Oh sweet, sweet justice. I came to Japan in the summer of 2009, and only a few months later Kentucky Fried Chicken rolled out the Double Down, a fast-food sandwich also accurately described as the moment Western culture peaked. KFC replaced the bread in a sandwich with two pieces of fried chicken, a genius/mortifying idea packed with sodium. And I missed it! For two years I have had to listen to my brother talk about how delicious/gross these things are, and I have just been (uhhh) eating healthy. That all changes next week, when the Double Down…renamed the “Chicken Fillet Double” for Japan…debuts! Have mercy on my innards, for they are about to be ruined. Speaking of things that can ruin your week…

Ayaka “Hello”

…man, do I not like those lunch pack things featured in the above commercial, which also include a snippet of Ayaka’s new song “Hello.” OK, I kinda like the strawberry ones. I am spending so much time yapping about food because the 15 seconds you hear above are all I can find of this song, and the teeny bit I have heard sounds completely uneventful and boring to write about. Not to mention, ya know, only 15 seconds which isn’t enough to judge. So yeah…don’t buy those lunch packs.

SKE48 “Kataomoi Finally”

WATCH FULL VIDEO HERE, TRAILER BELOW

Despite the stranglehold AKB48 holds on the Japanese music landscape, the non-Akihabara groups in the AKB family rarely appear on Music Station despite boasting pretty strong sales. It is surprising because they sound exactly like AKB48, new single “Kataomoi Finally” reminiscent of oh-so-may songs featuring a group boasting the number “48″ at the end of their name. It’s exactly what you would expect SKE48 to make – draw a musical opinion from there.

What is fascinating about this song is actually the accompanying music video, a five-minute clip which you can get the gist of in the trailer above. What’s intriguing is the video revolves around a potentially off-putting subject for the J-Pop mainstream – homosexuality, and not the “tee hee aren’t we cute rubbing noses against one another” of AKB48′s “Heavy Rotation.” Bizarrely enough, SKE48 could have been in a position to star in a video dealing with an interesting societal problem (the way teenage sexuality is viewed, and how homosexuality is an issue still pretty hush-hush in Japan). Maybe when Yasushi Akimoto says he understands the lives of teenage girls he might be right?

Then you remember the group in question and you realize it is most likely a cheap marketing ploy to excite the otaku side of SKE’s fan base, the “Kataomoi Finally” clip less social commentary and more of an excuse to fulfill some nerd’s dream of seeing girls dressed as schoolgirls kissing. Coupled with the fact the main lesbian character appears to be the “villain” of the video (real progressive!), this is just more provocative marketing from a dude who really gets his audience.

Kim Hyun Joong “Kiss Kiss”

You remember that viral video that showed some folks’ wedding entrance, and it was full of wack-a-doodle dancing all soundtracked by Chris Brown’s “Forever” because this was before Chris Brown decided to beat the shit out of beloved pop star Rhianna? Yeah, this one? “Kiss Kiss” would work wonderfully in the Korean/Japanese version of that video, Kim Hyun Joong sounding an awful (in every sense of the word) lot like Chris Brown.

Look, I am all for K-Pop artists taking inspiration from Western audiences…miles better than the eternal loop J-Pop sometimes feels caught in…but choose wisely! Chris Brown’s sentimental junk isn’t worth copying.

JUJU “Sign”

JUJU can work when she steps away from the cement-shoe format that is the J-Pop ballad – even when she tries covering old jazz numbers, she comes off as interesting and at least capable of something very few others in the mainstream scene today can do. Unfortunately, she rarely seems able to get away from the ballad, forced to wear it around her neck for all of time. “Sign” is more of the same, a plodding trudge through every sound you have come to expect in one of these songs. Poor JUJU.

TOKIO “羽田空港の奇跡”

Terrible audio quality, sure, but this is TOKIO we are talking about. The chorus is kinda peppy in that Johnny’s sanctioned sort of way, but everything else is pretty much boring autopilot.

Winner Of The Week – Ayaka for doing the least damage. Or maybe the Double Down, that thing rules too.

This week, I talked to the founder of Day Tripper Records and INNIT member Seiho about his debut album Mercury for The Japan Times. It’s only January so take this next bit with a little caution, but Mercury is my favorite album of the year so far, a madcap mash of jazz and electronic dance music (among other stylistic points) in the same vein of my favorite album of 2010, Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma. Mercury isn’t quite as hyper speed as that album, but it’s a great album and the first really cohesive statement from this whole Kansai electronic scene, as up to now the artists here have mostly been releasing songs and maybe an EP. Other cool part of this article – I talked to Seiho a little bit about Sugar’s Campaign, his pop band with Avec Avec and two others. Dudes want major label attention – here’s hoping they get it.

