Always up for a nice blast of indie-pop. Cattle hail from Tokyo, and Slow Sailor is their second EP, released via Jigsaw Records in Seattle. It’s exactly what you expect from a Japanese indie-pop…though, if you need to place them on a map, they are closer to the driving rock of Homecomings than the dreamy rush of Wallflower or Boyish…and they do it so darn well, from the darty longing of “Within Your Reach” to the melancholy skip of “Sherbet.” They even offer up a zippy cover of Ride’s “Twisterella” for good measure. Get it here, or listen below.
Yoshimi doesn’t see Tokyo in a positive or negative light — the producer just hears the city beat. Atavism is the follow-up to last year’s pulverizing Tokyo Restricted Area, a set gazing back on the capital’s ancient past — and summoning traditional Japanese instruments and singing styles — while also placing it into its claustrophobic present — the percussion and synths here pound away. Atavism continues this exploration, with songs such as “Mountain People” meshing what sound like recordings of Japanese folk singing up against rumbling beats, creating a tension between soft and loud that makes the track all the more absorbing. The album is billed as a “spiritual side of reality” highlighting a slightly less crushing side of the producer, it feels like that isn’t totally up to snuff. Yeah, “Old River” drifts on minimal synths and boasts a cinematic feel to it, which does reveal a new side to the project. But the songs that really stick with you are cuts such as “Possession And Occurring,” a blown-out rumbler holding nothing back. That’s Tokyo at its most visceral. Get it here, or listen below.
For the purpose of this blog’s guiding principle, I should focus on the Japanese artists involved in About Time. It comes via Japan’s Kool Switch Works label, and features remixes of the title track by Foodman and Satanicpornocultshop, who both put their disjointed takes on the song. The whole thing is mastered by Metome…so yeah, plenty of entry points into this one for Make Believe Melodies, a blog that has surely never broken aforementioned principle before, nope.
But yeah, the star of this is Meuko! Meuko!, an artist from Taiwan orbiting the Do Hits universe and who is tight with Foodman, and has played Maltine Records events before. About Time showcases everything that has made her such an intriguing name over the last couple of years — the first two songs highlight her approach to constructing music, featuring fractured beats and ominous drone (“Nolovex”), or footwork gone incantation (“High Dryer”). It climaxes with the title track, a slowly unfolding number that puts her lyrics at the front, and morphs from spacious to swift at a disorienting rate. Get it here, or listen below.
This one isn’t just for fans of dogs — or “doggos,” as the kids call them. Put out by Ayamati-Records and 7mm, this compilation reels in people who are prone to clicking anything with canines on it — so, me — and then hits them with a set of diverse, always energetic dance music, often punctuated by barks. Critically, it never feels like a novelty — sure, a pounding number such as NA7’s “Yokozuna Dog” comes complete with all sorts of yips and yaps, but it all flows with the music around this. It’s the opposite of that Run The Jewels album made out of cat sounds, which was pure meme bait. But something like NOMA’s “Saluki’s Chronicle” works well even without the doggy touches, it’s slow verses leading to big hulking drops…and bouncy interludes. And it always stay morphing, making space for the spacious two-step of Harito’s “Out Of Border” and minter’s electro-throb “Kees Disco” back to back. Get it here, or listen below.
Loud and crushing can be just as good as anything else. Producer Karen Felixx’s Colorless Girl runs with this hypothesis, and comes out with a solid album of heavy — but still making way for moments of melodic escape — tracks. Numbers such as “Dark Love” and “So Sorry” pile up on distorted elements — both feature fuzz-covered percussion along with harsher synthesizer notes — and let them pound away. But Karen Felixx also knows to include passages that offer somewhat of a break, or show flashes of catchiness among the noise. It all builds to “Twinkle Star Toys,” Colorless Girl’s one moment of twinkling release and prettiness. Get it here, or listen below.
