FripSide

fripSide is a Japanese pop band. Started in 2002, fripSide is made up of two members, Yoshino Nanjo (vocal, lyrics) and sat, a.k.a. Satoshi Yaginuma (lyrics, synthesizers, composer, arrangement) Former vocalist Nao graduated from fripSide March 2009. The name "fripSide" comes from the word "flipside." It's a direct reference to when one had to flip records to side B. Since Flipside was already taken by a foreign artist, Sat coined the word "fripSide." The capital S comes from Satoshi's name. fripSide had a very successful start on the indie community muzie. All three of their first albums topped their muzie's monthly shop ranking, and many of their songs had thousands of downloads. fripSide performed live for the first time for two shows in March 2005 and one in December 2005. In 2006, fripSide became a part of Japanese gaming company Visual Art's and started releasing under elseena-music entertainment. They released a few albums with Visual Art's and were featured in other non-fripSide releases such as the RADIO Twinkle☆Crusaders albums. fripSide NAO project!, fripSide's denpa subgroup, began during this time in April 2007. fripSide performed live once again December 25, 2007. A new anime called Koihime†Musou began airing in the summer of 2008. fripSide performed the anime's theme song flower of bravery and released the song coupled with a new version of their 2004 hit sky called sky-version 2008- on the single flower of bravery. This release was fripSide's first major release and the first time they appeared on the Oricon charts, debuting at #26 on the weekly charts. Their fifth album split tears was a major release as well, debuting at #67 on the Oricon weekly. split tears had a software release as well that went on sale a day before the commercial version did. fripSide performed at many events this year for flower of bravery and did two shows in Osaka and Tokyo to promote split tears. In March 2009, fripSide announced that long-time vocalist nao was leaving to pursue her own musical career. Left without a vocalist, producer Satoshi Yaginuma asked singer Rita to collaborate for the song spiral of despair-resurrection-. A huge compilation album titled nao complete anthology 2002-2009-my graduation- was released in July 2009; every album and song performed by nao was included on this ten disc compilation (with exception to the 2008 singles due to copyright issues). Very rare songs like colorless fate -erica 2007-(DEMO) and come to mind -short version- (also known as the piano version) made their way onto this monster album, as well as unreleased songs like my graduation, which has been waiting to make its public debut since 2003. This album marked the definitive end to the first phase of fripSide. However, a few weeks after, the second phase of fripSide began. After 4 months without a vocalist and no activity, fripSide finally announced their new vocalist was none other than Yoshino Nanjo, a Japanese voice actress. fripSide was officially signed to Geneon Universal July 2009. Currently, fripSide is involved with three theme song tie-ins for the anime To Aru Kagaku no Railgun. The first two singles, only my railgun and LEVEL5-Judgelight- were big hits; both songs debuted in the top 10 of the Oricon weekly charts and are both still charting as of April 5, 2010. The fall 2010 single for the Railgun OVA, future gazer, debuted at #3 on the Oricon daily and included the theme song to the adult visual novel Fortissimo//Akkord:Bsusvier. fripSide also released a few songs on the side for new games by Lapis Lazuli and eufonie. On March 30, 2010, fripSide was featured on TV for the first time on TV Tokyo's Anisong Plus program, appearing as their pick-up artist of the week. On April 9, 2010, fripSide started their new radio program RADIO RONDOROBE-only my radio-gun which broadcasts every Friday at 9:30PM-10PM JST. fripSide performed at Music Japan's popular special, MJ Presents Shinseiki Anisong SP 3, and performed at Animelo Summer Live 2010 -evolution- on August 28. This boy-girl duo plans to release their first album under Geneon Universal on Dec 1, 2010.