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Category Archives: Music

New Post Modern Team: “Listen To The Music”

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Post Modern Team could play this trick, one a lot of indie-pop bands are capable of but which happened to be one the Osaka group did better than most in Japan. From the opening notes of career-highlight “Never Let You Down” and onward, they could make even the hint of wistfulness sound happy, especially when they hit on a particular phrase that they could then milk for all its worth. Even if last year’s Be Forever Young? came up with mixed results, Post Modern Team could hit it at times.

“Listen To The Music,” from forthcoming album Come On Over Now, sticks out because it sounds sad. Or, maybe more accurately, tired, which allows their once skippy playing and vocal delivery to now sound a touch slower. The end result is an indie-pop song that still manages to pull off a nice skip to it — and Post Modern Team’s hook-writing chops remain strong, the titular phrase here sticky as ever — but something about the song feels more downcast. This one gets right to the emotional center, and isn’t worried about any initial confusion. Listen above.

New Ryoma Sakoh: Island…

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Island… builds off of the song of the same name that Ryoma Sakoh released earlier this year. That song created a soft, billowy soundtrack to an imagined archipelago, and the new full-length builds on that theme explicitly, with Sakoh himself writing that this is “memories spent on fictitious islands.” The bulk of the album builds on that song’s breezy touch, guided by piano and Sakoh’s sweet singing, opting for a relaxed state of mind rather than the funkier sounds found in Japanese rock in 2017. Yet an album just of songs such as “S.O.S” and “Sabako No Hana” (the most stripped down number here) would be pleasant but unremarkable. The highlights come from the unexpected touches. “New Summer” features an off-kilter beat approaching juke (but not quite) and shimmering electronic dollops, making for Island’s… most immediate moment. But the singing gets warped, turning it a touch unsettling (or at least sun drunk). Finale “Poolside,” meanwhile, goes even further, with the music bending like it has been left out in triple-digit heat. It almost feels like the imagined island is coming to an end. Get it here, or listen below.

New Carpainter: “Returning”

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Trekkie Trax stays busy in the last few months of 2017. Fresh off a great compilation with Good Enuff, the label announced their next release…and it is a heavy hitter. Carpainter will put out a new album titled Returning on December 6, and ahead of that Trekkie Trax shared the title track. Unlike the shambling “Changeling Life,” also set to be on the full-length, “Returning” delivers a slow burn via a side-to-side beat and a slowly shifting vocal sample anchoring the song. At nearly six and a half minutes long, it reminds of his ability to let a song build at a steady clip rather than reveal itself right away. Listen above.

New For Tracy Hyde: “Floor”

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(This one has an official video, but it won’t play outside of Japan…where I am now. So this is how you guys feel all the time, huh?)

Tokyo indie-pop band For Tracy Hyde have tightened up over the years. Initially a vessel for Sarah Records-indebted guitar chug mixed with experiments in chillwave, the group now sounds far more organized. This peaked through on last year’s lovely Film Bleu, but really comes across on their second major-label album He(r)art, an album imitating a film, complete with a first song titled “Opening Logo (FTH Entertainment).” “Floor” could be seen as an early scene establishing a character’s motivation — it’s a shimmering mid-tempo number highlighting the band’s songwriting chops, opening with a piano-driven verse before blooming into a big heartfelt chorus…ending with a closing stretch featuring the greatest sound of all, saxophone blurts. Big-screen comparisons are apt — this is a sound For Tracy Hyde has done plenty before, but now simply sounds bigger. The one revelation? How great a singer vocalist Eureka has become. For this large-screen sound to work, they need the words to really shine, and she delivers them in a way where every word — even “ice cube!” — drips with feeling. Listen above.

New Pavilion Xool: “U U”

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I’ve been feeling out of it for a while now. Initially, I thought it was because I caught a cold on a trip, and all that NyQuil is bound to shoot anyone into a haze. Yet it dawned on me this has been more like a month long malaise, one where I constantly find myself feeling somewhere between burnt out and really sleepy. I don’t think it’s depression — I’m genuinely upbeat — but rather some feeling of “enough for now” where I just refresh the same website over and over again all day.

I appreciate songs like “U U,” by rising producer Pavilion Xool, because it sounds like a brain melting into a puddle. The Tokyo-based electronic artist creates a sweltering number loaded up with distant jungle sounds, warped syllables and keyboard chirps. It brings to mind early career Seiho in how it feels off-kilter, but manages to coalesce into something solid…even when everything drops away a little after midway point and is replaced by more tropical caw-caws and fragile twinkling sounds. It sounds like a fever, and I’m all in on it. Listen above.