The real hook here is that Lumine Ikebukuro — a specific branch of a series of department stores in Japan — has its own SoundCloud page. Late capitalism, what a trip! But hey, that’s 2018 for you, and if a place selling handbags and shiny shoes wants to recruit promising young women artists from Tokyo’s electronic community to create disco-tinged songs for them, let’s try to look at the positives. It helps that the songs here are pretty good! Utae delivers the highlight via “Overwrite Dance,” a minimal dance-pop number blurred around the edges (the vocal effects!) that keeps it simple but does enough to feel just off in the best way. Machina — recently appearing on Foodman’s stellar new album — delivers another highlight with a rumbling floor-filler, while rising act AAAMYYY provides one of the more straightforward pop delights with her “Yellow Dress.” Check it all out, above.
Category Archives: Music
New Tomatoism: Ahoge EP
Call it a happy coincidence between my music writing and online-culture writing, but this week I’m (kinda) diving into the world of “moe” for the latter. And, at the same time, a new anime-sample-heavy EP from Tomatosim drops via Omoide Label. I’m not particularly into anime — I know most of the bigger names mostly by simply living in Japan, though I’ll still blank on names, like uhhh that one that’s just Osmosis Jones but Japanese — but working on the web piece has reminded me how uneasy anime samples (or visuals) can make many listeners. I think Tomatoism avoids that here by just covering them all in energy. This is the producer’s most energetic set yet, opening with the shuffling and skittering sample-rush of “Naruhodo” before picking the pace up more on the vocal-slicing highlight “Salt Powder.” Save for a slightly slower detour into rap on “Circulation” (who is the rapper here? They are great! Give credit!), this is one that always adds and rarely slows down, which hides anything that could put some folks off. Get it here, or listen below.
Correction — The rapper featured in “Circulation” — is not a rapper per se, but rather Kana Hanazawa…and this is a sample of “Renai Circulation” which was the opening theme to the anime Bakemonogatari, which I did not now existed. Make Believe Melodies regrets the error, though hey, told you I don’t know anything about anime, at least I delivered!
New Toriena Featuring Yunomi: “Time Capsule”
It feels like Toriena has been prepping for a major-label debut for a while now, but the moment has finally arrived this October with her first major album. “Time Capsule” offers a glimpse at one way she can go with a larger spotlight on her. She teams up with Yunomi to craft a number in less of a rush to get to the busy part, but rather starting slowly and then reaching a big drop. It’s solid although it does make me wonder just what a major full-length from her will highlight that previous releases won’t (“Time Capsule” implies it will be her singing which…fine, but not a highlight), but it really gets good in the last end, when she breaks into some speedy spoken word and then a more impassioned singing style. That’s the energy right there. Listen above.
Smany Teams Up With Nyan-Nyan Orchestra For Sayonara Hitobito / Amenone
The music Smany has been making over the years already relied on a certain amount of delicateness. Like Flau artists Cokiyu or Cuushe, or someone like Nariaki Obukuro, she has used silence as the perfect way to twist the emotions central to her work. But before she worked fully with electronic sounds of her own creation. Yet for this release, she has collaborated with a string section called Nyan-Nyan Orchestra for two songs that really ramp up the drama of her music. “Sayonara Hitobito” opens with some spoken word before SMany’s synth-generated notes wrap around violin playing Then she sings over both, and what follows almost gets too over the top…but all parties flash restraint, which just makes for great tension. That carries over to the nature-sampling “Amenone,” which proves to be more uptempo and even busier. Yet it ultimately feels like a space Smany can occupy well. Get it here, or listen below.
New SNJO: Mikai No Wakusei
A common failing of online musical movements is a lack of evolution. Nobody has to find new angles on a burgeoning sound, but at some point you end up with a lot of people slowing down or speeding up the same basic thing. That’s one of the reasons Local Visions has been such a welcome addition to the online label-sphere of Japan. The acts they’ve highlighted thus far take from the sonic and visual elements of vaporwave, retrowave, future funk…the list goes on…but no release so far has simply settled. Rather, the artists build on that as a foundation, and the result is some of the year’s most interesting (and fun!) music.
The latest from Local Visions comes from Toxxies member SNJO. Mikai No Wakusei again dips into the ever-expanding world of Web-born styles as a source of inspiration, something evident from the synth churn of opener “Portal.” Yet soon enough SNJO’s own digitally modified voice creeps in, floating over an electronic strut on the title track and zig-zagging around the ripples and sample barrages of “Spaceman.” Rappers and guest vocalists sneak into this zero-gravity party, and everything goes acid on the high-energy “Quartz.” By the end of this album, I wasn’t even sure if my original hypothesis really fit, but every subsequent listen reminds that, nope, SNJO is simply building on top of it and edging it in different ways. Get it here, or listen below.