Think of this as more an advisory than a usual “yapping about a release” post. The latest release from Tokyo’s Emamouse is maybe their best yet, featuring both some of their loopiest melody runs to date alongside an absolute epic in the album closer. I’ll have more on this one later in the week (look out for that) so for now I’ll just say get it here, or listen below.
We’re firmly in a post-netlabel world. Everything is “internet music” now, and the idea of online as a potential alternative to existing lanes of music has vanished as major players crowd up what seemed like new alternatives. Sure, corners remain for artists to develop their own world, but they are getting blotted out by the usual major label players crowding up streaming services and website headlines. Netlabels — particularly in Japan — offered a parallel universe of pop and dance music that didn’t thumb its nose at J-pop, but rather re-fashioned ideas and sounds from that zone into something far more exciting and fun than what was actually coming out in the mainstream. But the terrain is a little flatter now, and now these ideas are just part of a larger landscape rather than a place to get away to.
But the spirit of that community carries on in a lot of young artists coming up, including Kyoto’s Native Rapper. It has been clear for a while now — early EP Mass Maker was basically an celebration of all things netlabel, down to a song called “Trackmaker” — but first full-length Trip synthesizes both the attitude and approach into one fantastic collection. It partially serves as an introduction to the artist to a wider audience, so familiar numbers such as “Water Bunker,” “Keep It Real” and “Imasara” featuring Lulu pop up once again, highlighting Native Rapper’s Auto-tune-glazed rap-sing in all its bouncy joy. But it’s the new songs that really round it out and give this one an air of dance-pop celebration. The title track weaves in house elements that Native Rapper soon ping-pongs across, warping his own voice in the process. The charmingly titled “Swag Girl” uses electric guitar riffs to add power to an otherwise skittery synth-pop bop accented by digi-horn blurts. “My Billards Bed” matches a laid-back strut (that springs to life in the back half) with pool ball samples, while Native Rapper calls on Yunovation for a melodica melody to craft a beat around on “Grand Melodica.” Trip offers up an album’s worth of genre-blurring dance-pop, and it’s that energy about avoiding borders and just going for it that makes it one of 2019’s early highlights. Maybe corners just for the Native Rapper’s out their are getting rarer, but we can still enter their worlds. Get it here, or listen below.
When Mitsume introduces a fresh sound to their strolling rock, it really comes through clearly. It doesn’t take long into new number “Namerakana Hibi,” from forthcoming album Ghosts, for a new wrinkle to pop up in a song that initially sounds locked-in like so many of the quartet’s previous releases. But then lurking a little deeper beneath the guitar melodies are flashes of new percussion for the group, touches that add a vacation feel to the number…and helps make the rising drama of the hook land even better. Listen above.
I recently ate an extremely spicy dinner*, and it fucked me up for at least a day and a half. I’m still not sure my body has truly gotten over it. Anyway, this sensation seemed easy to connect to “Spiceholic,” a seven-minute trance number created by COR!S that I like to imagine was inspired by enjoying too much spice and kind of losing. The actual hook for this one is that “Spiceholic” reminds that COR!S remains one of the most versatile electronic artists going in Japan — I don’t recall her making Goa trance before, but she delivers with this spice-out. Listen above.
*I mean, for me at least, I might just be hyper weak
Rapper Kid Fresino and Seiho teamed up last year for the latter’s “Cherry Pie,” a number that found the prior navigating a track that sounded like a swarm of electronic bees. It was an effective pairing — I’ll go as far as to say that, personally, it is the best Kid Fresino has sounded — to the point where it got slightly reworked for last years Ai Qing, where the buzzing cacophony got scaled back a bit and still managed to be (alongside another Seiho-produced number) the highlight of a pretty uneven listen marred by one real big optics mistake (nobody in the room raised their hand? C’mon). Thankfully, Fresino calls on Seiho once again for “720,” a collab with Nike tied to the titular shoe that manages to rise above the sponcon origins. Seiho delivers a gripping beat that goes from gurgling electronics to spacious ambient passages, and Fresino melds right with it, even delivering some good lines about the end of Heisei that match the rising and falling drama of the music. Listen above.