The Osaka lovefest doesn’t stop there though! I also reviewed Panache, the debut EP from The Creams. It’s a nice little album, one perhaps borrowing a little too obviously from The Slits and ESG, but they do a heck of an imitation. That said, I really want to emphasize something I also say in the review – if you can, see this group live because that’s where they really shine. Completely blew me away last Fall. Get Panache here.

The cynic in me said last week that J-Pop in 2012 looked to be a gloomy affair, another 12 months of AKB48 roundabouts and Johnny’s drippings and whatever EXILE does. Three weeks into the year and I was ready to toss it out of the window. Then, with excellent timing, this past week has helped me snap out of my doom-speaking, suddenly remembering the term “J-Pop doesn’t just refer to the schoolgirl mannequins clogging up the Oricon charts but “Japanese pop” which includes a lot of stuff you don’t hear all the time. First, Sugar’s Campaign dropped a new song oozing pop goodness – The groove! The giddy chorus! The pure sonic taffy that is the song’s climax! – that band members (and experimental electronic makers outside of the group) Avec Avec and Seiho want to get attention from major labels with this. What a wonderful world that would be. Now, Nanba Shiho – who popped out of nowhere last year to record one of the more charming pop singles of 2011 – has released a song that in a just world would hang with the YUI’s and Yuki’s of the Japanese mainstream world. It’s her best work to date, and an irresistibly catchy song that shows how good the stuff we label “J-Pop” really can be.

Blooping to life, “Shoujo, Futatabi” wastes little time establishing itself as a bouncy pop number seemingly powered by sunbeams breaking through a window in the morning. The track’s spine…and strongest musical component…is the beat, a relentless smack bringing to mind other recent greats like MiChi’s “Change The World” and even the retro-thump of Perfume’s “Love The World.” Also like that pair of songs, Shiho’s latest gets beefed up by all sorts of electronic flourishes, from the big glowing synth shines in the verse to the stardust trail right before the chorus to the burbling video game noises. Sonically, “Shoujo, Futatabi” keeps everything relatively simple (beat, a few synths, some special noises popping up every once in awhile), but makes each one count.

Yet the biggest surprise here…and what gives “Shoujo, Futatabi” it’s beautiful beating heart…is Nanba Shiho herself. On last year’s “Kodona No Kaidan,” it was the production of that single that made it such a treat to listen to, Shiho herself more of a necessary feature, a face to sell music that really spoke for itself. Here she is absolutely vital, her voice moving lightly along with the beat and adding a touch of sweetness to a track that’s otherwise all about movement. The pacing of her vocals at the chorus reveals that “Shoujo, Futatabi” is basically a sped-up ballad graced with better production. The title translates to something like “Young Girl, Again,” and Shiho flips the time-tested ballad theme of youth gone into something hopeful and in the moment – Shiho makes it seem like youth isn’t something meant to be reminisced about sadly while a Disney-worthy orchestra plays, but rather a feeling one can slip into if they want at any age. Here’s hoping more people get that message.

Shout out to Neaux for posting this first.

Here’s a human interest story to round out the nightly news…Figaro The Kid operates out of South Carolina, likes cats a lot (see: above picture) and is “just a poor college kid.” So what brings him to our attention, besides the lovely cat in the above picture? Dude has done three remixes of HNC songs, one of the few cases of someone living in the Western world taking tracks from HNC’s Cult…not Love And Hates’ album, which has a remix contest, but an LP from 2009. Over the past few months, he has turned “Moon Song”…which I liked when I reviewed this album back in 2009 which oh man have I been doing this long…into a dancehall jam complete with lines about smoking weed. “Kitten’s Break” becomes mash-up fodder, but his mix of “Figure Shout” kills the original version (which nearly ruined Cult for me) basically by sounding nothing like the original and, as a result, being way better. Listen to that one below, and go here to hear more from him.

Despite being a staple in the INNIT scene, Magical Mistakes (the project of Erik Luebs) doesn’t live in urban Osaka, but rather a tiny forested village in Miyazaki Prefecture. When I talked to him a few months ago, he said how his remote home gave him ample time to record material, and that the natural world surrounding him was sneaking into his new material. His Special Friends EP is the product of those last few months in the Kyushu wild, a collection of originals and remixes shaped equally by electronics and the outside world. Luebs remixes fellow INNIT member And Vice Versa’s “OOO” and Lady Lazarus, the Magical Mistakes take on her sparse tune adding electronic creases and bird noises. Speaking of our feathered friends – they pop up quite a bit on Special Friends, like on the appropriately titled “Bossanova Groove,” where a bird cackles off in the distance as if it is right there in the recording area. “Supermoon Crashing” adds the sound of running water – a noise Luebs attempts to replicate electronically on EP highlight “Running Water” – alongside acoustic guitar, which also pops up plenty across Special Friends. The digital side of Magical Mistakes remains as solid as it was on last year’s lovely Dislocation, but the natural and acoustic touches on Special Friends lends this album a cozy, personal feel, computers and woods able to coexist just fine. Get the EP for whatever price you want, or listen to “Running Water” below

