You can make a strong case that Tomggg ushered in the current wave of “kawaii” electronic music coming out of Japan (and abroad). Yet even if you don’t want to go that far, he’s was undeniably ahead of the curve. But Tomggg has proven restless and, at a time when the producer could easily ride…
Leave it to Japan’s juke scene to deliver an album inspired by Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition. Skip Club Orchestra’s latest — released on New Year’s Eve, making this (I think) the last 2017 collection I needed to catch up on — features 20 songs, all of them hovering right around the three minute mark….
Metome has been consistently active over the last few years, and now some of the more left-field highlights of recent times have been gathered together on new set Shibboleth. This comes from a period where Metome was interested in texture, and how different sounds could sound as they weave in and out of one another….
For some reason, I’ve never written about Frontier Backyard before despite the fact I’ve seen their name all over the place during my time in Japan. FB can easily be compared to Cubismo Grafico Five, but a bit more reeled in. Basically, Frontier Backyard come off as more focused, a group capable of writing really…
Talk about good timing – around the same day Pitchfork posts an article about the rise of the cassette tape, one of Japan’s young acts making heavy use of said platform post a new song onto their MySpace. Puffy Shoes’, whose debut cassette was distributed by Scotch Tapes, “Lazy Seventeen” highlights the duo’s garage-fuzz sound,…
American producer Giraffage is starting off on an Asian tour this week, and that will include a stop in Tokyo on the 23. Joining him at that show will be Sapporo producer Qrion, who has been a busy bee as of late. In advance of her opening slot with Giraffage, she’s remixed his “Tell Me,”…
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.
I’m trying to finish (errrrrr, start) the official Make Believe Melodie’s “our favorite songs” feature, so in the meantime, enjoy this new song courtesy of Osaka’s Seiho. “Clipping Music” starts off quite sensual – some lovely, lounge-ready electronics playing over the sound of waves reaching the shore – but soon enters territory we are more…
Tokyo’s Elen Never Sleep has been previewing tracks from his forthcoming Silver EP for a while now, and today the seven-song release can be yours, either for free download or as a limited-edition cassette. Besides getting to hear good cuts like “Silver” and (especially) “Shine On Me,” the EP also comes with a Taquwami remix….
Bobcat – the presumably new (?) alias of Osaka’s Cloudy Busey, a.k.a Bob from Ice Cream Shout – recently uploaded his first new song of 2013, on the heels of a 2012 that saw him put out a lot of great material, capped off by an excellent mixtape. “I Was Fallin” is a straightforward slice…
Sakanaction’s latest single “Music,” due out January 23, finds the group touching on some of their older material. The way lead singer Ichiro Yamaguchi stretches out syllables in the verses brings to mind the single “Endless,” while the late-song surge in emotion resembles another cut from DocumentaLy, “Monochrome Tokyo.” Yet this isn’t the sound of…
Tokyo Garageband producer i-fls works best in album form, his faded memory jingles sounding best when they rub up against one another to create a well-rounded portrait of what youth, nostalgia and the suburbs feel like. Individual tracks usually sound perfectly fine, but their full impact is felt when they run together. “Ambiguous Reply” would…
“Now making [new album].” Well that’s an exciting development from Osaka producer Metome’s camp. To give us a little preview of what he’s working on, he’s posted a new song called “Bshop’s Ring Sun,” which can also be downloaded for free over this way. It is a reminder that Metome is one of the finest…
