Make Believe Melodies Logo

Category Archives: Music

Feels Real: gu^2’s Bad Trip

Posted on by

Make me feel, indeed. The latest from Trekkie Trax comes from producer gu^2 in the form of two-song release Bad Trip. It stands out because of how damn textural it is — musically, it follows the aggressive, club-centered template many releases on the netlabel have followed, but dang if the sounds here don’t jump out and add some nice feeling to these two songs. The title track is the higlight, a roughneck number loaded up with clucks and dog parks that argues — if you are going to be tough, be really tough. Get it here, or listen below.

New ELLEH: “I Can Be Your Best Friend”

Posted on by

The music Tokyo-based duo ELLEH have released thus far has resided in the shadows, dance music for people with a lot on their minds. As loose-limbed as their songs can get, a sense of doubt — or melancholy for some relationship lost — hung over head. “I Can Be Your Best Friend” is the first ELLEH song that gives it self over to optimism. Over a particularly energetic beat and synth, the group put one foot forward — the lyrics focus on taking that chance (the title hints at where it goes), and even though failure hides in the corners, ELLEH just don’t care about that here. The thrill of a new opportunity…even one with no end point…is enough. Listen above.

New LLLL Featuring Yeule: “If You Say You Love Me Then Die With Me”

Posted on by

The partnership between Tokyo’s LLLL and Singapore-born, London-based (last time I checked) artist Yeule has been quite fruitful over the past year. The latter has appeared quite a bit on the prior’s Chains series, adding a sweetness to the often jittery and — sometimes — dark music. It’s a bit of a simplification, but Yeule has given LLLL’s recent music a pop core, an immediate element that adds tension to often shadowy music. “If You Say You Love Me Then Die With Me” finds the two going off in a much, much different direction. It appears on a collaborative album / art book bringing Zoom Lens together with Fakku, an English-language hentai publisher (!), and it is the most left-field number they’ve done yet. The tension is thicker than before — the beat open up like upside-down Pa’s Lam System, but transforms into this rumbling creature accented by cries that would sound welcome on a house track…except here, it sounds like it’s sinking towards the Earth’s core. Yeule adds a familiar humanity to the proceedings, but here she sounds equally off-kilter, moving in time with the beat and helping highlight its oddness, even while giving it a relateable core (building towards the titular request). Listen above.

New Anemone: Killing Me Softly

Posted on by

Dreams are never an easy escape. They are, after all, fantasy — they end, and even the sweetest mental zone-out eventually pivots back into reality. This tension lurks in the corners of duo Anemone’s first EP Killing Me Softly, a lush two-song set that retreats into a hazy fog but always has one foot just outside. The title track sets the stage well — it opens with piano notes and Yikii’s soft singing ushering the listener in, everything growing in intensity (and with a violin entering!) when she whispers “welcome to fairytale.” It’s sweet and calming…but crackles around the edges, regardless of how pretty it gets. “Requiem” gets a bit trippier, with synths squishing off and the beat skittering around, but centered once again by the sweet singing. And then it just ends, and the EP is over, begging for more but snapped out of it way too soon. Which I guess is appropriate. Get it here, or listen below.

Space Is The Place: T4CKY

Posted on by

For some reason, the message system on this blog was broken for…the last few months, so every message people sent to me via the site did not actually get to me. Sorry! Upon realizing this problem, I went through all the mails and…well, found a lot of new music to listen to, a lot of it really great! One that jumped out was by young producer T4CKY, who doesn’t have a lot of songs out there, but the ones uploaded certainly shine. Especially because of how they utilize space…”Flutter” is the obvious highlight, a music-box-like melody ushering in the song surrounded by De De Mouse-esque chopped vocals, before a more skittery beat emerges. Comparisons are easy to draw — Qrion is an obvious one, as both play around with minimalism and a sound palette not normally associated with fest-ready EDM — but also distract from just how catchy it is, especially when the final stretch crashes in, a heavy drum beat raining down and adding muscle to a once skinny number. Listen above

T4CKY’s latest, an untitled number, introduces even more sounds, but still centers around a series of sliced-up syllables. It lacks a payoff similar to “Flutter,” but is a good chance to hear T4CKY play around with a few different noises. Listen below.