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Category Archives: Music

New Fruits: Three

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The music of duo Puffyshoes always leaned towards goofy topics — cats and birthday parties and backstage passes — but the pair had a knack for highlighting some painful feelings lurking even in the silliest themes. Fruits, the solo project of Puffyshoes’ Azumi Nakajima, continues this tradition on Three, a set opening with what you think could be a light bit of fun in “Only My Cat Understands Me.” Until Nakajima reveals the song is really about how her parents don’t understand her, casting the whole number in a far darker light. The rest of Three wrestles with heartbreak and loneliness, set over a simple but often catchy set of bedroom pop. It all peaks with “Don’t Sing About Love,” a sing-a-long imploring the world to…do just that. Get it here, or listen below.

Above A Nap: zzz’s zzz

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Despite what all those “z’s” might imply, the latest from Tanukineiri Records boasts a nice skip to it. The artist zzz creates a funk-pop sound on the easy-breezy side of things across zzz, opening with the upbeat (and comically titled) “Danger Zone” before embracing handclaps and big fat synth melodies for “Baby Baby.” This style can easily turn stale and slip into laziness rather than good-times-havin’ — see, a lot of “new city pop” schlock out there — but zzz perks everything up with more fun moments like the goofy steppin’ of “Binbo” or the Beck-sampling “Good Night,” which basically feels like a copy of a copy in the best possible way. Get it here, or listen below.

New Anna: Again, Again

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It has only been a few weeks since Anna shared something new, but she isn’t slowing down. “Again, Again” again (sorry) finds her crafting a lurching pop number that takes a pretty familiar formula and lets the shadows creep in. I’d go to bat for everything on Tonite over this, but as a continuation it sees her playing around with ideas a bit more. Check the little sample disruption in the middle, for one, or just how firm this one is as a bouncy bit of rock. Get it here, or listen below.

Frasco Teams Up With City Your City For “My Summer Your Summer”

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This is the sort of collaboration I wouldn’t have imagined making much sense on paper — Frasco dabbles in whatever you want to call the current wave of city funk, while City Your City creates shadowy R&B with a slightly unnerving edge to it. “My Summer Your Summer” works, though, by not trying to find a middle ground between the two groups, but rather affording them each time to do their thing. Frasco — or more accurately, the Frasco sound, with City Your City giving a go at recreating the breezy city strut of that duo’s music — dominates the song, with the bulk of the song finding that project’s lead vocalist strolling over some early-evening beats and gloopy bass. But then right in the middle comes the part more clearly coming from City Your City — a slowly unfolding, skeletal middle part that flips a pleasant bit of midsummer pop into something more dramatic, even if just for a minute. Listen above.

New Happypills: Lazy Sun, Late Risers And Asleep

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Two sets of bleary eyed indie-pop weren’t enough for Fukuoka’s Happypills. The shoegaze-glazed project shared two new mini albums this month, both existing in some kind of state of rest. Lazy Sun, Late Risers sets the tone right away with the aptly chilled “Lazy Sun,” which finds Happypills using enough distortion to make the feeling of mid-afternoon rising all the more palpable, everything moving at hangover speed. Things speed up from there, but never rising above a light jog, numbers such as “Port Town” and “Circles” bopping along but always leaving enough room for a fitting amount of melancholy (though that latter boasts a sticky chorus). Get it here, or listen below.

Asleep actually moves a bit more quickly and weaves in more synth sounds…just as curious, Happypills writes out a list of influences for each song (not found on the other one), from “Japanese rock and U.S. indie-pop” on “Starship” to “The Drums, Day Wave, etc.” on “Sunnyfloat” (which, that etc is carrying a lot of weight, because it isn’t very Drums-y). I lean towards Lazy Sun, but Asleep features some jaunty moments that are further reminders of Happypills’ indie-pop credentials. Get it here, or listen below.