Hyper Takes: Palecore’s Hajimemashite And “Akira Super Love2017”

Last Friday, as part of Red Bull Music Festival Tokyo’s programming, producers Seiho and Okadada held an event called At The Corner at Shibuya’s WWW X venue. It featured a lot of young artists from all over the nation — including this blog’s faves The Neon City and Toiret Status — and the one that seemed to get people buzzing the most was the duo Palecore. I will confess to spending most of their set just outside of the stage talking with people, catching glimpses on the TV and having people tell me about it afterwards…but clips have surfaced online, and it indeed looks wild.

PALECOREの中毒性やばくて終わったあとSNS上の動画見漁ったのでまた絶対にやってください#ATTHECORNER pic.twitter.com/2UBNlGgRgn

— moemiki (@harpy_1203) November 4, 2017

The pair are shrouded in some mystery — they are from Tokyo, and that’s about all I can find, even from the official comment from Seiho and Okadada. They do have one five-song release titled Hajimemashite which highlights their frantic sound, falling somewhere between neo-traditional and plunderphonics. Opener “#1” approaches juke with its pace, merging sliced-up vocals with older instrumentation (and gong hits), while “#3” takes an older folk song and pushes it towards club ecstasy. “#2” finds Palecore nabbing Croatia Squad’s Euro-cheese “We Don’t Need No Sleep,” speeding it up and setting it against electric guitar chugs. It all exists in the same universe as Wasabi Tapes or Foodman, Palecore jamming disparate sounds together to create something jagged (and different). Latest song “Akira Super Love2017” builds on this, with a lot of skittering voices and percussion. Listen below.