Going “off the grid” — which, in 2018, means going somewhere with unreliable wi-fi and distracting yourself with a lot of time-sensitive work — can be great in a lot of ways, but boy is the return to the real world jarring. I spent the last five days at the Fuji Rock Festival, and couldn’t really…
This weekend is Fuji Rock Festival 2018, and I’m heading up to the mountains today! So this is more of a housekeeping post that updates might be sparse over the next few days. To tide you over, this new release from Maltine Records should hold you over, as it brings together two good producers (plus…
Look, if a former Especia member does something musically, this blog will almost certainly cover it. If parts of this HALLCA release lean in on nostalgia for Especia, Monari Wakita’s solo career has been an effort to take similar ideas and turn them into livelier numbers that seem to be a bit more focused on…
These two internet-squatting rappers have hooked up together in the past, but “Pink Dreams” finds them both showcasing their best skills while in one another’s orbits. Set over an appropriately bleary-eyed beat, Sleet Mage delivers sing-song lines jumping from J-pop t-shirt material (“I feel like a shooting star”) to more ripped-from-context shout outs to Gucci…
After a few years kicking around on independent labels, duo Chelmico have arrived on a major label. It’s a logical step up for a group who have done as good a job merging pop with rap over the last few years, and new album Power out August 8 comes at a time when a lot…