Skitter Step: Licaxxx’s “□ ▷▷”

Tokyo’s Licaxxx covers a lot of ground on the inconveniently titled “□ ▷▷.” She speeds up and slows down the beat over the course of this just-under-four-minutes-long song, occasionally weaving in little vocal details like a shout of “hey!” or a split-second moan. It’s a track that manages to evoke elements of British dubstep along…

Anime Feelings: Ujaku

The opening minute of producer Ujaku’s “Tonakai” sounds like a lost snippet of some Studio Ghibli film soundtrack. It’s nothing but some plaintive piano strokes with a few additional affects added in. It’s the emotional core of the song, which bursts open into a rollicking dance number soon after the minute mark, Ujaku dropping in…

Sounds So Right: Hearsays Prep New Album, Preview With New Song “When I’m Wrong”

Fukuoka’s Hearsays first blipped-up on our radar courtesy of Dead Funny Record’s latest compilation album, and now that label will be releasing their new A Little Bird Told Me on March 10. To give us a tease of what to expect, imprint and band have shared a new recording of the song “When I’m Wrong,”…

Sounds From The Other Side: Buddy Girl And Mechanic’s Buddy Girl And Mechanic

It’s appropriate that Tokyo group Buddy Girl And Mechanic’s debut album came out in February 2013, a month that has been surprisingly bone chilling in more than weather ways. Buddy Girl And Mechanic unfolds at a slow pace, the band playing every track hear at a relaxed pace that allows the music itself to reveal…

Four Your Enjoyment: Sugar’s Campaign And Dancingthruthenights (Tofubeast X Okadada)

When electronic music producers get together in Kansai, they get down. The best example of this, up until now, was Sugar’s Campaign, a project that brought bubbly beatmaker Avec Avec together with the usually trippy Seiho. Tell the two to create something new together, though, and you end up with party-starting pop indebted to the…