Sapporo’s always unpredictable producer Parkgolf has a new song out via part of Activia Benz’ Singles Club, and it’s a fine contribution both to the imprint’s gleeful collection of songs and Parkgolf’s own hyper-rainbow sound. “Silk Curtain” finds balance between smoothness — those vocals, like air blown on exposed skin! — and just pure release,…
Maybe you’ve had a hectic week, or maybe you would like to sink away for a bit from boy-band media circuses and just zone out. The global-minded Onmyodo Cassette label’s newest compilation, Cyclical Return, couldn’t surface at a better time, as it compiles skeletal songs from artists hailing from all over the world — though…
A lot has changed since I saw Lady Flash play a tiny live house decorated in balloons out in Osaka — primarily, the band who were writing manic indie-pop about Earthbound have transformed into a half male, half female quartet prepping their first album for Dead Funny Records. “Tora Ba Yu” is the advance single…
The go-to trick is to make a peppy sounding song concealing dark lyrics, or at least a few uneasy details among the poppy touches. Tokyo’s Zombie-Chang bobs the other way — her music can sound creepy and exhausted, but the person at the front of every track sounds like she’s having a blast, and that…
Tokyo got its first snowfall of the year today, and you best believe I haven’t stepped out of my apartment once today. Instead of braving several centimeters of snow on the ground — this has thrown the Tokyo train system into chaos — I’m going to catch up on some good electronic music that came…