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Category Archives: Music

New Metome: Turn It Up

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If you’re looking for the part of the Metome post where I talk about “fading memories” and “lost scenes,” don’t worry that will certainly pop up briefly. The Osaka producer’s music over the last couple of years has inspired me to get gloopy and long about a very specific time in Osaka’s electronic music community, one echoing in the songs put out since. But Turn It Up mostly implores dorks like me to stop Googling “hauntology” and have a little fun.

This is lively Metome, using little more than some drum programming, acid squelches and vocal samples to turn opener “Syndrome” into a kicking number more about the physical than the mental. Sure, that one synth wash over top hints at some deeper melancholy, but then a voice booms out “I like that” and those lingering feelings vanish for at least a little bit. Better still is the title track, which takes almost all the same elements to create a pulsating dance number that really goes big on the acid sound. Metome’s always been good at this type of sound, but those two songs serve as a stark reminder of how loose-limbed he could get when not talking to spirits. And hey, he even covers that one with “Lapse VCR,” a beatless meditation ending everything on a more contemplative note. Or maybe just a comedown after all the fun. Get it here, or listen below.

New Frasco: “Tatemae”

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Let’s “Bandersnatch” this one: select (1) to ask the music blogger why the video above is so short, select (2) to ask the music blogger about Frasco’s “Tatemae” by itself.

(1) OK, sit down for a second, have I got some thoughts to unload on you. There’s this whole new class of Japanese artist emerging in the streaming era that one could label “Spotifycore,” though I think that’s a little too negative. These groups would absolutely have existed ten years ago, and a duo like Frasco aren’t doing anything to try to game the system (get to the chorus faster in that case!). This sort of streaming lower-middle class of Japanese music has nothing to do with sound, but more about position. These are acts that are either on small labels or on the fringes of major ones, and streaming has opened up this intriguing opportunity for them to stand out (or at least try while Aimyon’s songs clog up all the top charts). But the trade off here is that hearing the whole number on streaming ends up being the priority, so you get a “concept video” like the one above, which plays about half of “Tatemae,” which is a lovely song right in Frasco’s wheelhouse. But this is a bigger point, about how streaming isn’t setting Japanese music free, but just presenting a new place listeners have to go…not Tower Records, but Apple Music. This isn’t far removed from the “short version” of yesteryear, and a reminder Japanese music is still sorting all of this stuff out. Hey wait, where did you go, I had more to say….

(2) Oh yeah, it’s good, Frasco know how to make this slightly woozy synth-pop work for them and pull on the old heartstrings a little. They are masters of consistency. Now, want to hear me ramble about streaming???

Snakebitten: DJ Anaconda’s (Aka CRZKNY) Anaconda Trax Vol. 1

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Last year, CRZKNY released GVVVV, which found the juke maker pivoting hard into straight-up gabber. It was a faithful set with a few flashes of the Chicago-style thrown in, but one that feels like a fun (and pounding) detour. But now, under the guise of DJ Anaconda, CRZKNY has returned to the hard-hitting sound, and made a huge jump forward with Anaconda Trax Vol. 1. The base remains in gabber, but whereas last year’s effort mostly relied on the beat to do most of the work, Anaconda Trax brings in more elements to deliver a more playful punch. The key addition is vocal samples, made clear right away on an opener breaking out a Sir Mix-A-Lot sample (get it?), turning “Baby Got Back” into an element of an aggressive dance track carrying a whiff of fun (plus, turns out those whip sounds were made for something a bit more suffocating). Voices add lightness to otherwise heavy songs, from the flexing of “Don’t Give A Shit” to the understated skitter of “Freak,” the best mid-point between juke and gabber from CRZKNY yet. Get it here, or listen above.

New Stones Taro: “You Are (M)”

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Kyoto’s Stones Taro has turned the past into their playground over the last two years. “You Are (M)” moves away from the blunted territory of “lo-fi house” in favor of a jungle number that allows the edges to blur a bit, a seeming nod to the glory days now well gone by (that, presumably, Stones Taro didn’t experience themselves, but is imagining here). Their latest track moves between those wobbly passages — often marked by vocal samples — that feel out of time before dropping hard into stuttering passages where Stones Taro brings the energy up as high as they can. But those moments never last, always interrupted and doomed to be fragments. But it’s fun while it lasts. Listen above.

New DJ Fulltono: Before The Storm EP

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DJ Fulltono told me last year in interview that he wants to keep boiling down juke to its most basic elements, and the Before The Storm EP displays this desire for simple but body-moving exercises in percussion. This isn’t the first time Fulltono’s minimalist hunger has come through — the Draping series he’s doing with CRZKNY and Skip Club Orchestra follows a similar pattern — but here the attention is all on his hiccuping tracks. “Apaches” lets a dusty guitar sample spring up early, but the bulk of the song is just skittering beats looped, aligning with the more stripped-down takes on the Chicago-born style. So it goes for the rest of the EP — Fulltono lets other elements sneak in, but always keeps the focus on the beat, showing the subtle mutations in all their stuttering wonder. Get it here, or listen below.