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Category Archives: Music

New Snail’s House: L’été

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Music has been pushed to the background more than ever in 2018. It isn’t a new development exactly, but generally speaking songs often get treated like wallpaper. See mood-centered playlists on streaming services, or how contemporary soundtracks to YouTube influencer videos sound, or the seamlessness between commercials and original works. Changing times, but as it continually feels like music is nudged further into the back, the more I’ve come to appreciate the growth Snail’s House (or Ujico, another project by the same person) has shown over the last couple of years. Initial releases from the project were firmly in the “kawaii” camp, and could feel a few bass whirrs removed from slotting nicely into a looped livestream that you could potentially do homework to. Yet something evident in their work is a desire to build up and explore new territory with their sound, rather than settle for something that has proven quite lucrative on Bandcamp (and lord, just poke your head into various niche-genre communities online…a lot of people are coasting!).

L’été features nearly no words but overflows with so much attention to detail that simply playing it as background music seems like it would be tough. Snail’s House has built on the piano-based foundation of previous releases and swirled in new touches — “[vivid green]” plays around with the idea of samples interrupting the melody, but rather than crash like in future bass they add charming detail via railroad crossing chimes and breath-long pauses. No sample goes to waste in “Himitsukichi,” every one playing a role in the song itself, while “[sunflower]” uses small shifts in sound and violin surges to create an endearing song in an intimate package. Snail’s House even weaves in something like “Platonique,” a rumbling number closer to toe than other anime-favoring producers in his realm. L’été shows how much is possible in a sonic palette often used as a backdrop, and is another step forward for Snail’s House. Get it here, or listen below.

New Elen Never Sleeps: Flowers For Hesse

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There comes a painful moment where you realize you are only getting older, and all the things that you love lost to time are not necessarily going to carry over to future listeners. For me, that has mostly centered around this period in Japanese indie music — let’s say 2011 to like 2013, maybe 2014 — that produced a community that appeared ready to morph into something even greater. CUZ ME PAIN, Hotel Mexico, Moscow Club — it wasn’t centered in any one place, but found a sweet spot between Shibuya after dark and SoundCloud. But it has faded away, like all moments do, and feels destined to slip away. It was great when it was happening, and I love to revisit…but you can’t expect others outside of it to come to it the same way.

Elen Never Sleeps belonged to this community, and created dreamy indie-pop wit an intimate breath-on-neck quality to it. Just listen to the Silver EP, clouded by melancholy and uncertainty (“I tried to find a job” being a particularly stinging line). That project went into hibernation, but in one of those welcome surprises has returned in 2018 with Flowers For Hesse, a full-length album that easily could have slid in to that golden period. A lot like Moscow Club’s triumphant Outfit Of The Day, it tickles all that longing for this music community in a listener like me. And like that album, it isn’t a pure nostalgia trip, but testament to what made the project so good in the first place.

Elen Never Sleeps lets the emotion come through pretty clearly across this album, with the title track setting the stage with plenty of space for melancholy vocals delivered unabashedly…when he wants to sell the emotion, those words get stretched out. Songs across Hesse unfold at mid-tempo, with plenty of space for the words to shoot high, all while maintaining an air of closeness (see the head-down-walk of “Anna from Heaven,” or the more aggressive posture of “A Faded Beauty,” which goes from a stomp to vulnerability quickly). “Haunted Darling” picks up the pace for the most throwback sound here, while Elen Never Sleeps flexes some new tricks that show this isn’t simple dipping into the past, such as the slow-stroll pace of “Violet Jazz” and highlight “Paradise Lost,” featuring pleasant flute-style notes and good use of sampled voices. At one point on the album, Elen Never Sleeps sings “nothing ever lasts forever,” and he’s right. But Hesse reminds that it doesn’t have to just go away, either. Get it here, or listen below.

Burn Down: Firemj’s “Night Coast”

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Plenty of people can make beats, but a sign of an artist to keep an eye on is someone who can make a beat feel like a story. Firemj — “fire emoji,” if I’m reading closely enough — pulls that off on “Night Coast,” a number that uses pacing to its advantage and shows that a little extra thought can go a long way. It boils down to the decision not to rush out the vocal sample — many tracks out there push vocals and other gooey bits right away to grab attention, but ultimately detract from the force of these elements. Not so here, where Firemj spends over two minutes setting the table before letting the emotional howitzer loose. Call it a reminder for patience, or just let “Night Coast” play out. Listen above.

New Poncho + Casino Tart: “Take Time”

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Some swift, good juke courtesy of Osaka’s Poncho + Casino Tart on their latest release. The two Satanicpornocultshop members craft a pretty simple but deeply pleasing track with “Take Time,” letting some flute-like sounds do their breezy thing while some helium-ed up vocal samples run over, adding a wooziness to every second of the song. It’s fun! The remix version tacked on feels like they took all the voices and just re-sprinkled them over the music, meaning it carries all the same energy but in a slightly different order. Together, it’s like one big turn up. Get it here, or listen below.

New Yurufuwa Gang: “Palm Tree”

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One of the more jarring experiences you can have at a Japanese rap show is watching a relatively straightforward performer go on…and then be followed by Yurufuwa Gang. Recently, I watched Keiju of collective Kandytown (once known as Young Juju) play club Unit to an excited crowd, and like a lot of Japanese rappers, it felt more like a guy trying too hard to re-create what’s happening Stateside at the expense of anything interesting (kids LOVE “Lonely Nights” though). Fun, but a little frail. Yurufuwa Gang followed, and delivered 30-some minutes of wonky rap, drawn mainly from last year’s excellent Mars Ice House, ending their set with harsh screaming that made me worry for my ears. They are on their own planet, and thank god for that.

“Palm Tree” practically exists as vapor. The beat is barely there, giving way to synth washes. Sophiee’s verses dissolve almost as soon as the words leave her mouth, and while Ryugo Ishida ends up a little more solid, the music also swallows him up as everything drifts by. This is barely there, more a wisp of smoke or fleeting memory then rave up. While parallels can be drawn to American artists quite easily — part of my enjoyment of “Palm Tree” stems from Playboi Carti’s Die Lit being my most-listened-to US album of 2018 so far — the pair find their own space in this ether, creating something warm, inviting and a little melancholy. It’s their own corner, far from everyone else in Japanese hip-hop, and it’s where they come up with some of the country’s best ideas. Listen above.