Geez, this week is off to a great start. Colorful J-pop duo Her Ghost Friend are back with “Knock Knock,” an extremely playful number that finds producer DJ Obake treating sounds like gooey taffy. From the start, “Knock Knock” drips in samples of birds, scattered sounds and the titular phrase before segueing into a slightly…
Usually, Japan gets new movies or TV shows way later than the rest of the world. But sometimes it works the other way too — I figured Dustin Wong and Takako Minekawa’s latest album Are Euphoria was out everywhere, since you can find it at music stores here in Tokyo. But nope! It comes out…
Avec Avec knows how to control a dancefloor, but geez this is a banger. Taking cues from Jersey Club music (which is pretty trendy in the indie-ish dance scene right now…see also Pa’s Lam System and DJ WILDPARTY among others), the Osaka producer creates a raucous song featuring chopped-and-pitched vocals, his usual offering of slinky…
99 Letters recently put up a new album of his spastic chiptune music for free over at his blog. It’s a big download, but completely worth the half-hour wait. Booon! shows why 99 Letters frequently pops up on this blog, as his Gameboy-clatter easily morphs song to song from chaotic dance music to rave-esque to…
Sometimes you catch Foodman in a playful mood, and he’s making beats urging you to dance, and sometimes you catch him in a more experimental state of mind, and you just listen closely to how he plays with the texture of audio. It appears his new mini album Couldwork could work out like the latter,…
Remember flip phones? Uami sure does, and “K. Kuyou Gara” serves as an ode to “Galapagos” phones, those chunky pieces of plastic that were once so ubiquitous (and kinda still are with salarymen who just need to make calls to one another). It’s a delicate song, featuring muffled vocals and lyrics reflecting on the fantasy…
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.
New month, new MAP! This month, our Japanese pick hails from Tochigi prefecture….bedroom producer Hisamokuden-kow and his disjointed pop number “Our Song.” Enjoy that and more than two dozen other songs below. Click the play button icon to listen to individual songs, right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a zip…
Whimsy might not actually be the right word for what Nohtenkigengo does. Sure, the bulk of the music this solo project creates involves the sort of instruments that make one’s twee radar go off like mad, including xylophone, accordion and all sorts of other cutesy sounds. This sonic choice…along with the voice singing all the…
It’s tempting to excuse the relatively lukewarm “Mirai No Museum” because of its commercial obligations. This, maximalist-pop-trio Perfume’s newest single, serves as the theme song for the upcoming Doraemon film which seems to involve some sort of “future museum” (which is what you get when you translate the title). After a string of songs in…
Three songs to take you into the weekend (oh thank goodness it is here!). Let’s get into it: – Kobe’s tofubeats had a really busy 2013, and he appears to not be slowing down as the calendar turned over. “CHNGEYRHRT” though finds him stepping away from the nearly all-original sounds that dotted his music last…
Ho hum, another Maltine Records from an artist not based in Japan, another opportunity for me to come up with some weak excuse to write about it anyway. But wait! English artist Bo En’s Pale Machine features collaborations with two of Japan’s finest producers going – Avec Avec and mus.hiba. Jackpot, no need for excuses!…
Seapunkは本当に良い音楽を追求したジャンルなのか、一部のアーティストの集まりが楽しむ為のジャンルなのか。ツイッターのハッシュタグにおいてもそんなに目立っていなかったSeapunkですが、ジャンルの持つ個性的なサウンドに魅了されたアーティストも勿論います。ここ日本で活動しているUmioもそんなイルカ好きの一人で、新曲のタイトルも”Yunoochi to Seapunk”といいます。水の音など使われているものの、そこまでSeapunkというわけでは無いような気はするのですが、興味深い曲なのは確かです。アニメと思われるサンプルから始まり、若干こもりがちでゲームチックなシンセが入ってきます。曲が進行するにつれてドラムンベースから調のパーカッションや、ニューエイジ風の展開も。アヒルのオモチャを握りつぶして音を出したようなこの曲は、何と呼べば相応しいのかも難しいところですが、新しい発見のある貴重な5分間となる事でしょう。試聴は以下から。
