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Category Archives: Music

Breaking Through: Kudo Kamome’s Trypophobia Experiments

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Singer/songwriter Kudo Kamome has been experimenting with pop structures for a few years now. She’s been releasing albums since the start of the decade, dabbling in fanciful Parisian-tinged numbers and more abrasive guitar music. Yet her latest EP Trypophobia Experiments offers some of her wonkiest creations to date, and an early 2018 highlight. Each song features a different producer, giving each number a different vibe. Hamacide lends opener “Middle of the End” an uneasy vibe, mixing bell chimes and ghostly vocal squeals with a Knife-worthy melody. Downstate turns “Orion” into an up-tempo electronic number guided by skittering percussion, but with Kamome’s voice slightly muffled. She handles the last song all her own, switching up from the electronic numbers before it for a guitar number that frequently ruptures in half. Whatever the sound, she adjusts her voice to the situation, working with whatever she’s been given (or crafted herself). Get it here, or listen below.

New Stones Taro: Scarf EP

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One of the earliest pieces of music writing advice I received was…don’t dwell too much on album art. But let me just take a second to note how new Kyoto-based label NC4K has established a great visual sense so far into their existence, with a cartoony psychedelic element that I really hope they continue to embrace. And it’s fitting for the music they’ve put out so far — this is the real no-no of bringing up images and music, but whatever! — as it gels well with the loose-limbed bounce of Pee.J Anderson’s “Move” and, now, Stones Taro’s Scarf EP. At it’s best, the producer’s latest indulges in some zoned-out fun, best laid out on the title track. That one is content to let synth notes — both wispy and thick — float by like a puff of smoke, with cowbell propelling the song forward. The rest of Scarf tends to be more energetic, though even something more up-tempo like “Portrait Of A Mind” features these electronic wooshes that give the track a spaced-out vibe. Get it here, or listen below.

New (Kinda) Anemone: “Requiem”

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Usually, a year really starts to show itself in, like, March — that’s when releases start emerging that feel more reflective of the year as a whole (well, at least if you operate in blanket thinking). Yet January saw a lot of great full-lengths emerge from Japanese artists, including Mom’s topsy-turvy Baby Like A Paperdriver and Phew’s enveloping Voice Hardcore. Add Anemone’s self-titled debut to that list — the duo of Ninomiya Tasuki and China-based artist Yikii first album gathers songs that appeared over the last year along with a few new ones. “Requiem” was one of the very first songs the pair made, but it has a new video (above)…and happens to be a pretty good sum-up of what Anemone does so well on their first collection. Their music often approaches a dream-like state courtesy of a lot of synthesizers, but “Requiem” adds a slight nightmare feel to the formula via its skittering intro and mutating beat, over which Yikii recites the Lord’s Prayer. It’s disorienting, but still comforting…at least in the moments when grace come through the stranger musical details. Listen above.

Half-Speed City: Abenie’s “Metropolis”

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Glitz can sound really interesting when parts of the charm feel just off. That’s something rarely — sometimes, but rarely — found in the current crop of smoothed-out rock performing well in Japan’s mainstream. The project Abenie shows how a little bedroom-pop charm can go a long way. “Metropolis” moves at a dazzled-by-the-lights pace, and is accented by relaxed guitar playing and electronic dollops. But it also features MIDI horn effects that recast the shine as something much smaller scale, and Abenie’s vocals similarly move this from booming car anthem to something much more personal. Listen above.

New Miii: Plateau

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Miii has set his focus on tension over the last few years. The Tokyo producer has long been a fan of bass-shredding, hard-hitting drops in his electronic music, and the thrill of a punishing plunge remains. Yet he’s been just as interested in pairing sounds not far removed from the dance pens of a big=time festival with what many would consider more refined instruments — lots of strings, woodblocks, xylophones, all the stuff the Grammy Awards roll out to class themselves up on a yearly basis. Plateau, Miii’s new full-length, marks the…well, it’s right there in the title…of this exploration, offering a masterclass in slow-burning tension between soft and booming. Critical to its success is that Miii isn’t using piano and violin as a way to legitimize the electronic sounds at the center of the album — this isn’t a stuffy “sound installment” or effort to pretend he is something he’s not. The drops here are filthy as ever, and he’s not afraid to let them just go, as on the title track, a skittering number chock full of diced-up vocals and frantic drums.

Rather, the instruments develop a conflict, playing out over slow-burning numbers. “Throb” lets a wave of horns introduce the song before a malfunctioning drum pattern crashes in, the two intertwining to create a song that seems to be gradually falling apart (but trying to stay together). “Hide & Seek” uses space even more efficiently, letting the pause between digi-spasms develop slowly, making each incoming crash all the more startling. Plateau’s songs really stretch themselves out, with the climatic “Echo” lasting nearly 16 minutes. That one might be a touch too long, but for the most part Miii manages to make these long-lasting numbers work because of an ever-present unease between soft and hard sounds…and how this conflict creates interesting new developments throughout each track’s time. He’s explored this sound for a while, but he finally has reached the top. Get it here, or listen below.