are a six-piece group formed in 1999 containing Kate Pierson

Kate Pierson

Catherine Elizabeth "Kate" Pierson is an American vocalist and one of the lead singers and founding members of The B-52's. One of the multi-instrumentalists in the band, Pierson played guitar, bass and various keyboard instruments...

 (of The B-52s), bassist Mick Karn

Mick Karn

Andonis Michaelides , better known as Mick Karn, was an English multi-instrumentalist musician and songwriter, who came to fame as the bassist for the art rock band Japan, from 1974 to 1982....

 (of Japan

Japan (band)

Japan were a British New Wave group, formed in 1974 in Catford, South London. The band achieved success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they were often associated with the burgeoning New Romantic fashion movement .- History :The band began as a group of friends...

), vocalist Yuki Isoya

Yuki Isoya

is a Japanese musician who performs under the name Yuki . She debuted in the music industry in 1991 as the lead vocalist for the rock band Judy and Mary, and as a solo artist in 2002...

 (of Judy and Mary

Judy and Mary

Judy and Mary was a Japanese multi-genre band formed in 1991 in Hakodate, Hokkaido by bassist and vocalist , with drummer and guitarist completing the lineup in 1992. Guitarist replaced Taiji the following year...

), Takemi Shima and Masahide Sakuma (both of The Plastics, and Steven Wolf, the session drummer. Masahide composed most of the music with input from Pierson and Yuki who also wrote the lyrics. From the 30-second opening track, which starts with ominous techno music and ends with Yuki and Pierson exclaiming "Hello everybody nice to meet you we're NiNa," the band's eponymous and only album is very diverse.

The distinctive album contains a wide variety of music from straight forward ballads to electronica

Electronica

Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...

. Credited as a "conceptual and visual agent provocateur," Shima appears to have played a Brian Eno

Brian Eno

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

-like role on the recording. The album and two singles which preceded it were all hits in Japan but are mostly unknown in other parts of the world with the exceptions of avid B-52s/Kate Pierson fans.

Anime

The tracks "Happy Tomorrow" and "Rest in Peace" were used as end-credit songs for the anime TV series "Arc the Lad

Arc the Lad

is a series of console role-playing games that were released for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. Several of the games were published by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan. The games were never released outside of Japan until Arc the Lad Collection was released by Working Designs in 2002. An...

", released in the USA by ADV Films despite the fact the former had previously served as the opening-credit song for the J-Drama "Kanojo-tachi no jidai" (1999).

External links

• SONY Musicによるサイト
• [ allmusic ((( NiNa > Biography )))]