Damn, how good was 2018 in Japanese music? Looking back at this top ten I made, I’m pretty stunned by how strong all of them have persisted for me deep into 2019. That said, only one of them has really shot up for me personally since then — if you really care, it would be…
During this blog’s slight vacation from…existence…Seiho shared a new song that found him working with rapper 5lack. It’s solid, and a nice reminder that Seiho really does play well with others, but it also felt a bit more straightforward, especially in the wake of his “Star Guitar” but for Millenial Burnout masterstroke from earlier this…
There’s still time to add some soil-covered gems to your 2019 music library, and one of the year’s better albums to be mostly overlooked — including by this blog! — comes from Tokyo quartet Spool. Their self-titled full-length from this February hits a sweet spot between two music communities that carry on strong in Japan,…
Producer SNJO has a new album out on Local Visions in November, but first taste “Time” is too irresistible to put off until the whole thing comes out. This is the electronic artist at their most playful to date, turning the squelchy synth sounds that added constant tension to last year’s Mikai No Wakusei into…
One of those cases where the album title operates as a declaration. Prolific producer Dubb Parade plays around with voices on every track here. Samples serve as the foundation for the latter two songs here, with closer “Japan Beauty” creating something disorienting in how it flips The Pom-Poms with some other source material over a…