Buck-Tick Zone

1993

On May 20 an extensive tour began for the upcoming album, which had not yet been released. Buck-Tick played a total of 59 shows, the most amount of shows they have ever done for a tour. Since then, they have done significantly shorter tours. The shows for this tour were spread apart a bit more than tours in the past to keep the tour from becoming too gruelling. (Giving them more chances to celebrate after the shows by drinking until noon, I suppose). During the tour, all the members wore the Darker Than Darkness necklace that was sold as part of the tour merchandise.

On May 21, a single from the upcoming album was released. It was entitled "Dress". The band performed the single on "Music Station" on June 4.

On June 23, the album Darker Than Darkness -Style 93- was released. It marked a few changes in Buck-Tick's musical style, album packaging (the first time the cover art did not feature a member of the band), and also what might be the first use of "bonus tracks" in Japan. After the first ten tracks, the CD does not stop, but continues on each track for a few seconds until it finally reaches tracks 75 and 84, which feature fuzz and distorted sounds, conjuring an image of receiving a secret transmission. On track 93 is a bonus song. This was a bit strange at the time of it's release and there were reports of some fans returning the CDs to the stores they bought them from, claiming they were defective and demanding a new one. This album was also the first time a member learned a new instrument, (Hide plays piano and synthesizers on this one and during the subsequent tour Atsushi played a little saxophone). The bonus song is entitled "D-T-D" or "Darker Than Darkness", marking a return to Buck-Tick albums having a title track, even if the title wasn't credited in the album's liner notes!

On October 21, another single was released, "Die". This single contained two b-sides, both were recorded live. This was the first time Buck-Tick released a single with more than one b-side and the first time they released live material in an audio format as three live videos were already available at this time but no live album had been released. The band performed the single on "Music Station" on November 5. This is the performance where the guitarists decided to reveal the sham of sorts of 'live' music programs on Japan by playing sitars to show that the band's music was actually on tape.

[this page was last updated on Friday, 15-Feb-2008 20:36:29 PST]