Another day, another Perfume rumor.

It’s that time again!

As you’ll probably know if you’ve been following the desperate trail of potential Perfume album news, August 26th was a day the Nakata Yasutaka and contemode community is all too familiar with: the day someone posts an unfounded, highly questionable Perfume rumor, whereupon half the members fall for it and begin Shaking & Crying while the other half actually stops and says, “Wait a minute, this album has sixteen tracks. And it’s titled Chemical Love. And this news is being leaked by someone called tokumaspy.”

Can I just reiterate that title?

Chemical Love.

When Shibuya and Akihabara meet…

…what do you think you’ll get?

Evidently, an anime theme song cover album featuring a range of artists from Akihabara idols to DJs straight out of the heart of Shibuya’s club scene. Announced at the beginning of this month, I ❤ TOKYO ~FOR ANIME MUSIC LOVERS~ is a novel little compilation disc that seeks to unite these two very different districts of Japan’s capital prefecture. Music news site BARKS wrote it up thusly (excuse the rough translation, please):

When it comes to the new culture of Japan, anime and idols have established themselves on a global scale. Alongside that “holy land” known as Akihabara, there’s Japan’s representative home of fashion and trends, Shibuya. These two places, known throughout the world today as sources of culture, will come together in a concept compilation album set to be released.

Sounds interesting, right? The list of confirmed artists had me at a glance: BiS, RAM RIDER, Nomoto Karia… someone clearly put this together with me in mind! (Or maybe not. If they did, I think there’d be a whole lot more A-bee involved.) Of course, so many mismatched artists in one place creates an admittedly messy impression at first. So, then, how does it work?

Perfect Stars, Pretty Style: August Edition!

It’s funny, but I actually wanted this to be a part-time fashion blog of sorts. Seeing as my overall “theme,” so to speak, concerns approaching music through lifestyle, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be unleashing my plethora of Japanese fashion magazine scans upon everyone, is there? (To be honest, I’d been hoping to post a little of my own style as well, but that is a challenge I don’t think I can face at this point in time, and certainly not while so comfortably situated in sleepwear as I tend to be most days.)

Basically, I caught wind last month that women’s fashion magazine Pretty Style (better known by its nickname “PS”) is officially set to cease publication as of their December 2011 issue which goes on sale November 1st. Though it’s only recently that I’ve started following these magazines, I’ve always appreciated the casual, everyday looks PS provides, and knowing its history — it originated as Petit Seven in 1977 — makes it a definite shame for me to see it go. PS has frequently been supportive of MEG and her myriad fashion endeavors, and amongst contemode folk, it’s probably best known for being the only style-centric magazine to showcase Perfume in their own serialized feature.

I’ve actually never looked very far into Perfume’s regular features with PS before, but with the magazine soon to come to a close, I figured now would be a good time to start! Thus, let us enjoy the time we have left with Perfume as they wear nice, predictably expensive clothes and talk amongst themselves about incredibly trivial topics. Such as: