I recently had a chat with someone about music in Japan. One takeaway – and an observation I’ve heard many times before in bars up to Retromania – is that some fans in Japan get super into a niche sound, and become experts of it. And that’s true! And can lead to great music! But…
When talking about anything White Wear…or, honestly, anything that has emerged from the CUZ ME PAIN label over the past few years, from Jesse Ruins to The Beauty…does, I tend to include the word “unsettling.” That’s a trait he’s really good at conveying in his music, and has made the two EPs released under the…
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…
OK, this time I checked around – I think this is a Puffyshoes’ original. It isn’t the Michelle Branch song (though that could be interesting), it isn’t ’80s group Scandal’s take. Ain’t the Ed Sheeran version which sucks so bad I won’t even link to it. So…here’s a totally fresh song from Puffyshoes, who do…
Man, has it been almost two years since Nagoya’s The Moments caught our attention with “Short Trip.” The Japanese indie-pop boom was just getting underway, and that was one of the first songs to earn dozens upon dozens of repeat listens, and even pop up on our monthly music mix (remember that thing). Now, a…