Based out of Okinawa, producer Hentonacyoyu makes juke music featuring a hearty dollop of jazz influence. That in and of itself isn’t noteworthy when placed in the context of juke as a whole — even within the Japanese juke scene, no shortage of artists go this way — but Hentonacyoyu does it very well, which…
文化の中心は東京だと思われがちですが、関西も同様に栄えています。それでも大阪や京都の印象が強いですよね。ここ２年くらいその２つの場所ではダンス・ミュージックが盛り上がっていましたし。かつての首都であり、大仏や鹿が有名な奈良はどうでしょうか？良いアーティストを多数輩出しているものの、あまりダンス・ミュージックのイメージはありませんね。でもそんな奈良からも最近Sakasaというアーティストが出てきて、Coin Bender EPでは前向きなビートやノイズを奏でています。”Let your body dance, and let your brain dance more,” と説明されるこの三曲入りEPからは、名古屋のHouse Of Tapesとも共通点を感じます。どちらもメンタルとフィジカル両方に響くので。一曲目のタイトル・トラックなんかは特にそうで、歯医者のドリルみたいな身震いしそうな激しいノイズでビートが構築されています。”Pond”では逆に柔らかな印象。華やかなシンセのレイヤーが乗っているビートがこちらも徐々に重なっていきます。体を動かすにも世界観にも浸るにも適した美しい曲です。
As far as genres go, “poemcore” probably has more going for it than “Simpson’s Wave” or whatever YouTube trickery gets written up online, but don’t see any trend pieces being written up about it. Owtn., back after a brief hiatus, makes some of the more absorbing songs in this style — which, as the name…
Programming Note: Make Believe Melodies is off to Korea for the weekend, so the blog is taking a rest Friday! Let’s end the week on a slimy note It almost seems a little too straightforward for a guy like Djwwww, who has spent just under a year creating music that sounds more like a dystopian…
You know that thrill you get when you listen to a song and recognize a sample? Nothing like it, that moment you feel like a super smart music fan and think maybe…just maybe…you and the artists behind the track have similar taste. Exciting! I remember when I first listened to a DJ Shadow album and…
– Nagoya’s House Of Tapes recently released the Magnolia EP, but that isn’t slowing down the producer any. He has shared “Nice Dream” which is another pulverizing, suffo…wait, what, this is actually really soft and sweet?! After a small collection of chaotic songs, “Nice Dream” scales things back a bit and opts for a dreamier…
Tokyo’s Ningen OK are a group that demand to be seen live. I lucked my way into seeing them this past weekend, knowing nothing about them, but leaving thinking this duo put on one of the better live sets I’ve seen recently. They play surrounded by what appear to be homemade white pyramids. Guitarist Takurou Yamashita stands in front of a board littered with effects pedals, while Ken-ichi Sakaguchi looms over a drum kit which he soon hammers away at. They play very precise, wordless rock that always seems an inch away from tumbling into chaos, but always manages to hold together. Between songs, Sakaguchi leans towards a Vocoder and creates trippy segues featuring his robo-tized voice. Then they launch off again. It’s captivating stuff.
Their music manages to still sound good away from a live house – “Taion No Yukue” highlights Ningen OK’s precision-centric nature while also introducing elements of chaos (listen to that radio feedback). Listen to that below. It comes off their recently released first album of the same name, which is also probably full of good moments. Still, Ningen OK seem like a live band first, one that you should certainly make time for. Bookmark this page.
Getting older has resulted in a lot of changes in my behavior the 21-year-old me would recoil in terror at – I sometimes like wearing suits, for example, and love sushi (21-year-old me could barely eat pizza with vegetables on it, yet alone sushi). But he would be most distressed by how much I’ve come…
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…
“This album is the 2nd of a series of compilation albums introducing young Japanese artists, this time with a focus on noise pop. However, this focus does not mean confinement to a single style.” Canata Records isn’t kidding. The What About Tokyo? comp finds five bands with five very different styles…some more noisy than others…and…
Memories are imperfect things. That’s something home-recording artist i-fls understands so well, especially on his latest collection Diary Of Spectre. We like to treat nostalgia as something warm, something that gets stirred up in us and reminds us of simpler times. Yet that’s just the stuff of movies – nostalgia, once treated as a disease,…
(Editor’s Note: I’m moving to a new apartment in two days, so posts might be on the briefer side. Gotta pack!) Footwork producer FOODMAN already released one great off-the-wall album of music recently…and now he’s back with another on Hiroshima’s Dubliminal Bounce. Are Kore opens on the harsher end of the spectrum and along the…
Talking City 1994 is one of the Japanese bands having a really good 2013. After being quiet for more than two quarters of 2012, the Osaka band has come back strong, releasing a strong three-song EP and several great stand-alone tracks. They’ve come along way since when they first popped up, developing a more polished…
