It is weird that they did, but really it's just the first little bit. I imagine it will be 1:30 at least, then we'll get the real meat of what the rest of the album will be like. Too bad it didn't leak for you, that would have been special :)! Did you record your exam?

A Bell reminds me of Ghibli studio movies, such as Spirited Away, music by Joe Hisaishi.

magic, calm and beauty

Saaaame. That's exactly what I thought. And that's a good feeling lol

I'm keeping myself from listening to A Bell!! LOL

I love how it slowly starts to build up. If if gets crazy after the preview, I wouldn't mind, but I'd also like it to stay the way they've set it up. It would be a nice contrast to WARNING. And I definitely agree that it sounds like something from Joe Hisaishi.

It COULD have something to do with creative differences after the HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR album. That was a very cool album (though I think halca needed more time to get used to singing in a studio... live she sounded amazing but she lacked power on CD), but I had no idea it was a HΛL production when I first heard it. It doesn't sound HΛL-ish at all.

Toshiharu Umesaki was one of the two founding members of HΛL and he does still work under that name producing & maybe managing indie artists... but he hasn't released any major recordings.

Takehito Shimizu, who was the other half of HAL until 2011, was a guitarist before joining HΛL, and he's back to playing guitar again. (He's on NOW & 4EVA, for example.)

Atsushi Sato was part of the original duo and left in late 2002... He was in the group before RAINBOW, and while HΛL was a group with HΛLNA on vocals. He left first to produce on his own as ats- (pronounced like "A.T.S.") instead of his full name (which is the same as EXILE ATSUSHI... AND a comedian, AND a TV producer... so that's hilarious). He's still with avex, still quite active. He's done production work for AAA and Tackey & Tsubasa recently, for example.

Yuta Nakano.... that's an interesting chapter of the story. He was added to the group (along with Shimizu) when ats- left, and that formation of HΛL are who did much of RAINBOW.

Well, Yuta Nakano didn't stay in the group very long, but once he left, his production sound... was suddenly the HΛL sound. Where it had NOT been before (He got his start in early 2000 by remixing Fly high with the vocal track, and his remix was one of the three "fan remixes" that got chosen for inclusion on ayu-mi-x II NSMM... he did remixes of SEASONS and NEVER EVER as well before joining HΛL). It's like he joined the group, stole a bunch of their secrets, and left! lol...

HΛL (as just Takehito Shimizu and Toshiharu Umesaki) kept doing their sound too... But in the meantime, Yuta Nakano kept most of the HΛL tropes - piano with reverb on it, that "Paahhh!" sound effect, some of the electronic twinkle/beep sounds - and brought that sound forward, gradually updating it for the times. HΛL didn't do that to the same degree... the mix got more modernized but the music didn't get heavier. Their stuff got much more generic - that seems mean to say, but it's exactly what happened. HAL's once-singular sound was gone and they sounded much more run-of-the-mill, much more typical. You couldn't identify their production work in a lineup anymore, you know? Basically Yuta Nakano did HΛL better than HΛL did. He seemed to "get" what made their sound special when they lost sight of it.

Eventually HΛL's production just wasn't interesting anymore and their work sorta petered out.

....That post was longer than I intended it to be. But if you read it, thank you! lol

http://i60.tinypic.com/15pjom8.jpg
So no big case again D:

Photo from for "a" ver club

Wait
They did not put the sticker on the cd case. That's the pits
I need the sticker in HQ, gotta read the description of the album.

^^^ That's REALLY interesting, Delirium-Zer0. Thank you SO much for your explanation, I never really understood HAL (I used to think it was a single person), but everything became clear now :)

Wow thank you for such a long post :D
I really like HAL sound especially during Duty to Rainbow ! This kind of digital/ambient sound mixed with other musical instruments etc... but from what I read on the web the persons responsible of this kind of sound were Toshiharu Umesaki & Atsushi Sato ...and now I read your post I understand why this sound progressively disappeared after 2003 if the group broke out !

The interlude "Rebirth" on Guilty is the last song with this kind of atmosphere ! Yuta Nakano sure mimics HΛL from time to time but something is missing in his arrangements... it must be this digital/ambient sound ?

Yuta, along with tasuku and CMJK know Ayu's 'sound' best.

They're all incredibly talented and versatile producers too.

It's hard to believe the same guy arranged all these songs:

Love song
Mirrorcle World
ANother song
Eyes, Smoke, Magic
Virgin Road

I wonder what happened to Naoto Suzuki.

Also just realized CMJK hasn't worked with Ayu since Party Queen. I hope he's still active!

^
Arf I hoped so much that CMJK makes his come back in this album but nothing not even a single song :/ too bad he is really good and since some years now his talent is wasted by making Idol songs with no depth ... it's a shame lol

We'll be getting Movin' on without you on A ONE ^^

I hate this part. When people have the album and show it off but don't share it.

I actually hope it won't leak until the date of its release ^^

Let's talk about numbers, I'm horrified about Kumi's new album sales, it's an amazing album, had good promo sp I was expecting at least 50k for her first week :~ It sold 3k on its second week bringing total sales to 42k, and to be honest I don't see Ayumi selling more than 35k on A ONE's debut week..

Colours had more promotion than WOML so I'm not sure what your talking about...

Anyway Ayu should do 60k first week with all the promotions she did.

Omg YAAS
Wait so either ayuma lied (about the tracklist), she's surprising us, or she's pulling a love again for ayu fans and making that Utada Hikaru cover collection esentially useless. Ambiguous Queen.

Bring back Bounceback x

60k on the first week? have you checked Oricon in the last two years?

You honestly believe a 60k opening week is possible? I don't anticipate A ONE will even hit 60k in total sales, by far, I think even 60k is a big overestimate.

After Koda's first day, I thought, Wow, these are insane sales and I may want to revise my prediction of Ayu's sales because Koda and Ayu are usually very close and have been since Kingdom / GUILTY. But the massive drop to 3k on the second day was what made me stick to my guns.

I think A ONE will probably debut somewhere between 25k-30k, and total sales will be around 40k. If it's any higher than that, I will honestly be astonished. But I highly doubt A ONE will outsell Colours.