Arbor Vitae, a new split album featuring Osaka’s own Luka Uemura alongside a handful of other artists, can be purchased as an immediate download…AND, if you act quickly enough (first 30) you can also get a “wooden branch USB” version of the album delivered to your home. This nice item (I can picture the Rainforest Cafe people angrily slamming fists against desks, shouting out “why didn’t we think of that!”) also benefits charity. Not to mention the music enclosed on this bark-inspired piece of hardware, highlighted by two Uemura tunes. Both “If She Waved Back” (featuring Affable Noise) and “Udlt” have appeared online in some form or another over the past few months, but here they are as fully formed as ambient music that seems like its imitating an unpredictable stream can get. Especially impressive is the latter track, one opening with harsh metallic buzzing before breaking free from is conveyor-belt vice for a fragile run only slightly bothered by technology of today.

Elsewhere, Sima’s two seven-minute contributions are slowly blooming roses, to the soft evening soundtrack of Sandcastles’ “The Lights That We Saw That Evening Were The Passing Of Distant Trains.” Michael Oldham’s “Furthermost,” though, is the best track on this album, a wistful piano-anchored song that seemingly looks back at peaceful times through a haze. Check it all out here.

The recent boom in electronic music in the Kansai area has thus far mostly been a story of individual producers, solo artists rapidly uploading new blasts of music to SoundCloud as fast as their Internet connection allows them to. Although a few places serve as gathering points for this scene – the parties put on by INNIT and producer Seiho’s label Day Tripper records just to name two examples – the majority of the work has been flowing from individual sources who sometime converge. Yet one exception exists, one that seemed lost in the whirl of great releases coming out last year – Sugar’s Campaign, a group featuring scene staples Avec Avec and the aforementioned Seiho, plus two other dudes. Back in 2011, Sugar’s Campaign was just an origin story, a nice little touch to add to articles about Avec or Seiho.

Yet out of nowhere, Sugar’s Campaign released a new song called “Netokano” last Friday, a track with one eye trained on the blooming Kansai electronic scene but existing well outside of the often spacey directions the artists there take. The opening “la la las” bring to mind the choir chirping of Passion Pit, but that American group indulges in a twee maximalism that turns nearly all their songs into Up With People taffy. Sugar’s Campaign slow things down after the initial vocal blast, though, settling into a grooveable pace suitable for the poppy crooning going off above it. Flashes of Avec Avec’s “Kuzuha No Sunday” break through, the chorus bringing to mind the sun blasts of that song. Yet this isn’t like the experimental music coming out of the INNIT camp – this is pure, unfiltered pop, and even at times striking one as contemporary J-Pop taken into more interesting directions (the fact the pre-chorus bit brings Hikaru Utada’s “First Love” to mind drills this home further). Avec and Seiho have flashed moments of pop smarts in their music, and here’s the confirmation, two geniuses coming together to piece together a pop gem. Listen above, and watch the Coca-Cola-rich video too.

Lots of music news happened last week, and fitting all into normal posting hours turned out to be tough. So, here we are, with some quick hits we didn’t get around to. Let’s catch up, shall we?

- Not content with releasing a free EP of original work, CUZ ME PAIN’s Nites project went and posted a collection of his remix work waiting to be heard over here. This set features his reworks of Greeen Linez, Moscow Club and Hotel Mexico among others. Listen below.

- Post-rock outfit LITE have a new single available, titled “Arch.” The hook? Caroline Lufkin, who records solo as Caroline and also plays in Mice Parade, provides the vocals. We are big fans of her work, so of course we are gonna mention a release featuring her.

- Madegg, oh Madegg, how you stay so busy baffles me. His newest sonic treat – and, by the time I hit “publish” on this, he might have three new songs floating around – tiptoes away from the jazzy, piano-heavy sound he’s been tooling with in favor of something a bit more electronic and bouncy. Guided by finger snaps, “Fragrance” goes heavy on the synths for five minutes before going out softly. His productivity is impressive enough, but the fact he can shift into so many directions at the same time…I want what he’s drinking.

- The Cigavettes have a new album coming out soon, and you can watch a trailer for it below. Iron out that Beatles t-shirt, yo.

First Station To Station of 2012, rejoice rejoice! Been a long time since we have journeyed into this sketchy sonic territory, but Music Station doesn’t disappoint this week, giving us a surprisingly wide variety of J-Pop (and K-Pop!) to sample and eventually stick our tongues out at. Let’s get the rust off.

