The duo Soft As Snow But Warm Inside called it quits over the weekend. The pair, who have been around since July 2012, announced it on a Tumblr blog post. They didn’t release much music during their existence – two EPs and a track via Ano(t)raks – but what they did put out was very…
“Glow” features one of those musical moments that catch you so off guard it practically makes you do a double look at your computer screen. The first half of Tokyo bedroom-producer Mari Pass Filter’s song is a good but straightforward affair – a beat, droplets of synthesizer, skittery vocals that sound vaguely Vocaloid and which…
Producer Dubb Parade was, just one month ago, a lot sunnier. He billed his Your Emotion collection as “chillwave” and, even if it wasn’t totally locked to that Internet-genre, it carried a hazy, disco-influenced vibe that sounded more suitable for a blissed-out (remember that one?) summer spent indoors. Whether intentionally pushing himself to release music…
If every artist has to have a “sakura song” – a single (usually) that comes out around the time the cherry blossoms bloom and EVERYTHING CHANGES (school graduation, company reshuffling) – might as well not make it suck. Most J-pop artists stick to tepid ballads for this season, so thank goodness we have Kyary Pamyu…
Tokyo Garageband producer i-fls works best in album form, his faded memory jingles sounding best when they rub up against one another to create a well-rounded portrait of what youth, nostalgia and the suburbs feel like. Individual tracks usually sound perfectly fine, but their full impact is felt when they run together. “Ambiguous Reply” would…