Drowsy Numbness (2012-2013) by Madegg From about late 2011 to mid 2013, the Kansai region boasted Japan’s best electronic music scene…and probably the best, period, in the entire country. That might still be true…but back then, things felt really exciting, with artists such as Seiho, Avec Avec and Metome…among others…starting to catch attention. Madegg, then…
American imprint Squiggle Dot just released three albums from a trio (or, maybe 2.5, as one is a split with another artist outside the country) of Japanese artists, each hitting on different pleasure centers. Boogie Idol’s Mall Pop Hits is a great place to lead off, the Tokyo producer’s crystalline synthesizers and BGM-ready beats intertwining…
Ahhh, a day away from December which means many things…one of them being the futile catching up on albums that have zoomed by us (read: me), or giving works that seemed sort of forgettable in the first half of the year another shot (yesterday I tried listening to that Drake album…still really bad). Have A…
Listening to fidgety electro-pop duo Kamisama Club’s latest number, something in the back of my head kept telling me “doesn’t this sound vaguely familiar?” Not of anything specific, but the atmosphere of “N°5” reminded me of…something. But the more I listen, the more I’m thinking it was bossa-nova-guided neo-Shibuya-kei in the vein of EeL (OK,…
I’m always ready uncork the same adjectives with high-energy producers such as Hiroki Yamamura — like “high-energy” — that something like “Frosty Cake” is a total curveball that makes my go-to vocabulary worthless. It still rumbles ahead on a juke-inspired beat, which has been Yamamura’s base for so many lightspeed numbers. But here, everything feels…