It wasn’t always like this. Passepied, a band with a whole lot of potential, spent the first few years of their existence wandering the wilderness sonically. They flashed a lot of good ideas across their releases, but they never formed into an album or EP to call “solid.” They were a group whose influences were…
The other day, Shiina Ringo unveiled a new song for Japan’s Wolrd Cup team (well, for NHK’s coverage of Japan’s World Cup team) and…it is pretty straightforward, which is to be expected for a song soundtracking a music video of dramatic penalty kicks. Much better is just-released “Seishyun No Mabataki,” a prickly ballad featuring a…
Let’s take a moment to appreciate that, in 2014, there is a pop group built around the visual/sometimes sonic aesthetics of Internet micro-genre Vaporwave, and that everyone behind them nails it. Especia have been running with the Vaporwave tag for a while now…one of the biggest thrills of the past six months was seeing them…
Look, the song here is just OK…for a phoned-in movie tie-in, its better than most but that’s a lousy standard to aspire to. It glitches and pops like a possessed SNES, and dares to be fizzier than, say, Perfume’s “Mirai No Museum.” The video, though, is great as ever. It’s some strange sports match between…
BiS are an idol outfit who have done wonders in making whatever they do seem not particularly shocking. A primer: they are sorta an “anti-idol” group within the world of J-Pop idol groups, although they still partake in plenty of idol activities. Though many times, they blow those actions up to an absurd degree, so…