Who is next? Boogie Mann has been around in Japan’s juke community, even offering something approaching mainstream awareness a couple years back. But now here is a chance for more international exposure, via Traxman’s label Tekk DJZ. Who Is Next offers four sturdy tracks showcasing one of the Japanese scene’s most vital creators. The title…
Sometimes, you don’t need much time to make a good point. Osaka’s Valentine’s need just over a minute and a half to shine on “Dear Simon,” a song they originally made a year ago, but have re-recorded now with a slightly more raw feel (all pretty much in the vocals). In either form, it is…
Plenty of Japanese bands have gone to South By Southwest, but I can’t remember one using said Texas exodus to create a video as outright charming as the one CHAI made for “Sayonara Complex.” Not sure I’ve seen anyone else in 2017 seemingly having so much fun as the quartet as they conga through a…
It’s easy to forget in a world where information buzzes about at the same rate lolcats spill out of the Internet’s tubes, but sometimes turning away from the rush of now can be a swell idea. This seems especially true for those who breathe music blogs – and, of course, those who write them. New…
Sparse suits Paellas well. Rarely would I choose to describe the Osaka group as “maximalist,” but “Weight” (if it isn’t fixed by now, I assume the spelling on the video is a typo, based off of streaming site info) strips it down even more, to the point where this sounds like Paellas embracing the whole…
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.
This is not the first time Turntable Films have been infatuated with the Rainbow State. On their 10 Days Plus One album from 2011, the then-quartet wrote a song called “Hawaii” that was a lazy appreciation of beach-bum rock. It was slow, full of whistling and could have been a Jack Johnson jam in another…
“Well, it is April,” writes Moscow Club in regards to new song “Lizaveta.” Works for us! “Lizaveta” finds the Tokyo outfit reaching a happy median between the two styles that have, up to this point, defined them. If you started listening to the group in 2012, you wouldn’t be blamed if you thought they were…
Late on J-Pop superstar Ayumi Hamasaki’s new album, a weird little remix of her song “Melody” pops up. It’s the sort of rework one doesn’t typically find on CDs, a fidgety track unafraid to distort Hamasaki’s voice and let its beat burst out in all sorts of directions. It could be safely called “post-dubstep,” and…
Diane Halls is a new project out of Aichi that has released one really nice song, the dreamy “Stolen Kisses.” I wrote about it for New-York-based blog International Tapes, and you can read it over here. Highly recommend you get the song here.
大阪のThe PaellasがEP Followingをリリース。素晴らしいタイトルトラックFollowingは今週のはじめにアップロードされ今回２曲を追加、EPの全貌が明らかになりました。Spiderはテンポ感の早いインディーポップの楽曲、もう一曲はThe Cleaners From Venus のカバー曲になっています。こちらはオリジナルよりも音質をこもらせスピード感を出した楽曲になっています。EP Following は日本のインディーポップをリリースするオンラインレーベルano(t)raksの第一弾リリースにも、EPは無料ダウンロードが可能なのでこちらからダウンロードもしくは以下から視聴を。 Following EP by The Paellas
We (basically) just put a bow on 2013, and now a slew of albums appear online that are already jostling for 2014 list positioning. Geez, I was gonna take a vacation now, can’t do that. Osaka’s Metome is the latest artist to drop a new album at the very end of the year, and this…
