Hey I don’t know about you/but I’m feeling the hairs on my arm stand up a little bit.
At long last, mysterious (like, legitimately mysterious! Not fake mysterious) outfit Neon Cloud give us new material since 2011’s stunning Knit EP. And they aren’t simply recycling old, shadowy ideas on “22.” This is, to date, the longest Neon Cloud song in existence, coming in just under six minutes and thirty seconds. On
Don’t expect regular updates until I’m back in Japan this weekend…but before savoring the last few days of vacation, I did want to post the new Sakanaction song “Eureka.” Watch the video above.
The Kohaku TV show (a yearly program where some of the most popular singers from Japan perform on New Year’s Eve) and, as it always did, it brought about a variety of high profile folks out of the woodworks to moan about the state of modern Japanese music. Well,, ignoring the baby-level complaints of most commentary (“uggggggh POP!”), Sakanaction is right there topping the charts and appearing on Kohaku. And here is a very, very popular band releasing a skeletal ballad that sounds like it was recorded underwater.
One of the trickiest things about covering Japanese bands is comparing acts in Japan to Western artists…most of the time, it ends up being misguided, a lazy way for writers to create a connect-the-dots situation that makes it easier to describe the group’s sound. Or just be a total cop out…Kyary Pamyu Pamyu as Japanese Lady Gaga being the obvious one.
New House, though, remind that sometimes Japanese bands are totally influenced by foreign acts. Which is to say…they have always sounded like Animal Collective. New song “Blow Wind Blow” serves as a reminder, as their latest is packed with carnival-ground electronics and campfire-chant-style singing. It would have fit wonderfully on 2012’s Burning Ship Fractal, which also found them sounding a lot like Animal Collective (which they’ve admitted too!). Listen above.
Note: We are, technically, still on vacation, but noteworthy happenings will earn small updates. Like this!
The 2014 album race is already underway (Metome already sprinting out), and in January Nagoya’s CRUNCH will enter the race with Futoshita Nichijyo No Koto. Now, though, they’ve decided to share the whole album on BandCamp, and you can here it now. This full-length highlights the group’s vocals, in particular their ability for the members to interlock voices. The highlight is “UTAKATA,” wherein the singing especially shines. Listen here, or below.
1. Man, Especia better be breakout J-Pop stars in 2014 or I will be hyper sad.
2. LUVRAW is one half of LUVRAW & BTB, a goofy rap duo that coat their rhymes in copious amounts of talk box. They have, for me at least, always been too cheesy, the vocal manipulation coming off as a trying-to-hard stab at standing out instead of, ya know, making good music (see also: Orland). Yet time to give credit where it’s due – LUVRAW produces the latest single from Osaka idol group Especia, and he fucking nails it with his laid-back work. Mainly, his talk-boxin’ sounds great when it’s not the entire song…here, it compliments the liquid-smooth sound here, especially following up the actual group’s singing. So so good.
3. Again, Especia, this is what I want on the Oricon Charts.
4. The video is the most clear representation of their “vaporwave” image, but the music itself is more vacation groover. Both a bit of a departure for them (a new writer will do that), yet somehow slides into the retro feel they seem to be aiming for.