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Music Alliance Pact October 2013
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…
New Elen Never Sleeps: “Rum”
I wouldn’t describe the music Elen Never Sleeps makes as being “dramatic,” at least in the sonic sense. That said, his songs often contain emotional push-pull, evidenced all over this year’s fantastic Silver EP. That collection of songs sounds dreamy and ennui-rich, Elen Never Sleeps always facing some sort of emotional obstacle even when his…
New Alloapm: “Nightrunner (Summer Version)”
Pure neon sounds here. Tokyo’s Alloapm has labeled this a “summer version,” but really this is a song designed for the night, preferably while cruising through the city, potentially while holding onto some ~feels~. It is, sonically, a relatively simple number – a flurry of synths, a beat, bass and some Vocder-ized singing propelling the…
New Kindan No Tasuketsu: Illuminations, Satellite Heart/ Chill Sounds Series Volume 1
I recently had a chat with someone about music in Japan. One takeaway – and an observation I’ve heard many times before in bars up to Retromania – is that some fans in Japan get super into a niche sound, and become experts of it. And that’s true! And can lead to great music! But…
New De De Mouse: “Floats And Falls”
“Restraint”(制御)という単語をDe De Mouseと結びつける事などないと思っていました。彼の音楽は通常、ボーカルを切り刻み、その切れ端をスピード感のあるビートの上に乗せるようなスタイル。任天堂DSの音楽ゲームだったら最大級の難易度ですね。ドラムンベースの影響が薄い曲に限っての話ですが。新作Sky Was Darkからの曲、”Floats And Falls”は何と9分もあるのですが、今回はただ速いだけではありません。逆にスローなこの曲では、シンセが上手く曲を展開させて行きます。ボーカルのみにスピード感があります…というよりは、跳ねるようなスタイルがそう聴こえさせるのかもしれませんが。 “Floats And Falls”は5分が経過したその時点で既に完成された曲なのですが、それだけで終わらないのが今回の注目点。曲は不意に展開し、ビートが消えてボーカルとシンセのみのパートになります。その後も次々に新しい音色が加えられ、曲を終わりへと導きます。長くも飽きのこない、優れた工夫が施された作品だと感じます。De De Mouseの曲の中でもダントツで平和な、広々とした空気感を放っていて、彼の新しいスタイルを象徴した、新しい始まりを感じさせる曲になっています。ビデオは以下に。
Purrrrrrrfect Stuff: PARKGOLF’s Cat Walk
This last year has seen a handful of electronic-heavy acts, outfits unafraid to mess around with vocals and tempo to create something that a few have labelled “future pop” because of how left-field it sounds for something capable of topping charts. English acts like AlunaGeorge and Disclosure, Scotland’s Chvrches and Canada’s Purity Ring have been…
New Cuushe Music Video: “Do You Know The Way To Sleep”
Flau’s Cuushe has a new video for her song “Do You Know The Way To Sleep” off of this year’s Girl You Know That I Am Here But The Dream, and it matches up well with the slow-motion feel of the song. The clip slows down found footage of ballerinas to emphasize the beauty and weirdness (that neck on the one dancer jutting out) of their movements. Watch above.
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Desmond, The Tutus And 80kidz: “Kiss You On The Cheek” Remix
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New Sauceman: Tori
The proliferation of crackly, loop-centric beat tapes seemingly designed to soundtrack anime girl homework sessions has made me hesitant of anything merging sample-centric repetition with drum-machine-generated boom bap. Leave it to an artist closer to Japan’s footwork scene to upend those expectations. Sauceman’s Tori gathers 10 tracks that often rely on a scant amount of…
New Taquwami: “Λlieɳs”
Taquwami is the type of artist who inspires people to invent genres just to place his music inside. I wrote that, alongside new gun LLLL, he was creating Ghibli-like blasts of sound, the sort of music blurring the line between reality and fantasy just right. His newest song, “Λlieɳs,” appears on a mix called “Dopewave…