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Starting Off Strong: Suiyoubi No Campanella’s “Jeanne d’Arc”

One of my resolutions for 2015 is to keep an eye on Suiyoubi No Campanella, a rapper who I totally zoned over in 2014 despite her releasing a bunch of good songs. I didn’t listen to any of them before someone suggested her “Momotaro” for The Singles Jukebox in December…and I was floored. What Suiyoubi…

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Yasutaka Nakata Update Central: Wave Runner Mega Mix And E-Girl’s

Producer Yasutaka Nakata is going to have a busy first quarter in 2015, highlighted by a new album from his Capsule project. In advance of Wave Runner’s February 18 release, a “Mega-Mix Movie” has been released, featuring snippets of the songs on the duo’s latest full-length. The preview confirms that Nakata and vocalist Toshiko Koshijima…

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Make Believe Melodies’ Favorite Japanese Albums Of The Year: 5-1

Clip art forever 5. Metome Objet It was another solid year for the Kansai electronic music scene, and 2015 looks like it will keep the trend rolling – just look at this Seiho and Avec Avec video! Still, the best-album-out-of-the-region race ended really early in 2014 – Osaka’s Metome dropped Objet just as the calendar…

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Make Believe Melodies’ Favorite Japanese Albums Of The Year: 10 – 6

Again, not my art, just clip art, bless it forever. 10. Emerald Four Nothing Can Hurt Me “Nothing can hurt me.” Imagine it as a mantra, a sentence muttered to build confidence in otherwise bleak moments. It’s easy to imagine those four words running through someone’s head while listening to Emerald Four’s album of the…

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Make Believe Melodies’ Japanese Albums Of The Year: 20-11

I’m not a designer of any sort, so please enjoy this clip art. Something that tends to happen with end-of-the-year lists is writers and publications end up creating narratives for the year that just unfolded. The dominant one for 2014 so far has been “what a horrible year,” which…fair enough, if you followed the news…