Akai Ko-en/Natsumen

There's a tumult of hype amassing around girl rock quartet Akai Ko-en at the moment, though they've made life difficult for stay-at-home music writers like ourselves by refusing to release their music online. We're still not entirely sure what they sound like (we've heard references to everyone from The Smashing Pumpkins to Kaela Kimura), but after reportedly blowing every other band off the stage when they appeared at EMI Rocks in February, it's obvious that these ladies are going places. The choice of prog-jazz-rock weirdos Natsumen as guests for Akai Ko-en's latest gig may seem odd at first, until you remember that the two groups shared a tourbus across Canada last year.