Few bands are as upfront about their influences as Nagoya’s Crunch on new song “Mori No Naka.” “Song inspired by Radiohead’s Jigsaw Falling Into Place (In Rainbows)” they write on SoundCloud, and elements of that track certainly pop up in this indie-pop band’s latest. In particular, the driving tempo and the bass lines present here….
As mainstream Japanese music continues to revolve around only a handful of pop-leaning acts – the biggest sales all come courtesy of groups with a “48” in their name or a boy group from Johnny’s – underground artists who will never have a shot at breaking through into the Oricon world have turned to the…
Incorporating natural sounds into one’s work isn’t a new trick – artists have long been doing that, many of them recently and many of them in Japan. Magical Mistakes jumps immediately to mind with his bird and bug sounds sneaking into his songs. So Kindan No Tasuketsu shouldn’t be praised for her use of nature…
Figure might not hate you, but he definitely doesn’t mind making you feel claustrophobic. “Don’t Hate You” follows up his excellent Come Down album from last year, and it sticks to the same sonic principals that made that six-track set so good – Figure records his music in a way that makes the guitar come…
Last year, a duo made up of two teenaged girls living in New York but originally from Osaka appeared online. They called themselves BenZel, and claimed they met one another over a message board thanks to a shared love of J. Dilla. This seemed like a stretch. Naturally, the first song they ever released featured…