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Make Believe Melodies’ Top 20 Albums 2013: Full List
Here’s the final list of this blog’s favorite Japanese albums of 2013. You can read more detailed blurbs for numbers 20 through 11 here, and 10 through 1 at MTV Iggy. This blog will have periodic updates during the next two weeks…basically whenever anything noteworthy happens…so enjoy the rest of the year, and thanks for…
Good Build: Mari Pass Filter’s “Glow”
“Glow” features one of those musical moments that catch you so off guard it practically makes you do a double look at your computer screen. The first half of Tokyo bedroom-producer Mari Pass Filter’s song is a good but straightforward affair – a beat, droplets of synthesizer, skittery vocals that sound vaguely Vocaloid and which…
Stuff We Missed 2012: Jappers Lately EP
Between the woozy pop of Fancy Books and the dusk-shrouded rock of The Paellas, Tokyo’s Dead Funny Records had a pretty strong 2012. Add Jappers to that diverse-sounding list – this outfit’s Lately EP plays around with a more classic rock/pop sound, the tracks within sounding more clear than either the seasick Fancy Books or…
Laid-Back Whimsy: Nohtenkigengo’s OOO
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…
New Moscow Club: “Fahrenheit 451”
Moscow Clubは本当に素晴らしい。最初に我々が注目した”Daisy Miller Pt. 1″ は、ヘンリー・ジェームスの物語からの引用で、作品同様の感情的な雰囲気を醸し出しています。今回SoundCloudにアップされた曲は、”火星年代記”や、”華氏451″等を執筆したSF作家、レイ・ブラッドベリ（レイ、 数々の素晴らしい作品をありがとう。安らかに眠れ。）へのトリビュート精神が。Moscow Clubの新曲は”華氏451″の英語タイトル、”Fahrenheit 451″で、”Daisy Miller”の曲のように文学的に攻めるのではなく、あくまでレイドバック。悲しい過去の物語を語るのではなく、ちゃんとダンスフロアにそぐうように作曲されています。シンセが良い味を出しているこの曲はMoscow Clubの今までの曲よりも打ち込みがメインになっていて、この３分程の遊び心溢れる作品は、Toro Y MoiやKissesを連想させます。コーラスが実に美しい。試聴は以下から。
New Puffyshoes: “Heatwave”
Long time since we heard from Tokyo’s Puffyshoes, and going forward who knows when (….if?) we will hear from them again. So let’s all devote a decent chunk of time to enjoying “Heatwave,” their latest feedback-touched quickie. The highlight here are the vocals, which might be hard to hear, but are so damn catchy it…
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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New AAPS: “Imaginary Grace”
AAPS seemed like the most left-field artist in the Good On The Dancefloor fold, but “Imaginary Grace” seems surprising all the same. The band went and made a…dubstep song? Close to one, at least. Opening with creaky synths ala some of the genres more moody artists, the very dubstep beat kicks in soon after and…
Drift Downstream: Pechica’s “Yes”
Plenty of music sounds “chilled out” but not nearly as much stuff comes off as actually relaxed enough to just float away. Osaka’s Pechica, though, manage to hit on this exact feeling with the dreamy downcurrent stream of a song “Yes.” The group works very little into the song’s opening moment, just some bass, drums…
Friendly Shake: Tomodati’s Tomodati EP
There’s an element of chaoticness running through Tokyo music maker Tomodati’s self-titled EP that makes it more compelling than had this just been a straightforward synth-pop album. Tomodati can string together a good sounding song – opener “Hukutyu” is a shifty number built off sparse percussion and electric squiggles, while “Senzu De Dance” is a…
New Erik Luebs: Wasteland
Osaka-based artist Erik Luebs recently released his latest, Wasteland, and though we are a bit behind, it is worth catching up on, as the three-song set makes for an engrossing, at times dark listen. A lot of that was previewed in advance track “Red C,” which leads off here and sets the mood. It isn’t…
White Scooper Prep New Album Dazzle, By “Prep” I Mean Release The Whole Thing On YouTube
Remember when MP3s were going to be the death of the music industry, and labels had to stop at nothing to get illegal tracks off of the Internet? The dirty secret of those glory days was that YouTube was way, way worse – while The Web Sheriff zeroed in on blogs, most kids were just…
Stuck In Summer: “Summer Time’s Gone”
About two weeks ago, Tokyo’s Shortcake Collage Tape posted a song called “Polaroid Full Of Kisses” that ended up being a far more craftly bit of indie-pop to pin down than the name implied. It was a fuzzy memory of a song, vocals ripped from anime and sampled flute dropped into a woozy downtempo gunk….