Ikimono-gakari “いつだって僕らは”

Moment of honesty – I am not remotely pumped for mainstream Japanese music in 2012. Blame this on a budding obsession with K-Pop which, though littered with duds, even sounds interesting in total flaming wreckage mode. Oh, and the Japanese “indie” (used sorta loosely here) scene, which seems poised to be really exciting this year. J-Pop, though…not exactly filling me with much hope, just more images of people shoveling coal into a furnace on loop. Funny, because last year actually saw some really good mainstream stuff in the form of Kaela Kimura, Perfume and Sakanaction just to name a few. Nothing -and, yeah, only being January plays a part, who knows what will come out – gets me giddy the way even a dumb looking Wonder Girls movie does.

This new single from Ikimono-gakari does nothing but making me feel gloomier about J-Pop in 2012. The opening knocks off the same intro used in at least eight Arashi songs – not the best inspirational jumping off point in the first place – before diving into an inoffensive but also uninteresting bit of chirpy pop that confirms Ikimono-gakari only exist in two modes – happy-bouncy version and sad-but-accepting-of-it version. This wouldn’t be so disheartening if it weren’t for the group behind it – Ikimono-gakari have morphed into a sales juggernaut, their last 16 singles all peaking somewhere in the top ten of the Oricon charts, meaning this one will probably perform similarly and the album it comes off of will most likely debut at the top spot. Which means more groups trying to sound like this which means more bland bland bland pop. This isn’t remotely surprising, but still pretty weak.

Jun Sky Walker(s) “Start”

Why does the “s” have to be in parenthesis? Were they not sure how many people were in the band?

Jun Sky Walker(s) are a rock band that formed in 1986 and saw relative success up until their breakup in 1997. Now, they are back! The music of “Start” is pretty harmless, just some safe guitar playing that at least has a little bite to it, even if it comes via baby teeth. But oh man the lead singer’s voice, ruins everything. He has this weird warble that comes out when he’s trying to sound dramatic – which, turns out, is a lot – and just in general sounds like he’s forcing himself a bit. Maybe you had to be around the first time?

Sexy Zone Special Medley

If that isn’t one of the worst combination of words in any language, I don’t want to be on this planet anymore.

Tokyo Jihen Medley

The big news in the Japanese music world this week was the announcement that Tokyo Jihen would be calling it a day following the release of one more album and a small farewell tour in February. This development has been met with sadness (but acceptance) from fans and snark from others, Ringo Shiina’s band clearly hitting a lot of emotions over their nine-year career. I have to cop, though, that I actually am not as well versed in Tokyo Jihen as I probably should be. I really liked 2010′s Sports and the singles leading up to and following that album have all sounded, at worst, “good” to me, but I haven’t dug into their back catalog all that much, checking out singles here and there but nothing extensive. Which blows now, seeing as they are going away. So, instead of writing a big sappy tribute in this spot now, I’m probably going to start working my way through their history and probably write something later. Consider this a rain check.

BIGBANG “Tonight”

One of the more persistent shots fired at K-Pop is that it’s just an imitation of Western pop, the Korean music industry doing nothing originally and just borrowing ideas from America for their artists. This is a very dumb argument – nothing on American radio sounds like “Bubble Pop!” or “Be My Baby” or “Gee.” Even something like 2NE1′s “I Am The Best,” which does take cues from maximalist Western pop, blows everything up to a level nobody in America is doing. It’s a dumb claim most of the time, but not in the case of BIGBANG’s “Tonight,” which bites from the club-inspired European sound that has been a staple of the American charts for the last two years. Think Black Eyed Peas, or maybe “We Found Love,” and you will have an idea of how “Tonight” sounds.

Which isn’t a bad thing either, regardless of what some dipsticks think! BIGBANG get a slightly unfair push as “Tonight” sounds miles better than any of the Japanese music above – which, I admit, was two songs and the memory of Sexy Zone – but the club-oriented sound hasn’t pummeled Japanese pop into submission like it has in other places, so this feels like fresh breath to me.

Winner Of The Week – BIGBANG

INNIT, the Osaka party/collective, will hold their one-year anniversary event on February 11 (as someone who went to the last one, I urge all Osaka-based readers to go, c’mon!), and in advance of that they have released an EP featuring tracks from the artists set to perform at the special show. The collection – available for hearing here – highlights the diversity present within INNIT, the music jumping from the jazzy haze of Madegg’s “Aqueduct” to the technicolor mudstomp of MFP’s “Dig It Now” to the soulful “Winter Again” by And Vice Versa. Alongside tracks from the likes of Magical Mistakes and Seiho sits a special appearance from Daisuke Tanabe, who will play the next INNIT show and deliver a special lecture (!). Check the whole thing out below.

Also on the new INNIT EP is Avec Avec, leading the whole shebang off with his “Plastic Soul.” He’s also got some other news worth celebrating – he will be putting out an EP on California imprint Mush Records, who have put out stuff by some pretty heavy hitters.

Oh, and don’t forget Seiho started a label that will release music from other INNIT mainstays…good times!