Goofy Times: You Said Something’s You Said Something EP

Ahhhhh, so that’s what has been missing from Japanese indie-pop for a while now – silliness. Nothing wrong with embracing the sentimental and lovey-dovey, as the bulk of indie-pop bands who have emerged across the country in the past few years have. This blog has celebrated plenty of them, and stands by how good most of them are. Yet one can only take so much teenaged ennui. Enter Sapporo trio You Said Something, with their self-titled EP debut (which appears to have come out in physical form last year, but just got a digital upload). At its best, the group pick up where Osaka outfit Nokies! branched away from in pursuit of more mainstream-acceptable popularity – they get goofy, and embrace youthful energy to make funny little tracks that are also really catchy. Opener “Denmark” is full of chimes, shouty interjections and eventually all-together-now hollering while guitars dart around all over the place, a wonderful throwback to the fidgety stuff Los Campesinos! used to pump out. “Meal Of Joege Clooney” is the EP’s peak of absurdity, a song about wanting to know what George Clooney eats for breakfast (answered with slowed-down section), yet played with a loopy catchiness. When they get more serious, it isn’t as good…here’s a band that should never touch a ballad…but when they are blasting all over the place, as they do on “Chinese Mafia,” they are fantastic. Get it here, or listen below.