Make Believe Melodies Logo

Category Archives: Music

Brewin’ Up Something Good: CHAI’s “Sayonara Complex”

Posted on by

Plenty of Japanese bands have gone to South By Southwest, but I can’t remember one using said Texas exodus to create a video as outright charming as the one CHAI made for “Sayonara Complex.” Not sure I’ve seen anyone else in 2017 seemingly having so much fun as the quartet as they conga through a hotel entrance or turn the Target toy department into their personal live house. The clip alone is worth your time.

Yet don’t let that lead take away from the music itself, which is every bit as catchy and loose-limbed. CHAI have been kicking around since 2015, making off-center indie-rock the whole time (this first upload to YouTube is a highlight), full of sudden twists and turns, but “Sayonara Complex” seems like a good entry point into their sound. In many ways, it lines up well with the dominant sound of Japanese indie (and otherwise) rock in 2017, unfolding at mid-tempo and finding the vocals in no rush to get anywhere. It’s not far from the chill-in-the-city vibes of Suchmos or the Mac-DeMarco-indebted slacking of…well, almost any band that takes a promo picture in sunglasses. Yet none of those groups have thought up anything as sweet as that post-chorus interlude, where everything gets dreamy and a little out of time. Not to mention everything before and after, silly but focused, bringing to mind the now defunct Merpeoples, or a Mitsume who knew how to have a little more fun in song. Probably the most striking indie-rock song I’ve heard out of Japan thus far, and not the last we will hear from them. Listen above.

And, for good measure, here was February’s song and video.

New Smany: Kotoba

Posted on by

Nothing wrong with a little electronic retreat every once in while. The delicate songs Smany puts together feel like little escapes, every number featuring a sparse set of instruments enveloping her voice, which runs from sing-speak to near murmur. Little details add to the songs — “Emigre (Album ver)” matches the sound of waves crashing to the shore against piano notes and Smany’s smudged voice, while crackling samples add to the fading feeling of “9:00 a.m.” It often veers minimalist, but doesn’t reject moments of warmth, with the guitar-aided hop of “Utakata” offering some sunlight (though going to far outside of her zone results in some misses — “Echo” is fine, until rappers start popping up, adding a weird forced element to her sound). And then there are staggering moments like the one sound on centerpiece “( ),” which goes from a whisper to a scream when an electric guitar kicks in midway through. It’s an intimate album, but one not afraid to explode when needed. Get it here.

New Kotetsu (From Picnic Disco): MAVTAPE 1

Posted on by

It takes a lot to elevate a beat tape from Bandcamp loosie to something absorbing on its own, but Kotetsu from Picnic Disco pulls it off the rare feet with the disorienting MAVTAPE 1. Based on how they describe it — “chill&vapot-trap beats” — I was bracing for something like one of those YouTube mixes called ” S U R G E E N E R G Y97″ with a picture of a water fountain attached. Instead, I got something that got me thinking about SELA., with a little Noah mixed in for good measure. Although most of the tracks here do leave space for voices to sneak in, MAVTAPE 1 stands strongly alone, with additions such as the warped-vocal-heavy “Asagao” and the disjointed jazz stylings of “Opera” (sudden sax blurts and stand-up bass notes, you have my attention) being far more than backdrops to spacing out. This is intricate and at times unnerving music, and don’t let any buzz words scare you away from it. Get it here, or listen below.

Digi Maw: KOHH’s “I Don’t Work (IA Version)”

Posted on by

I don’t know why the fuck this exists, but god bless whoever gave it the greenlight. Looks like it was first made back in December…produced by TeddyLoid…for a phone app. Well, sure, but this is the real arrival…

KOHH, far and away the most well known rapper in Japan and abroad at the moment, shared his song “I Don’t Work” a few months ago via brain-melting web page, and it is…a KOHH song. While I get dude’s significance — and believe there are far more forgettable rappers in Japan — most of what he’s released hasn’t really clicked with me. If I wanted to listen to someone trying to replicate Atlanta hip-hop…I think I’d just listen to Atlanta hip-hop. I think it would be good for him if he tried stretching out a bit.

KOHH, for me, has a lot in common with Vocaloid, the singing-synthesizer software that birthed a whole genre of music in Japan. While this instrument has produced some interesting pop and otherwise, the bulk of it is simply bedroom artists creating boring rock music with Hatsune Miku. If I wanted to listen to boring J-Rock I’d…well, I wouldn’t. I wish more producers would stretch it out a bit.

Enter “I Don’t Work (IA Version),” KOHH’s single rendered into digital bat shittery by the vocal pack/ avatar IA. Maybe it is KOHH revealing his Niconico obsession, maybe he’s an irony boy — either way, this is such an interesting and strange thing, the straightforward voice of IA rapping (kinda) over what sounds like the underground music from Mario Brothers. What strikes me about this is…it is one of the most outfield uses of Vocaloid in recent memory, offering a different approach to rapping than, like, this. For a digital tool that still feels vastly under explored, “I Don’t Work” shows an actual bit of daring, resulting in something that really grabs your attention, even if you ignore the dabbing cartoons. Listen above.

New Tofubeats: “What You Got”

Posted on by

Fantasy Club is right around the corner, and the latest hint at what Tofubeats has planned for his latest comes via “What You Got,” a dance-pop number that mutates frequently across its six-plus minutes run. It’s a shifty number that slowly adds elements — including strings, which seem to be popping up a lot recently in his work — before diving into a Vocoder-smothered rap break, making this kind of an inverse “Stakeholder.” Yet despite this and other twists, he coaxes out a consistent groove, and as nutty as it gets, a very clear core remains. Listen above.