Music

Controlled Karaoke: Japanese Duo Do Best Simon & Garfunkel Impression

ByPatrick St. Michel October 1, 2009

They also try out some tunes by The Stylistics and The Gypsy Kings. Dudes got the Garfunkel hair down, though.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGNPPU2DVr8&hl=en&fs=1&]

Music

99 Letters Offers Up Two Chocolate Factory Demos (Make Believe Melodies Exclusive)
ByPatrick St. Michel July 20, 2010December 1, 2017

Following my last post about his new album Chocolate Factory, 99 Letters himself swung by the comments and left a link to two new demos from his upcoming LP for all to visit. Cool musician, cooler dude I want to give him a high five. The two tracks in question from Chocolate Factory are “Discoke”…

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Music

Vintage Good: Traffic Light
ByPatrick St. Michel June 30, 2011

It has been a great year for retro-leaning acts in Japan. Sloppy Joe put 80s-era indie-pop into a big ol’ bear hug on their excellent debut album, while Friends smothered 60s beach pop under waves of distortion. Joining them in 2011…the unexcitedly named Traffic Light. Behind that very bland name, though, exist some very lovely…

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Music

New Tamana Ramen: Kuki EP
ByPatrick St. Michel February 12, 2019

Poemcore always felt like it was one or two artists away from developing into a full-fledged micro-movement in the Japanese underground. But it never really formed into something solid to build around, probably peaking with…a virtual YouTuber? That’s all good though, and it has allowed an artist like Tamana Ramen to go off and do…

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Music

Returning Home: djnewtown Returns With “SHO,” “POS,” “SOW” And “YUU”
ByPatrick St. Michel January 5, 2018January 6, 2018

Along with his tofubeats projects*, Yusuke Kawai worked as djnewtown. Under this moniker, he created breakcore loaded up with anime samples sliced up neatly and rearranged into jittery numbers full of life, while also offering flashes of his future work. If you went ahead and wrote the history of Japanese netlabels in the 21st century,…

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Music

New Lucky Kilimanjaro: “Hitori No Yoru Wo Nuke”
ByPatrick St. Michel November 12, 2018

For a second there, it looked like Lucky Kilimanjaro was going to become the new Give Me Wallets. That outfit got some buzz with retro-tinged electro-pop material, and quickly found a way in to writing J-pop songs for artists like Yuki. A solid career choice and one resulting in good pop, but it also meant…

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Music

Tropical Mayhem: Alfred Beach Sandal’s “Camping Car Is Dead”
ByPatrick St. Michel July 10, 2011

On “Camping Car Is Dead,” Alfred Beach Sandal propose an intriguing idea – beach music that sounds like it belongs nowhere near an actual coastline. Despite having several sand-coasted trademarks, including very prominent steel drum bouncing, “Camping Car Is Dead” feels like a jigsaw puzzle of Malibu constructed in such a way that everything sorta…

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