“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。
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…
Canadian cassette label Memory No. 36 Recordings is no stranger to showcasing great Japanese music flying under the radar. They released Elen Never Sleeps dreamy Silver EP earlier this year, and are working with Boyish on a new tape due sometime in the near future. They are releasing their first compilation this Friday (April 19…
Tokyo producer Taquwami just uploaded a new track to the Internet, which means I must accept not going to bed early to post it. I’m OK with this. “T Eyes” features the same vocal-chopping technique that dotted last year’s great Blurrywonder, but whereas that album especially emphasized the skittering, here the chopped singing is balanced…
Kansai producer Hideo Nakasako is off to a fast-paced 2014. Last month he released a great EP of music…and now he’s back with another three-song-set called Observation that continues to highlight him as an artist to keep an eye on in the always-busy Kansai electronic scene. It opens with the off-kilter “Star Lily,” a tipsy…
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…
It’s a side of me that doesn’t always come through on this blog – try the Tumblr too – but I love pop music, even beyond the J-Pop that appears here sometimes. One of my favorite songs of the year has been Ariana Grande’s “The Way,” an absurdly upbeat number that slays despite featuring an…
“Restraint” isn’t a word I’d normally associate with producer De De Mouse. His music usually dices vocal snippets into half-second squeaks, and then he rearranges them into speedy patterns that at times sound like something you find on the hardest difficulty of a Nintendo DS rhythm game…and those are the tracks lacking drum ‘n’ bass influences. “Floats And Falls,” from De De Mouse’s new album Sky Was Dark, clocks in at nine minutes and he doesn’t spend all those seconds creating sonic whiplash. Rather, the majority of “Floats And Falls” is a slow build up, the beat moving at a slower pace for a De De Mouse song as the synths surrounding it go through subtle changes. The singing remains the only really fast element of the song, but over everything else even it sounds more like a bounce.
The first half of “Floats And Falls” passes and it sounds like all that build up is about to pay off. Then, right before the five-minute point, the beat drops out and all that’s left is those vocal samples and some synth. The song goes into an even longer movement seemingly moving towards something, De De Mouse adding new sounds as the track progresses. At times it can drag, but he adds enough small details to make this fake-out worth an attentive listen. This is the most ethereal song he’s ever composed, and shows he can turn his rapid-fire style into something spacious with only a few alterations. Watch the video below.
The poorly-named outfit Bebecut.toca recently teamed up with often-robotized √thumm lead singer Lio to record a song both for their debut album and for a Hook Up Records compilation album. Now a cursory listen to Bebecut.toca’s music reveals a group sorta exploring the same indie techno-pop territory √thumm does, all gum-drop electronics owing a bit…
“My Unterritory” seemingly falls apart at the seams. The latest from Hikaru Yamada and The Librarians features what sound like samples of strings, guitars and other instruments seemingly deteriorating in the back, Yamada letting the rough edges stick out and at one point lets it all fade out (to the point of literally skipping at…
One of the more interesting developments in Japanese rock music over the last three or four years is the outfit Soutaiseiriron becoming a major point of inspiration for bands both big and small. High To Low are one of the better outfits this year to have clearly studied the group’s speak-sing and approach to guitar…
ヴェイパーウェイヴは(かつては?)インターネットを通して普及したジャンルで、こんな楽しい記事がありますので良かったらご覧下さい…Accelerationists! Trash music! Capitalism!みたいな…でも実際にヴェイパーウェイヴがどんな音楽なのかはややこしいですよね。たとえ結論が出たとしても、また「あれっ?」ってなりそう。私が思うヴェイパーウェイヴとは古くさい日本のコマーシャルとか企業ビデオとかをサンプリングした音楽で…楽曲自体はあまり良くない物が多いように感じます。そのコマーシャルとかのボーカルを少し歪ませたりして…こんな感じのを。この手法からは良い音楽も生み出されていますが、その反面に駄作が多いのも事実です。 東京のShortcake Collage Tapeはそんなヴェイパーウェイヴに近い音楽をやっていましたが、初のフルレングスSpirited Summerではそんな手法からは少し離れていて…というよりは単純にサンプリングを上手く使った完成度の高い作品になっています。例えば“Meet Me In Your Dreams”では昨夏YouTubeでよく観るハメになったあのコマーシャルをネタにしていて(あの広告に嫌な思いでがあっても今となっては面白く聴こえるはず)、他の曲でもコマーシャルやアニメのサンプルが曲自体を殺す事なく、上手く新しさを生み出しています。Shortcakeのベストトラックはやっぱり“Polaroid Full Of Kisses”で、ぼんやりとした記憶をさまよっていると曲の後半ではアニメのサンプルが。タイトルが示唆する通りこのSpirited Summerは暖かい季節の思い出への執着心から生み出されていて、“Summer School”や“Waiting In The Afterlife”なんかでは彼自身が“is ideal for midsummer chillouts”と説明する通り、日差しの強い日々を淡く表現しています。が、もう過ぎ去ったチルアウトみたいな感じも。最も夏っぽい“Empire Beach”と“Painted Ocean”ではシンセとホーンのサンプルが海岸を連想させます。重要なのはビートがしっかりと曲を進めて行くという点。Spirited Summerは単にノスタルジックな気分を表現しているだけでなく、サンプルを見せつけるだけでもなく、しっかりと音楽を通して感情が表現されています。2013年に入ってから初の傑作と感じています(もう2週間目に突入してしまいましたね…早い早い…)。無料ダウンロードはこちらから。
Tokyo producer mus.hiba has mainly worked with digital singers over the last few years. In particular, he’s favored Sekka Yufu, a Vocaloid character whose digi voice has been like snowflakes falling over his fever-dream-ish arrangement of synths. For “Hitomi,” though, he’s working with flesh-and-blood singer Abigail Press, from Brooklyn for his forthcoming full-length debut on…
Osaka-based artist Magical Mistakes’ latest album revels in little imperfections. Going by Astro Nautico’s accompanying press for it, his new Cracks In The Surface collection is “inspired by the experience of losing connections with friends and loved ones.” There is certainly something unsettling about the music here, as it frequently skitters and appears ready to…