Zushi’s Half Mile Beach Group left a deep impression with the windswept “Yankee” last month, and now they are triggering fuzzy memories with “Twilight.” Like “Yankee,” the outfit get a lot of mileage out of slightly manipulated vocals, as the singing here sounds buzzy and possibly coming from behind a layer of cheesecloth. It’s breezy…
Assorted Thoughts 1. I ultimately think PC Music is pretty great — most of the music released under that banner has been fantastic pop, and in general I side with any artist/collective who appears to have a genuine interest in Japanese music and tries to push it into the West (A.G. Cook samples DJ Kaori…
The sheer size of Avex — the Japanese music/entertainment label — guarantees a few interesting ideas tucked away. Even though the face of the label is anchored by heavyweights such as Ayumi Hamasaki (neve rmind her steadily sinking stock), various EXILE groups and a sack full of K-Pop acts, Avex has spent a lot of…
Korea’s Sima Kim and Japan’s Ryuei Kotoge have teamed up a lot in the past, and the end results have always been memorable. Now, on new collaboration “Seoul,” they’ve added another voice to the mix via Korean rap group Illap, whose voices get stretched out and (seemingly) rewound throughout this one. Listen above.
Sho Takeuchi’s X-Files project caught our attention at the start of this year not just because of the name…the Tokyo artist created unsettling music rich with tension across a series of EPs and singles uploaded to SoundCloud. For whatever reason (maybe certain reboots scared him a bit), Takeuchi has renamed his venture once more, to…