World’s End Girlfriend don’t keep things simple. The project’s new song “Meguri” clocks in at nearly ten minutes, and finds Katsuhiko Maeda crafting a dramatic slow burner. The first half is all build — Maeda arranges strings and piano to create a dizzying climb upward, pretty but also a touch unsettling. It’s when the electric guitar slides in that “Meguri” starts ramping up. And it makes the final stretch, when Maeda lets the song just burst open into a combination of feedback and orchestral echoes, all the more memorable. Listen above.
Category Archives: Music
New CHAI: “I’m Me”
One of the driving themes of CHAI’s music thus far — made all the clearer after talking to them — is inclusiveness, of celebrating the unique characteristics we all possess. “I’m Me” isn’t quite a manifesto for the four-piece — that remains the herky-jerky “N.E.O.” — but it’s definitely them at their most direct, avoiding the sudden twists in tempo and shouts (and also opting to not go the more reflective-but-not-really-reflective route of slower songs) in favor of a down-the-middle number that gives them room to share the main lyrical conceit more clearly — which is a smart move, as their next EP is probably going to be a grab at greater mainstream attention in Japan. Still, they work in some cleverness, such as trying to make the Japanese word for “selfish” into something positive, and deliver one of the most subtly cutting lines I’ve heard from any song this year (“you know about the world but you don’t know me” is an incredible cut in the age of “actually….”). And while it lacks any theme-park-ready turns, the music still falls in CHAI’s lane, from the squiggly guitar melody, a really bright and lovely keyboard interlude, and a breakdown that shifts everything but not too suddenly. Listen above.
Local Visions Presents Mega Drive Featuring Pasocom Music Club, i-fls And Many Morey
Mega Drive takes a lot of expectations and flips them around. The compilation serves as fledgling label Local Visions’ first release, and gathers artists from Japan and abroad together to dabble primarily in styles that would be seen as niche genre by most — and with arguably the main sounds being touched on across Mega Drive being pretty internet centric. But the jumble of artists here makes for the most interesting perspectives. Vaporwave signifiers appear frequently, and tracks such as Cat System Corp’s “iColluseum YamaDew” (it’s a pun!) opt for the laziest form of that sound, slowing some forgotten Japanese number down and…hit upload. Yet other artists — many actually from Japan — hit on something different, or even strange. Toyohirakumin manages something more dramatic on their contribution, while Pasocom Music Club manage a different kind of exotica on the jaunty synth number “Jogae,” stylized in Hangul and featuring Korean vocal samples. Boogie Idol slows things down on the dusk-ready “Compass Point,” while i-fls conjures up emotional elevator music on “Eventide Blue.” There’s a lot going on here — I could write a post entirely about the album standout courtesy of AOTQ, a breezy slow burner that just makes me want to rent a car and drive along the coast — and offers a nice rounded perspective on a lot of now-familiar ideas. Get it here, or listen below.
Floating Free: Swan High’s Islands
Sendai band Swan High mostly take it easy on Islands, though their sort of laid back ultimately translates as a chance to try out whatever they want. Across the eight songs here, the group dabble in a variety of rock stylings, most of them on the softer side of the spectrum. “Find A Way” channels ’60s pop and prom staples to create a melancholy number brightened up by electronic squiggles, while “Kousaten” takes a similar set of sounds closer to ballad territory. Their best modes, at least here, are either downcast synth-pop that lets their heart sit proudly on their sleeve (the dewey-eyed “Late June”) or simplistic indie-pop skipping (“Ramune Kashi”). Get it here, or listen below.
Beat Machine: Dale Nixon’s Hello EP
Hello! Project turns 20 this year, and everyone celebrates in their own way, I’m sure. If you are Japanese artist Dale Nixon, you call up your Tokyo rapper friend Valknee and you record a hip-hop EP celebrating the agency behind Morning Musume and many others. Hello comes advertised as “HelloHop,” and Dale Nixon exclusively samples H!P songs for the beats, including some ballads based on the piano-centric inclusions (I’ll cop to not having a deep enough knowledge of the Hello! Project discography to pick up on what specific songs they draw from — I’m more of a “Want!” era man, myself). Anyway, go beyond the gotta-hear-this packaging, Hello stands as a solid rap EP. The highlight comes right away on the confident “Super Ultra Hyper Sayumi Time,” which bounces forward and allows Valknee to deliver her strongest verses here, touching on food…a lot of it…before swerving into a more melodic hook. The remaining two songs are more sentimental — those piano notes! — and finds Valknee in a slightly more reflective mood. Love those idols or not, listen above.
Valknee also recently collaborated with Nagoya’s J Gryphin on “Nice Pic,” a slightly warped number that places her rapping against a dreamy beat that feels like it is slowly deteriorating. If the cute stuff doesn’t do it for you, this six-shots-deep-after-midnight number should. Listen below.