Duo Shelling released a very strong, very dreamy album called Waiting For Mint Shower!! earlier this year on White Paddy Mountain. It got lost in our shuffle for a bit, but the new video for “Shining Pool,” one of the slowly unfolding shoegaze highlights of the album, reminded us to give it a shout out. No shortage of bands cribbing from My Bloody Valentine in Japan today, but Shelling stand out because of how glacial they are willing to get…and how the vocals come through relatively untouched by fuzz, adding a sweet directness to the song. Listen above.
Category Archives: Music
New Boogie Idol: Ongaku Yori Tooku
Boogie Idol sits across the way from Pasocom Music Club when it comes to Japanese artists finding interesting new ways to play with the sounds of the past. And if this year’s Park City showed how music from a bygone era (and, like, malls) could be refashioned into something new, Boogie Idol’s latest Ongaku Yori Tooku shows just how much is possible using a palette that, at first brush, seems limited to elevator rides. This has always been core to what Boogie Idol has done — and explored by other artists too, such as Lullatone — and his latest via Datafruits shows just how much is possible with his set of twinkly synth notes. He brings familiar neon bouncers that hide quite a bit of intricacy, such as opener “Blue Sky Blue” (listen for that piano line…and then be wowed by the organ) and “Misty Misty.” But the intrigue lies in numbers like the title track, which finds Boogie Idol subtracting from his music and stretching out what he normally does into something that’s ever changing. Or how about something teasing enka (or at least enka as imagined by a sentient karaoke machine)? Or straight-up para para music, referencing ’90s SMAP characters? Boogie Idol shows so many possibilities here, and it all sounds so good. Get it here, or listen below.
New Mecanika: “Couleur”
Shiga-based electronic producer Mecanika has a new EP due out for the end of the year, but the 18-year-old artist decided to share a track from it way earlier than most net-centric promotion tends to do nowadays (good for you!). “Couleur” does something in its own way that has made a lot of new electronic songs stand out to me lately, which is tease messiness but keep everything together before chaos arrives. The song features bell chimes and bleepy kid keyboard notes, yet those all eventually give way for a rush of synths and (seemingly) pitched-up vocal samples turned to sonic light. Enough moving parts to keep things kinetic, but without ever turning into mush. Listen above.
New Fredricson: “Paralyze”
The latest from producer Fredricson confirms that the artist — who is also a member of the group Remigai — firmly shows that even though he mostly operates outside of dance music circles, he makes some of the most compelling electronic tunes currently in Japan. “Paralyze” is his most dizzying work yet, a rumbling number featuring vocal ripples and helium singing over twinkling notes. Plenty of electronic music sounds like you can touch it, but “Paralyze” really drives home the textural side of Fredricson’s work by having all sorts of mismatched elements graze one another, making for a disorienting listen. Listen above.
New Hikaru Yamada And The Librarians: “My Unterritory”
“My Unterritory” seemingly falls apart at the seams. The latest from Hikaru Yamada and The Librarians features what sound like samples of strings, guitars and other instruments seemingly deteriorating in the back, Yamada letting the rough edges stick out and at one point lets it all fade out (to the point of literally skipping at a few instances). Even her singing seemingly crashes into itself at times, giving a pop song focused on the self a slightly wobbly edge that matches the uncertainty conveyed by the lyrics. Yet the key to “My Unterriroty” is that it doesn’t collapse in on itself, but holds together just enough, to make those cracks all the more intriguing. Listen above.