Aqua Timez 1st performance overseas in Korea at one of the largest music festivals.

Rock band Aqua Timez participated in “Asia Song Festival to commemorate the Expo 2012 Yeosu Korea” on Aug.4. “Asia Song Festival” is a music festival which is held in South Korea every year since 2004 and is an Asia’s largest cultural festival where people around the world gather. The festival has been known for bringing greatest artists from Japan in the past, such as Ayumi Hamasaki, Kumi Koda, and Perfume.
This year, “Asia Song Festival” was held at Yeosu EXPO live stage, drawing 40,000 audiences. YEOSU EXPO has been attracting more than 10 million people during the exposition term, May 12, through Aug 12, 2012.
At the event,14 artists from 6 countries (Korea, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Thai and Japan) participated in the event and made amazing performances. Aqua Timez started their live performance greeting “Kamsahamnida”, meaning ‘hello’ in Korean language and they performed 2 songs ‘Niji’ and ‘Toushindai No Love song’ , At the end of the show, they received ‘Best Asian Artist Award’
and showed their gratitude on the stage commenting “We are so happy and It’s an honor to be on this stage, representing Japanese artists this year“
Aqua Timez announced that they will be releasing their new album, “because you are you“, on September 5th. It contains a total 12 tracks including the band’s previously released single “MASK”, theme song for the animation “BLEACH” and “Tsubomi“,theme song for NTV’s popular drama series, ‘Ghost Mama Sousasen‘). “because you are you” will be released in both limited (CD+DVD) and normal (CD only) editions. The album artwork, track list, and other details will be revealed soon, so check it out
■Release info

・Aqua Times 15th Single “Tsubomi”
【CD】 ESCL-3958
・Aqua Timez　5th Album “because you are you”

limited initial edition【CD+DVD】　ESCL-3960-1
standard version【CD】　ESCL-3962
■Tour info
National tour in Japan
“because we are we” tour 2012-2013
Starting Oct.25 at Isehara Shimin Kaikan in Kanagawa
http://www.aquatimez.com/tour2012/
■Aqua Timez biography
Aqua Timez is a rock band formed in 2003, made up by 5 members, Futoshi(Vo.),OKP-STAR(Ba),Daisuke(Gt.),mayuko(Key),and TASSHI(Dr.). Their album “Sora Ippai Ni Kanaderu Inori” released in 2005 through their independent label became a long & best seller. 6 months after the album release, it ranked No.1 on Weekly Oricon Chart. Their two singles are used as the theme music in the animation films, “Ketsui No Asa Ni” for ‘Brave Story’ and “Sen No Yoru Wo Koete” for ‘‘BLEACH THE MOVIE　MEMORIES OF NOBODY”and they became successful hit. Their music in the films helped themselves garner attention and later their 1st original album, “Kaze Wo Atsumete” and 2nd “Dareka No Chijoe” became a smash-hit. The single “Niji”, a theme song for the popular TV drama “Gokusen” released in 2008 became a huge hit scoring 2.5 million units in sales (total sales of physical and digital sales) Their greatest hits album “The BEST of Aqua Timez” released to commemorate their 5th anniversary, ranked No.1 on Oricon chart and they made a record that two albums through both major and independent labels ranked no.1. In 2011, as final show of the tour, they performed at Nippon Budokan , one of the highest status venues in Japan attracting more than 8,000 audiences.
Recently, Aqua Timez is working actively in charity campaigns for reconstruction assistance of Tohoku district, area suffering from a serious damage by the Great East Japan Earthquake. As two members OKP-STAR and Daisuke hail from Fukushima Pref. (in Tohoku district) they have been encouraging people in Tohoku by visiting and hosting musical performance at schools and so forth.In 2012, they’ve released their 14th single “MASK”, a theme for TV animation ‘BLEACH’. This is 4th time they’ve tied-in with this animation series. They will release a new single “Tsubomi” this August 22, a theme for TV drama “Ghost mama Sosasen” produced by the same creative staffs as “Gokusen”.
Universal emotions such as hope, love, passion, grief and loneliness are strongly expressed in their lyrics. Their powerful, harmonious and haunting sound appeal to the listeners’ emotions.
Aqua Timez, showing new horizon in the Japanese music scene!
■Official homepage
http://www.aquatimez.com/

Aqua Timez