“Sleepy” can be a good adjective, too. Wagatsuma’s “Slowdown” is pure after-lunch comedown, a chiming number in no rush to get anywhere and featuring vocals that are just totally relaxed. It’s almost too sedate, but Wagatsuma charms just enough to avoid this becoming an excuse for why you napped off for a couple hours on a Wednesday. Listen above.
Always here for electronic music that begs you to submerge in it, somewhat goopy sounds that come in slowly and take their sweet time receding. Yamoto Irahi’s Little Pink Cells kicks off with a fine example of this, the half-speed “Green Sea,” wherein vocal samples splash around in some twinkly lagoon. Irahi continues the slowly…
Longtime since hearing from indie-pop project Daisyblue, who return with a new album called Eldorado Reliruleru. The collection is at its strongest with the first two songs, which find Dasyblue plugging away at some tried-and-true formulas. “She Knows” is straight-ahead indie-pop rush, guided by vocals that want to shrink down beneath the song but gather…
We didn’t put together a favorite songs list this year, but if we had, you better believe that iivvyy would have gotten on there. The combo of HVNS and Kosmo Kat made some of the more mind-bending electronic tracks to come out of Japan in 2017. Part of the project’s charm comes from how it…
Could the world soon see another surge in artists relying heavily on video game noises? It’s possible…Crystal Castles just dropped a highly touted LP, and album-of-2010-thus-far Cosmogramma by Flying Lotus pushes 8-bit sounds into new far-out realms. So maybe chiptune raver 99 Letters can get a little attention from this could-be trend. He’s got another…
Duo Frasco’s music has always been relatively laid back, avoiding easy city-pop-revival trappings in favor of something a bit more out there (but still limber). So this group — which describe themselves as a “meta pop project?” I don’t remember that from last year, is this a commentary on…something? — creating a smoothed-out beat for…
Ningen OKは是非ライブを観てほしいバンド。彼らについてあまり詳しく知らなかったものの、先週末のライブセットは最近観たライブの中でも特に印象に残っています。手作りの白いピラミッドのようなオブジェに囲まれて彼等は演奏を開始。ギターTakurou Yamashitaは大量のペダルの前で演奏し、ドラムのKen-ichi Sakaguchiは時折ボコーダーを使用し、怪しい機械的なボーカルを披露。言葉が無いインストでもこのデュオには高度な一体感があり、ロックなグルーブ感を出しています。 ライブハウスだけで輝くのではなく、録音された作品も同様に素晴らしいです。”体温の行方”は静けさを打ち砕くカオスみたいなものが上手く表現されていて、Ningen OKの核となるスタイルを知るにはもってこいな曲（フィードバックを是非体感してほしいです）。試聴は以下から。最近リリースされた同タイトルのファーストアルバムからの曲なので、もし気に入ったら通して聴く事をオススメします。要するに、Ningen OKの音源にはライブから感じる事の出来る素晴らしさが詰まっています。是非ブックマークを。