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Category Archives: Music @ja

New May.e: Shiseikatsu

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After a triumphant year that saw her release one of the year’s absolute stunners, May.e has decided to end the year by releasing a second full-length album called Shiseikatsu for free online. It, seemingly, is built in very much the same style as her debut Mattiola. She plays an acoustic guitar and sings. Her voice at times becomes echoey or gets double tracked, her minimal palette of sounds swirling into something larger and more attention-grabbing than you’d expect from the same tools used by horrible coffee shop garbage acts around the world. These are slow-burning numbers, built not on sonic fireworks but the ability to be totally absorbing. Her voice sounds fantastic.

Let’s talk more about that voice.

May.e’s singing has always been the key to her music…the guitar is just a canvas for her voice to spiral off in whatever direction she chooses. That was evident on Mattiola and the many covers she posted online before her debut. Yet…and I speak as someone whose native language is English…the true beauty of what she was doing could be lost because her lyrics were in English. This is because when one can actually make out the words to a song, an element of trying to decipher the meaning of everything…of trying to piece together what the artist is saying and sorting out a meaning. So it was with May.e’s first album, listening carefully through the haze to make out the words and attempt to arrange them into a great narrative (Mattiola is an album about love…that’s as far as I cracked it). It is this effect that allows sites like Songmeanings.net…or, more presently, Rap Genius…to exist at all.

Shiseikatsu is sung entirely in Japanese and…for me at least, I assume Japanese listeners would have the reverse experience with May.e…truly drives home just how staggeringly gorgeous the singing is. I have no idea what’s going on here. I am not fluent in Japanese and do not have the time to sit down and translate the words here. I don’t want to, because they just sound so good and are delivered in a way that sells any emotion better than any dictionary definition could. She controls her singing well, capable of making whispers and shouts sound equally urgent here. Some of the sparser songs…see the skeletal “Time Goes”…highlight this especially well. The reason May.e has created some of 2013’s best music…and this album definitely slingshots up the list…is because she’s an absolute ace at using the human voice as texture.

Download the album here.

New Kindan No Tasuketsu: “Ring A Bell”

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First off, not safe for work!

Kindan No Tasuketsu recently released a new album, and tracks off of it have been trickling online over the last few weeks. Here’s the latest, being released as a special Christmas special (B-side….”Santa Claus Is Coming Back”), though it also appears on her new full-length as well. “Ring A Bell” is a sweet little number, a bouncy nursery-rhyme-ish melody drawn out a bit via a guitar solo and a lot of repetition of the chorus. Plus an extended outro that isn’t much more than whirring synth and the beat. Another nice snapshot from her latest release. Listen above.

The Bedroom Hour: Kasumi Hasegawa’s “These Are The Days I Forgot To Write Down”

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It has been an amazing year for bedroom musicians in Tokyo, and as the year winds down, here is one more song to add to the ceiling-bursting pile. First up is a tune from Kasumi Hasegawa called “These Are The Days I Forgot To Write Down,” and the title should clue you into what to expect from this sparse number. It is twee-ish indie-pop, recorded in a very bedroom sort of way (listen to those vocals, listen to that guitar strum), yet everything comes around the lovely melody and bounce Hasegawa constructs, resulting in a catchy song more or less made out of glue and popsicle sticks. Listen below.

Lidly Teams Up With American Rapper Kubes: “Not Human?”

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There are an abundance of hip-hop beatmakers in Japan right now. Lidly belongs in the upper echelon of these types, creating instrumental music that is not just the result of somebody listening to a few J. Dilla CDs and calling it enough of an education. His stuff is far more abstract, far stranger than the typically jazzy stuff clogging up Bandcamp. Yet, up until now, Lidly has shared one thing in common with those sorts – nobody seems to rap over his music. Well, he can cross that one off now.

“Not Human?” finds a Lidly beat being joined by some bars, courtesy of Tennessee rapper Kubes. The instrumental itself is a jittery construction, a series of twinkling bells and chimes that at times sound like the coin sound from the Mario games. It is an all mixed up bit of music from Lidly, and would have been an interesting listen by itself. Yet Kubes tries to rap over it, changing everything. It can be a bit muddled at times…the bit about the pool table, for one…but Kubes’ flow fits in well among the disjointed production, and proves Lidly can make music open to being rhymed over. Listen below.

Seiho Provides Production For Rapper Klooz’s New Song “Find You”

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This isn’t the first time Osaka’s spacey Seiho has produced a track for a hip-hop artist…he also worked with insufferable rap unit LUVRAW & BTB on a track that is best forgotten to time. The end result is a lot better when he teams up with rapper Klooz for “Find You.” Seiho is way less busy this time around, creating a laid-back bouncer for the verses and a distinctly Seiho-like creation for the chorus, which is a series of pitch-shifted yelps falling down like dominoes. It is the same sonic approach found on most of his solo work – see this year’s fantastic Abstraktsex – and serves as a nice signature for him. Yet young rapper Klooz is the real reason this works so much better than Seiho’s other forays into hip-hop production…mainly because he doesn’t swath his voice in annoying talkbox fuzz and just does his thing straightforward, moving between a semi-lecherous smooth talk and a more pop-smart sing-a-long voice. Watch the video above.