Osaka artist Le Makeup’s recent Life Intonation EP feels like part compliment to last year’s Hyper Earthy, and also a bit of a stab at wider recognition. The six songs gathered here and put out at the very end of January build on the soft meditations he pivoted too last year, using splashes of guitar, soft synthesizer melodies and machine-created beats to capture snapshots of daily life in tumultuous times. It’s a slightly bigger role out, too. Hyper Earthy exists on streaming services, but Life Intonation is there from the get go (though you can also nab it as a free download). However you listen to it, the EP finds Le Makeup continuing to explore this style, from the vocal-grazed “Red Tinged Memories” to the dissonant clattering — making way for a simple but sticky hook — of “Gullwing.” “Security” even flashes back a bit towards his more dance-oriented sound, albeit a little more understated than the Esthe. No radical changes here, just proof there is plenty of space to continue exploring. Listen above.
Category Archives: Music
New E-Girls: “Pain, Pain”
Last year was a weird one for E-Girls. After a few years where they felt like the logical next direction for J-pop to head in, 2017 felt a touch off. Not necessarily musically, though — E.G. Crazy was an overstuffed double album, but one featuring a pretty great “Cool” side loaded up with some of the year’s best hooks. The “pop” side…not so much. But a reshuffle within the group and the extended E-Girls family threw everything off, and they felt less there for the rest of the year. Not to mention solo members who had been primed for big solo success flopped — I mean, Dream Ami got dunked on by Punpee when it came to physical sales, let alone digitally where rap usually does well.
So “Pain, Pain” feels like a step in the right direction. It has flaws, most of all serving as the theme to a Japanese drama. That explains why the chorus feels a little flatter compared to everything around it, at least in the preview clip we are rolling with here. But the verses are so good as to make the inevitable fizzle out only a minor inconvenience. A rush of strings open “Pain, Pain” and stick around all the way until the chorus, the song only intensifying as it chugs ahead. It’s one of the more dramatic numbers a group best known for pure pop pleasure, and teases going over…until the verse softens things. But everything before hints at an interesting new angle for the group. Listen above.
New Batsu: Half Self
Osaka’s Batsu gets reflective on Half Self. The electronic artist’s latest offers up a fragile set of tracks that often tease going over the edge, but always hold everything back, aiming for something more melancholy than moshing. Not to downplay how springy Batsu’s creations can get — check the zero-gravity “Confess,” seemingly using melodies from Hoshino Gen’s “Koi” but recasting them into something more jelly-like. Yet for most of its runtime, Half Self seems OK to look inward, or at least let its brittle pieces show. The title track rattles, but does so with a fluttery main melody, while tracks like “Love Song” and “Look Alike” find Batsu using vocal samples — sometimes sliced up, sometimes echoing on the sides — as a way to evoke something fleeting. Best of all is “Loop & Loop,” which finds Batsu dropping a Carpainter-esque garage-leaning beat, but elevated by splashes of piano and twisty vocals courtesy of Native Rapper. Get it here, or listen below.
New Haruruinu Love Dog Tenshi: “Setsuzoku”
Haruruinu Love Dog Tenshi first came on our radar last year thanks to a collab with the producer/rapper Youheyhey. That cut sounded great, but it was Haruruinu’s rap-turned-sing delivery that elevated the song and added an extra layer of giddiness to the tune. The two come together again for Haruruinu’s very own “Setsuzoku,” but this time things get a bit woozier. Youheyhey’s music this time around features a wisp of synthesizer and hard-hitting percussion, but spaced out enough to let some of the more zoned-out vibes come through. Over it, Haruruinu delivers narcotized verses that sometimes tip over into singing. In whichever mode, she performs like she has to get her words in before the beat kicks in, taking advantage of brief windows to get her dwelling across. Listen above.
LLLL Teams Up With Meishi Smile, U-Pistol For “Always” Featuring Calendula
I can earnestly say that, without the internet as it existed in the early 2010s, my life would be completely different. Living in rural Japan, there was a strong but small local community I could rely on, and I’m forever thankful for that, but you also miss out on so much more. Yet back then, the internet felt truly open, full of communities of like-minded people coming together. Which…sure, sounds like today, but rather than gather together to just cloister away and maybe attack the other side, it was a moment where it at least felt like something different was being constructed. An alternative to the monoculture, almost like an alternate musical landscape. Labels like Bunkai-Kei Records, Altema Records, Maltine Records…and let me stop myself here, this spirit (and these labels!) didn’t vanish. Maltine still puts out some of the best music in Japan, and they organize these incredible live shows that, if anything, show that they won — as a friend put it once, the fact that so many people can go from a digital space to a physical club thanks to this netlabel is incredible.
But I’m always thinking about the potential online spaces had back then, when it was really my only keyhole to see something beyond a city home to Japan’s biggest salamander center. And it’s been on my mind this week, with news that club Bullet’s — a space that a professor who studies netlabels once said was the first physical stepping stone for so many of these fledgling digital imprints, that getting a showcase there was massive — plans on closing at the end of March, and because of this song, released via Maltine Records and Zoom Lens.
Let’s not get too goopy — this isn’t simply an ode to a time when the internet was actually a sane place teasing honest-to-goodness advancement. LLLL, Meishi Smile and U-Pistol (Ulzzang Pistol, who also has the project Moon Mask) are reflecting on a deeper connection over the last few years, with help from Calendula who delivers some lovely vocals to the song. The music reflects this, taking elements present in all of their own work and creating something that ebbs and flows between them. And yeah, the lyrics are just as worried about a general passing of time that can’t be tied to a specific non-human place. The players involved in this excel at capturing the melancholy and complexity of life in the 2010s, and this is one heck of a reflection.
But also, I’ve spent all week thinking about it in the context of how I encountered all their music through the internet — and of course Maltine too — and how the feeling of first connecting with all of their music made me feel, and how few internet spaces spark a similar connection (which…maybe I”m just old? Certainly in play). It also helps that, well, the people involved have similar feelings. And this ache persists throughout “Always,” a song wondering what happened to those times and pushing forward. And maybe its very existent is comfort enough. Get it here or listen below (and also…look at all those great remixes! I got so wistful I forgot to talk about those! Just dive in).