We’ve reached the point where idol music – usually an area reserved for AKB48 and Momoiro Clover z – has become really sonically smart. Not always at the top (though sometimes for sure!) but the lower rungs of idol-dom have resulted in some really interesting music. One reason – a lot of young producers are…
Rare are the times when you stumble across a SoundCloud or Bandcamp page unironically tagging itself as J-Pop. Even rarer…finding an earnest stab at the outright poppy through these sites that isn’t terrible. There are certainly exceptions – everything on Maltine that goes by that, mostly – but try spending some time with that tag….
I’m melting over here. Let’s put biases out front shall we…Perfume are my favorite musical entity ever, and I’ll always find some light even in their worst moments (I see you “Mirai No Museum,” what’s up “Toki No Hari”) because I’m fully entranced by what Yasutaka Nakata does. OK, we clear on that? “1mm” is,…
Yasutaka Nakata has been super busy over the last year and a half producing music for Perfume and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. He hasn’t had much time to devote to his project Capsule, who haven’t released any new material since 2012’s so-so Stereo Worxxx. At long last, Nakata has put together a new song for his…
Her Ghost Friend occupy one of the stranger niches in modern J-Pop music. They are, distinctively, pop…there are clear, catchy choruses supported by twinkly instrumentation and Shinobu Ono’s lovely sing-rapping. Yet they aren’t quite in that hallowed upper crust of mainstream music, rather caught somewhere between front-row-at-Tower-Records and indie. They’ve released two great albums…a solid…