Cop This Now: FOGPAK #6 Featuring OKLobby, Licaxxx, PNDR PSLY, Calum Bowen And 29 Other Artists

Do not approach FOGPAK #6 as an album. To sit down and listen through this 33-track collection in one go is far from an unpleasant experience – it’s great! – but did you see the part about 33 songs? Expect to devote at least two hours of your day to FOGPAK #6…which is a lot of day. Real talk, I’m now sorta behind on my work because of this. I love it, though.

Anyway, you should be approaching every FOGPAK as a reference guide to Japan’s sprawling electronic music scene. On one level, it’s an opportunity to check in on some familiar names and see what has been tickling them as of late. Tokyo’s Licaxxx sounds like she’s been listening to a lot of trap music based off her contribution “Bizarreness,” which features rap-derived “yeps” and sounds you hear in almost every TNGT banger. Yet she isn’t so easy to predict – she offsets all of that with this feverish synth that makes the whole thing sound deeply uneasy. OKLobby gets cutesy with his synthesizers…and vocal samples…on “Mr. Gone,” and compilation compiler PNDR PSLY provides a more relaxing number in “Singing Studies.” Q/Ghost shines with the fidgety “Breakfast For Metaphor,” which sounds one part Flying-Lotus bass squanker and one part De De Mouse. One of FOGPAK #6’s best comes from…I believe…the first foreign contributor, mus.hiba-pal Calumn Bowen with his “Miss You.” It’s a perky jaunt aided by warped vocals, handclaps and late-song chanting. Picture a street full of cartoon flowers singing, except said fauna might be on Molly.

Yet the real treat of any FOGPAK collection is encountering names you didn’t know before. Edition six has a lot of stellar names Make Believe Melodies didn’t know before downloading the comp, but I plan on keeping tabs on ’em now. Fukuoka’s BigVirgin boasts the worst name here, but that’s forgiven when listening to “Leisure,” which splits the difference between being a woozy meditative piece and bordering on footwork. Tokyo’s Leaping Phaser delivers the iciest number hear, his electronics morphing at a glacial but entrancing clip, while Shoueno layers the vocal manipulation on thick…but with emotional results. I’m also fond of Kobe’s Left One, who gets quite menacing on the slow-burning “Stoner Wing (Stand Alone),” and the mysterious Maritime (no SoundCloud! no Twitter!?) impresses with the upbeat “Odd Eye.” Really though, just listen yourself and plot your own path through the Japanese electronic wild. Get it here.