshin"

As their popularity grew they began hosting their own tv show Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Puffy and they performed in America in 2000 as Puffy, but changed the name to Puffy Amiyumi after being contacted by lawyers for Sean "Puffy" Combs.
In 2002 they recorded songs for cartoon series Teen Titans and SD Gundam Force and in 2004 they had their own animated series Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi which was show in America on the Cartoon Network, it had american actresses do their voices but featured their music, and a dubbed in to Japanese version was show on tv in Japan.

Discography:
1996 amiyumi
1997 Solosolo
1998 Jet
1999 Fever*Fever
2000 Spike
2002 The Hit Parade
2003 Nice
2006 Splurge
2007 Honeycreeper
2009 Bring It!

Links:
official site
wikipedia
myspace
lastfm