CHAI have become known for their more frantic numbers, but I’m a bigger fan of the moments where they let their guard down and get a bit sentimental. “Sayonara Complex” features plenty of goofy fun, but it’s the sweetness sneaking through that really seals it for me. “Horechatta,” off the just-released debut album PINK, flashes similar looks (down to a video riffing on the here-is-what-we-did-on-vacation clip of “Sayonara Complex”). It’s straightforward, and rather stripped down, featuring some spacious guitar playing and a light beat that lets the vocals stand in the spotlight. And that’s it…no sudden turns, no shouting, nothing silly. CHAI do all of those things well, but somehow they do earnest even better. Listen above.
Category Archives: Music
New Satanicpornocultshop: Green Papaya EP
When you need a little burst of energy during a busy day, Osaka’s Satanicpornocultshop always comes through. The juke-leaning collective’s new Green Papaya EP zeroes in on percussion, with nearly every track here interlaying different beats over one another to create shuffling rhythm tracks. It runs from the sparse, skin-tingling wooden sounds of “Mouthwash” to the shimmering snaps of “The Scent Of Green Papaya,” all of it simple but also effective at movement. This is Satanicpornocultshop’s unplugged album, or at least as close as it will ever come, and they make it work. Get it here, or listen below.
New Toiret Status And $ega & The Rainbow Streets: Nyoi Plunger And Omoi De 100 Kei
The artists behind the mind-bending Wasabi Tapes label have released plenty of loosies over the course of 2017 — but two of their cornerstone projects dropped albums on basically the same weekend, giving anyone entranced by their sound-warping style plenty to listen to over the last few days. Let’s start with Nyoi Plunger, the latest album from Toiret Status and one that was actually teased over the last few months. Building on last year’s dizzying Omaru, Toiret Status upped the part of their music that feels like one of those cartoon whirlwinds that envelop a fuzzy character after a piano drops on them. Second cut “#44” feels particularly animated, with spring sounds and assorted woodland-critter sounds among other noises, while “#42” plays out like a VHS tape being rewinded in ten different directions. The music trickles, bursts, pokes, Pac-Man-dies, Chipmunk squeals, bounces, PK freezes and more over the course of this album. This is ASMR taken to a ridiculous new place. Get it here, or listen below.
While Toiret Status pushes a style they’ve done before to wacky new places, $ega & The Rainbow Streets’ offering finds the artist who also records as DJWWWW branching out towards something different. Despite opening with a classic rock station ID bumper — hinting that we are heading towards the chaotic sounds associated with DJWWWW — the first song reveals itself to be a twinkling bit of strange funk, featuring a vocal sample from Junko Yagami’s “Communication,” but done up in a way that’s totally alien to other internet-centric appropriations of ’80s Japanese pop (not to mention echoes of “Say Goodbye” deeper in). This is a set using the past as building blocks, but in a way that isn’t completely eye-rolling by this point in 2017. The rest of the album finds them taking the busy, collage-like affect of previous works and taking it somewhere softer and often in more elastic shapes (there are actual grooves to this!). It still gets pretty claustrophobic, but it’s a new look at the Wasabi Tapes brain melt. Get it here, or listen below.
New Takeda Soshi: “Cozy”
Producer Takeda Soshi dabbles in city-pop inspired dane music — or you can call it fusion, pick your term — but “Cozy” moves a touch away from that more glistening sound in favor of something appropriately laid back. The song is in no rush whatsoever, Soshi opting instead to construct a slippery shuffler featuring synthesizer straight from the bubble bath and minimal drum machine hits. “Cozy” slowly shifts over its just-over-four-minute playtime, but critical to it’s vibe is it never morphs unnecessarily. Rather, it does so when needed to spice things up and then floats along. Listen above.
New LLLL Featuring Calendula And Meisihi Smile: “For F”
Tokyo’s LLLL is prepping the next installment of the Chains series for a December release, and “For F” shows a continued commitment to the shadowy but ultimately hopeful sound that has defined the bulk of this project. The music here comes off as among the heaviest things LLLL has created as part of this series, made clearer by guest contributions from Calendula and Meishi Smile. The bright vocals heighten the harder-hitting music, offering up the best tension to emerge from this series yet. Listen above.