Tokyo artist Paffgen’s “Channel View” — tipped off to us by our friends at Lights & Music — is a 17-minute journey made up of a wide array of original sounds and samples, taken from the likes of The Weeknd and Neon Indian and, uhhh, Diddy Kong Racing. It features something that could be considered…
London-based electronic artist bo en is no stranger to working with Japanese artists. On previous releases, he’s teamed up with Avec Avec and mus.hiba, while he’s produced numbers for J-Pop acts such as Yun*Chi. Now he’s teamed up with Akio, the primary vocalist in Sugar’s Campaign, for a short but extremely cheery set of pop….
For the purpose of space, I’ll spare you my thousand-upon-thousand word essay about celebrated Japanese artist Tatsuro Yamashita for the moment and just say that few singer / songwriters anywhere are as skilled craftsman like Yamashita, whose legacy still looms large over the Japanese music scene. His best songs revolve around longing and hoping, and…
The title track to producer Hylen’s latest EP, via Omoide Label, is a solid enough bit of energetic dance music. “Suiren” features helium-injected vocal samples, splashes of both traditional Japanese instrumentation and Lil John samples, and a general no-hesitation rush forward. It is solid, but b-side wins the day, as the real highlight and the…
Critical to Yoshino Yoshikawa’s music has always been the depth he brings to his music. His songs feature depth and a lot of clever details that push them out from an internet-centered scene that sometimes does the immediate, overwhelming vibe too much. “Mirage,” the first number to emerge from his forthcoming album Event Horizon via…