That opening guitar salvo. Don’t read it the wrong way when I say no moment on Soulkid’s latest single “Jellyfish” comes close to matching those opening seconds – there is plenty to like here. Like how the guitars hop from idea to idea, sometimes zigging out of this song entirely for a sec to try…
Electronic artist De De Mouse wowed this year by crossing bright cartoony sounds with drum and bass. Wood Solid Dance Jam apply a similar strategy, but instead of electronic music they drizzle breakbeats over jazzy compositions. If Music Is Rotted one Note instantly came to mind, you know how this goes – WSDJ take a…
“Before This Loneliness” finds Osaka’s Cloudy Busey stretching out after the concise dance-pop of “Who Says They Love You,” from earlier this year. His latest goes on for just over six-and-a-half minutes, and resembles the house-leaning styles of “Up To You (If You Love Me),” albeit this new one sounds much more upbeat than the…
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsZ9lZuFVNg”] “Things We Missed Month” really hasn’t been much of a success so far…bad timing all around!…yet I’m going to evoke the gimmick for this, a song by the band Enie Meenie that dropped back in March off of the group’s third album that I just noticed on a particularly lazy Sunday lacking any good…
A handful of artists dabbling in future funk are hitting their stride. The internet micro-genre started as “take funk or city pop song, speed up, add kick,” resulting in some catchy moments but mostly a lot of tracks that make you want to listen to the original. But plenty have played around with this format,…
Sleep Well is a fragile collection, the sort of song cycle built on small details from seemingly uneventful occurrences (“Raincoat,” “Morning Clouds,” “Sunday”) but finding beauty in it all regardless of how insignificant it seems. This is how There Is A Fox, based in Kyoto and one of the minds behind Dear Ear Records out…
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.
Don’t expect regular updates until I’m back in Japan this weekend…but before savoring the last few days of vacation, I did want to post the new Sakanaction song “Eureka.” Watch the video above. The Kohaku TV show (a yearly program where some of the most popular singers from Japan perform on New Year’s Eve) and,…
At their best, The Paellas…especially the lead singer…sound like they are in the same room as you as their music unfolds. The bulk of their material up to this point has sounded like the work of a doomed lounge band, the group’s words muffled by fuzzy recording. Everything is a little more clear on new…
Neon Cloud Neon Cloud Neon Cloud Neon Cloud! Sorry for the excitement, but this is the first new output from the mysterious Tokyo project since 2011’s excellent (and only getting better with time) Knit EP. This isn’t quite an original work, but what Neon Cloud does to Brooklyn outfit Blue Foundation’s (really good on its…
When someone wonders “what the song of the summer” is going to be, what comes to mind? That’s usually code for wondering what’s going to be the most popular single of the season, what one will hear blaring from passing cars and at outdoor BBQs. It’s gonna be energetic and upbeat. And those are all…
