[ATTENDED: November 7, 2023] Isiliel
This was my fourth show in four nights and I was surpirsed how little it had caught up with me. I was fortunate in that most of the shows were fairly short. And this one promised to be super short.
There was no opening act, so despite a 15 minute soundcheck and setup delay, the show still ended by 9:30, which was perfect.
So, who is Isiliel? She is Himari Tsukishiro who is the main singer in the Japanese band Necronomidol. As her site puts it
Isiliel is a solo dance/vocal project by Himari Tsukishiro (NECRONOMIDOL).
Mixing genres as diverse as folk, blackgaze and city pop via a worldwide team of veteran songwriters such as King Dude and NARASAKI of COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS, through Isiliel Himari will express hitherto unexplored depths of pathos and beauty on stage.
As Isiliel, she has one album out. It is, as implied, a heavy metal sounding album, with heavy guitars and a lot of double bass. But she does not sing like a heavy metal singer. Her delivery is quiet and slow (and it’s in Japanese).
I hadn’t heard of either her or her main band until about a week before this show was announced. But when I saw what Necronomidol looked like, I wanted to go to this show too. It turned out she has some real fans in Philly. The audience was probably about 30 people, but the show had about a week’s notice. And several of these fans brought identical small red lanterns which they waved in time to the beat (I asked the merch guy if he was selling them and he said no–they brought them in!) (more…)
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