Everyone Is Releasing Albums In December: New Cloudy Busey And Ykiki Beat

ByPatrick St. Michel

Why release an album in December???? Don’t you know it won’t appear on year-end lists???? Nobody who is anybody would release an album at the end of the year, right???? Oh.

Two great Japan-based artists released new albums this past week, and the only real loser is me, as neither of these could sneak onto this blog’s best-of list. Both probably could have too, so let’s give ’em a special Sunday post.

– Osaka’s Cloudy Busey released the Wait In The Shade album last week, after holding off on them for some time. “I’ve smothered these songs long enough. they are probably perfect, they deserve to be let out,” he writes in the description for this six-song set. Glad they did get out – they find the producer working to his strengths, creating dark songs with a dance edge. Opener “I Would Love You” sets the scene well – it is a percussion-heavy number…including cowbell…which could have mutated into a proper party number in other hands. But, as the Twilight Zone worthy intro suggests, this is anything but a party, with the vocals especially driving home the more despondent side of this song. Tracks like “The Promise Of Chance” and previously released stunner “A Spring Fuck You” take the formula even further…though he does make room for one sunny(ish) number in “Overcame The Sun.” Get it here, or listen below.

– Tokyo’s Ykiki Beat – a project associated with the super-promising DYGLW and Timothy Work – has collected a handful of songs that have popped up on SoundCloud (also under his other projects) and compiled them into the hook-tastic Tired Of Dreams collection. This thing is loaded with choruses – “Garden,” “Hollywood!,” “Elise” and “Roll The Dice” being immediate highlights. Ykiki Beat also makes room for more reflective numbers like “Younger Life” and the chillwave-ish “London Echoes.” Get it here, or listen below.

Similar Posts

  • New Picnicwomen And Ahmad Jackson Jr.: Stylus EP

    ByPatrick St. Michel

    “Pppppppp-picnicwomen-women-women-women”という強烈なタグの曲。Picnicwomenがジュークにチャレンジし、今年のお気に入りの一つになりました。このプロジェクトの最新EP、Stylusには、 “Ripstick Girl”という曲意外に、同じKool Switch Worksのアーティスト、Ahmad Jackson Jr.の曲も含まれています。”Ripstick Girl”はゆったりとしたギターで始まり、攻撃的なマシンガンのようなビートに、ググっても探すのが不可能に近いマニアックなサンプルが乗っています。その後、曲はテンポが速まり、他の要素が入ってきたりして、複雑になっていきます。Ahmad Jackson Jr.の”Done For You”も面白く、ホーンがや、泡がはじけるような音がふんだんに使われ、ミックスの奥には、J. Dillaがやっていた事で有名なサイレン・サウンドが聴こえます。購入はこちらから。 stylus ep by KOOL SWITCH WORKS

  • Sharp Corners: Plastic Pop’s “I Die In Tomorrow”

    ByPatrick St. Michel

    This is, as the project’s name implies, a pop song. It just happens to be captured through a very damaged prism, all the catchiness of “I Die In Tomorrow” turned sinister and unsettling, a bad dream rendered into a just-under-two-and-a-half-minute track. The beat is jagged and the vocals are blurred out, the actual words nearly…

  • Canoooopy Teams Up With Sima Kim: “Tragicomical Sandstorm”

    ByPatrick St. Michel

    Here’s a nice bit of international cooperation. Japanese producer Canoooopy has teamed up with South Korean music maker Sima Kim for the moody “Tragicomical Sandstorm.” The track starts out subdued enough – just some finger-snapping percussion, some barely there voices and wisps of synths going by. Yet what seems like a just-drifting-by work suddenly blooms…

  • Upbeat!: Seagull Travel’s “Kill Me My Girl”

    ByPatrick St. Michel

    Sometimes, when dealing with song titles written in Japanese, I sorta ignore what the track is actually called and just give it a play while working on other things (read: updating Tumblr, looking at sports .GIFs). Seagull Travel’s, the project of Kanagawa’s Ryuichi Nakamura, sounded like a lovely bit of upbeat electro-pop when I first…

  • New Cloudy Busey: “Before This Loneliness”

    ByPatrick St. Michel

    “Before This Loneliness” finds Osaka’s Cloudy Busey stretching out after the concise dance-pop of “Who Says They Love You,” from earlier this year. His latest goes on for just over six-and-a-half minutes, and resembles the house-leaning styles of “Up To You (If You Love Me),” albeit this new one sounds much more upbeat than the…

  • New Eadonmm: “Alder”

    ByPatrick St. Michel

    INNITやIdleMoments等のイベントが象徴しているように、大阪のビート・シーンは非常に大盛況。Magical Mistakesの渦巻くようなサウンドや、Seihoの実験的なビートは、とてもユニークなのと同時にグルーブ感もあります。でも、”Alder”はそのような曲がブラックホールに吸い込まれたかのような印象。IdleMomentsをオーガナイズするEadonmmによるこのトラックは、極めてテンポを抑えた、スローな楽曲。ゆったりと始まり、アンビエントな空気感を堪能しているその時に、ピークを迎えます。シンセサイザーによる壁のようなレイヤーが左右にパンし、異なるテンポのボーカルが、それぞれ違うピッチで奇妙なデュエットを奏でます。ダンスフロアには不向きかもしれませんが、それ以上に、独特な音世界を堪能する事が可能。試聴は以下から。