Gauging the political intentions of music in Japan can be tricky, especially when you rely on Google Translate and Firefox extensions to figure out what’s going on. Plenty of artists can be direct about their stances, and in the wake of this year’s nuclear situation a handful of anti-nuclear-power songs appeared albeit far from the…
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwui0KAHblo”] It’s strangely appropriate that lo-fi beach memory-dabblers Friends promoted new demo “My Beautiful Anna” by placing the song against an old beer ad. This isn’t the typical “chillwave” strategy of nabbing faded footage of the beach or an old copy of Rad and hitting up Movie Maker – scenes of sun-soaked fun from days…
Kyoto-based electronic musician Rei Harakami has died at age 40. According to music website Natalie, he died of a brain hemorrhage yesterday. Harakami made his debut in 1997, releasing a self-titled EP on Sublime Records. The following year they released Harakami’s Unrest, his first full-length album. He released seven albums over his career, along with…
Tokyo is always going to be the central scene for all Japanese music, just because of the sheer size of that metropolis. Yet the Kansai region…the area anchored by the triple-threat of Osaka, Kyoto and Nara…has been hiding some of the most interesting electronic noises in the country today. I’m not just talking about tech-rock…
Throwback outfit Traffic Light have a new tune up for your listening pleasure, called “Boys In A Band.” Know major shocks here – it’s sunny folk pop with vocals slightly obscured by being slightly lower in the mix, bouncy stuff with some nice wood-block clomps popping up near the end. Appropriately enough, these guys will…