Earlier this year, Tokyo’s Yoshino Yoshikawa traveled to Seoul to play alongside the city’s Subbeat crew, a set of producers creating plenty of great music very much worth your time. Didn’t take long for the two sides to meet again, on the collective’s just-released compilation album Kitties #1. I would have bent my self out…
Add to the “late to it, but still great” file I’m filling up quite nicely — producer Secret Space released the album Believe one month ago, though it sounds every bit as enchanting now as it probably did then. As has long been Secret Space’s style, these songs are dreamy and nostalgic — “Past” literally…
After Japanese house maker (and chiptune enka genius) Soichi Terada started getting a bit more shine over the last few years, those near him also began to get more attention. Shinichiro Yokota, a long-time collaborator, benefited a lot, releasing his first album last year to a nice amount of attention. And he isn’t done yet….
Kyoto’s Native Rapper excels when it comes to the small details. Last year’s triumphant Mass Maker EP hit immediately for its celebratory mode centered around netlabel artists, but subsequent listens also reveal a release full of strange little details and sudden vocal twists. This latter point feels more pronounced on Keep It Real, an album…
One of 2017’s best songs to come out of Japan so far was Ame To Kanmuri’s “Lie Night,” a nervy number riffing on the lo-fi house trend that found Molm’o’mol of ever-intriguing idol outfit Koutei Camera Girl rapping over the lonely sounds. Looking beyond just the realm of idol-adjacent music, this was one of the…