The music surrounding Mei Ehara has leaned towards more locked-in grooves since she adapted that name, moving away from the solo project May.e to something with a bit more band support. “Saisho No Hi Wa” features one of the more skeletal arrangements she’s used so far as Mei Ehara, anchored by a particularly sticky guitar…
Exist brings the energy, but makes space to stir emotions too. Spire’s new EP via Omoide Label drills right from the start, with the title track built around relentless machine beats just buzzing away at the listener, only interrupted by samples of voices talking about logging in to things or sudden bursts of white noise….
Make Believe Melodies failed to cover the last two songs Sleet Mage appeared on, and we regret this error. That’s amplified by this being year-end season, which means going through all of 2018’s releases and seeing how what Sleet Mage does so well is lacking in…so much other Japanese rap. While the Sapporo artist’s reference…
It’s year-end season, and I think one of the major trends that is going to get glossed over in lists and thinkpieces is how nostalgic everything felt this year. It’s unavoidable in Japan, where the biggest artist of the year was Namie Amuro and the biggest song resurrected Eurobeat. But it’s also playing out elsewhere…
For an artist thriving in the space between mainstream pop and dank experimentalism, Tentenko sure stays strong at making her pivots feel like surprises. All You Need Is Cat is a five-song collection about…cats, which is a cute enough exercise. But it’s also one of Tentenko’s more eclectic offerings to date, going from gentle piano-guided…