I’ve been waiting for the actual album to drop, but Boys Age’s “Dēmiourgos” is so pretty and fragile that, hey, might as well wait a little bit until New World Pregnancy emerges. It has been a while since checking in on the group, and true to their spirit, Boys Age remain adept at introducing strange, new details to their sound. “Dēmiourgos” features the hallmarks of their sound — those submerged-Muppet vocals, mid-tempo guitar playing — but features a sparkly keyboard line lurking in the back, and the main melody brings to mind something that leans closer to enka (or, at least, Showa-era pop numbers about ennui) than anything on the Burger Records roster. Listen above.
Category Archives: Music
New Snail’s House: Ordinary Songs #3
One of Snail’s House’s biggest skills on Ordinary Songs #3 is making intricacy sound so laid back. The five songs here unfurl at a mid-tempo bop, getting crowded at times (the springy “Bouquet” being a good example) but offering far more room to breathe than other contemporary producers in Japan. This is an album bound to be described as “chill” and which will see its songs land in a “peaceful beats for doing homework” playlist on YouTube. That isn’t wrong — Ordinary Songs #3 is really upbeat and calming — but it does blur how much is going on within to make it sound so peaceful. “Aloha” is full of blips, vocal samples and synth lines, but constructed in such a way to feel sparser than it actually is. “Bouquet” reminds of Snail’s House secret weapon — his use of piano as central moving force, while nearly every song here displays his clever approach to melody (the only misfire being the carnival yawn of “Lullaby,” the one song that almost makes you want to utter the words “kawaii bass thinkpiece brewing”). Get it here, or listen below.
New Tominaga: Limbus And Songs
Electronic artist Tominaga highlights two sides of her sound on a pair of albums that came out at the end of May. Limbus gathers several of her ambient, often wordless, creations from 2016 to now, highlighting her approach to constructing sound exclusively. The revelation is she’s capable of squeezing a lot of feelings out of these drifting works — the title track moves from something unsettling and dark to calming by the time it reaches its final stretch. Others, like “Untitled #1,” come off as intriguing textural experiments, with harps and keyboard bleeps twirling around one another. It can get a bit intense at times, but Limbus shows Tominaga’s ability to create absorbing soundscapes. Get it here, or listen below.
Songs gathers songs featuring her singing — the music often isn’t far removed from what you would find on Limbus, just made a bit more compact and spacious to give Tominaga room to sing over. Songs such as “Coral Waltz” feature a chorus of Tominaga’s coming together, while “Pain Is Mine” offers up minimalist pop, complete with horn blurts. Get it here, or listen below.
Blurred Dreams: Madame_nhu’s “Spacy”
Madame_nhu describes themselves as a “dream artist,” which on first brush simply conjures up images of shoegaze bands occupying space in a cramped Tokyo club. Yet “Spacy” offers up a bit of a surprise, at least to those made slightly cynical by Japan’s eternal love of My Bloody Valentine…it’s more blurry than anything else, Madame_nhu’s digitally warped vocals tumbling over themselves over a funky bass lines and skippy vocal samples that give it an out-of-time feel (fans of Toro Y Moi’s Causers Of This, this one’s for you!). Listen above.
New Yackle: SnowySummer EP
Ano(t)raks is probably best known for being a destination for new Japanese indie-pop (or, if the term fits for you, city-pop inspired cuts), but the netlabel-turned-physical-label also has a long history of highlighting electronic music, ranging from Kai Takahashi’s 80s-brushed numbers (which eventually morphed into the lounge pop of Lucky Tapes) to the minimalism of Boe Oakner. So the label sharing producer Yackle’s new SnowySummer EP isn’t a new twist, but rather a return to one of the more overshadowed cornerstones of Ano(t)rakcs. It’s a spliced up set, starting off with the shifty “OrionCider,” which moves from skittery beat experiment to something imitating the rumbling sounds of Southern hip-hop (albeit with cuddlier singing on type) before finding a middle ground between the two…and, uh, channeling Okinawan folk music. A lot going on here! It’s a little more straightforward on the pop bounce of the title track. Rounding it out are two remixes, one via The Oto Factory and the other by Pasocom Music Club. Get it here, or listen below.