Controlled Karaoke: An Intro To Japanese Roots Music
Japan Probe posted a small write-up about Japanese roots music. It’s a nice little introduction to the type of music (one I’m woefully ignorant of, so this is especially great), so give it a read.
Japan Probe posted a small write-up about Japanese roots music. It’s a nice little introduction to the type of music (one I’m woefully ignorant of, so this is especially great), so give it a read.
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sScv49aePJs”] At first, I’m thinking “Africaemo have finally decided to hug it out with the Friendly Fires sound.” At times, they sounded quite similarly to that dance-oriented English outfit on last year’s solid Squatter mini-album, but “City Boy, City Girl” seemingly finds the group emerging from a phone booth clad in Fires’ t-shirts and branded…
Kobe’s Tofubeats is a child of the internet, and the EPs and albums he’s released thus far in his career…both as bedroom uploader and major-label signing…have reflected this attention-deprived upbringing, one where you are always a “related video” away from falling down some new hole. His full-lengths jump all over the place, zipping from synth…
A song very much worth your time is Laurel Halo’s song utilizing the voice of Vocaloid avatar Hatsune Miku, “Until I Make U Smile.” It’s a sparse, slowly building up number featuring the familiar digi-quiver, and it offers something you rarely hear in popular Vocaloid music — space, and a lot of it. It feels…
Make me feel, indeed. The latest from Trekkie Trax comes from producer gu^2 in the form of two-song release Bad Trip. It stands out because of how damn textural it is — musically, it follows the aggressive, club-centered template many releases on the netlabel have followed, but dang if the sounds here don’t jump out…
Japanese indie-poppers Soda Fountains serve as a sort of cuddly litmus test: if you can’t handle hearty handfuls of cute in music, you’ll detest this group. But if the word twee turns you on, and tunes about sunny picnics and rainbows get you going…meet Soda Fountains. They have a new album out on Oct. 28,…
Look, I’m all for homages/attempts on hitching one’s wagon to a trend…but Vivian Boys??? Seriously? It would be one thing if they only took naming cues from a certain other Vivian band. Like, if they played folk music or made dubstep, this all would be a lot less of an issue. Thing is, they make…