“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。
The “list a bunch of your favorite acts” trick is a classic approach to songwriting – some folks who have indulged in it include Daft Punk, The Tough Alliance, LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk again (sorta). Tokyo’s Alloapm pulls this card on the opening track to their new EP Wavepop. Over an upbeat assortment of synths,…
I’ve been pretty resistant to The Boys Age for 2013. This indie-pop duo have been releasing a near continuous stream of music into the digital wild, and has nabbed some nice label relations with, like, Burger Records. Something never clicked between me and their music though – most immediately, the vocals always sounded way too…
Ever do a double take when listening to an album? Like, it sounds as if the artist behind the record is getting into this groove…and then the very next song is a total flip, said artist totally spinning off in a new direction. Pretty cool, right? For Tracy Hyde haven’t been around that long, yet…
Two Japanese electronic artists having swell years released new tracks over the weekend. First up, Kyoto’s Madegg, who shows off his range with latest song “R Beams.” It opens with some very unelectronic sounds – there is guitar playing, and a woodwind. Some electronics tumble their way in soon after, but the heart of the…
Boys Age are a duo who force you to not make snap judgements. The first few seconds of “I Wish For God’s Sake’…like the first few second of a lot of the songs they’ve released…challenge thanks to the lead vocals. They are far from polished, sounding like a Muppet gurgling water. But give it a…
The vocals found on Elen Never Sleeps’ songs are always an interesting confrontation – they are not traditionally “good” but the relatively ragged delivery are charming in their own way. They are pushed further than ever before on new EP Rum which finds Elen Never Sleep crafting his most vocally daring collection yet. It opens…
“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.
Sonic Youth and Lightning Bolt buds Afrirampo just released a new album in Japan, most likely loaded with the duo’s usual songcraft consisting of loud guitars, loud drums and some screaming. WE ARE UCHU NO KO came out a couple weeks ago, and alongside its kicking-and-screaming birth was a video for lead track “Miracle Lucky…
I’m very, very on the fence about this song – on the one (wait for it) hand, it is way better than the preview suggested, the chorus in particular being a far more intriguing addition to this song than originally hinted at (the way it swoons! When Kyary Pamyu Pamyu described the music of Perfume…
After nearly two years of silence, Nara producer Sakasa returns with the Sprng EP. And, if the past is anything to work off of, Sakasa might be offering a glimpse at the future — they were one of the first I remember this decade to make a whole album built around ’80s Japanese pop samples,…
The real hook with Heavenstamp’s “Decadence” has very little to do with the original song itself. The band, now down a bassist after last week, sound fine on this track from their forthcoming March release. “Decadence” doesn’t sniff last year’s excellent “Morning Glow,” the warmth of that song shuffled out in favor of something sorta…
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49C0mpeDjw0″] Lodged somewhere between the chill waves of Hotel Mexico, the lo-fi beach party of Friends and the art-pop of The New House exists アナ(English-only folks, pronounce that “A Na”). They might be the most straightforward group on Second Royal Records, a trio not afraid to test out new sounds but that still come off…
Lets talk about that Moscow Club compilation again for a second. By titling it something an insert-character away from being the same as the famous NME C86 tape, dudes pretty much gave the impression that the music within would lean towards indie-pop. For the most part, it does, but with a few diversions into electronic…