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New Metoronori: Mail
I have just gotten back to Tokyo after going to the Fuji Rock Festival for four days. It was a hectic (albeit fun!) event, that involved a lot of running between stages and working areas, many times in the middle of rain. It was not particularly easy to focus on music at this music festival,…
New New House: “Blow Wind Blow”
One of the trickiest things about covering Japanese bands is comparing acts in Japan to Western artists…most of the time, it ends up being misguided, a lazy way for writers to create a connect-the-dots situation that makes it easier to describe the group’s sound. Or just be a total cop out…Kyary Pamyu Pamyu as Japanese…
Even Mac Miller Can’t Ruin This: yyioy Remixes Ariana Grande’s “The Way”
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…
New Moscow Club: “And The Moon Be Still As Bright”
This year, Tokyo’s Moscow Club have been balancing precariously between electronic goodness and cheesy gloop. They haven’t abandoned the indie-pop sound that grabbed some attention last year – see the lovely “Radio Vietnam” – but their 2012 output has relied heavily on synths and keyboards, the band conjuring up a spacey, 80’s new wave vibe…
Something Isn’t Right: Oven Toast Jam’s “Dreamy Acidiary”
This didn’t need to be fucked around with. Producer Oven Toast Jam could have played this song straight, just crafted a beat orbiting around that acid-smeared throb and those ghostly vocals in the back, also letting those occasional piano notes float to the top. It would have been a more than serviceable beat. Thankfully, Oven…
New Cokiyu With 34423: “Vapor Doll”
Cokiyu’s recently released Haku EP is a pretty collection of songs, highlighted by a collaboration with Los-Angeles-based-artist Baths. It is a collection very much worth your time. That said…the Tokyo mood-maker’s once-unreleased-but-now-released song “Vapor Doll” is the best track to emerge from the Haku period so far. It’s a collaboration with Tokyo-based sound artist 34423,…
New Elen Never Sleeps: “Slow (Neu)”
“Slow” originally appeared on Moscow Club’s C86 compilation back in the spring, but has now been touched up a bit (hence the “Neu” in the title) and sounds a lot crisper than Elen Never Sleeps’ original version. Well, it sounds as crisp as something so hazy can sound – the song title is almost an understatement, because “Slow” practically crawls, the guitars and drums sounding glacial. It’s all intentional, though, a decision meant to match up with Elen Never Sleeps repeated cries of “but you slow down/slow down/slow down,” delivered in a dejected-but-pretty voice that this project has gotten so good at utilizing. The original version was good, but this slightly fleshed-out version shows what can happen when an artist spends time perfecting their creations. Listen below.
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Tomggg Hooks Up With Ryan Hemsworth: “Cream Soda”
Canadian producer Ryan Hemsworth is…at long last…coming to Japan this October, where he’ll play three shows across three cities (check the poster). It isn’t like he’s avoided collaborating with Japanese artists in the past (and shouting out various Japanese songs and producers regularly), but this team up with producer Tomggg still makes a lot of…
New Sakasa: Sprng EP
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,…
Ahead Of Their Time: 20th Century Girls
Beyond the name, 20th Century Girls come off like a study in opposing ideas. The duo of Aki-nyon and Maho Littlebear hail from Kyoto, a place full of great music – but not particularly where I think of for techno-pop (Osaka and even Nara would be more likely destinations for that). Yet here they are…
New LLLL Featuring Calendula And Meisihi Smile: “For F”
Tokyo’s LLLL is prepping the next installment of the Chains series for a December release, and “For F” shows a continued commitment to the shadowy but ultimately hopeful sound that has defined the bulk of this project. The music here comes off as among the heaviest things LLLL has created as part of this series,…
New TalkingCity1994: “Life Goes On”
I had a discussion about death last night with a friend. Well, it wasn’t directly about death, but rather a conversation about other topics – natural disasters, moving, trying to find a new job – that oftentimes carry underlinings of fate, the uncomfortable shadow of inevitable decay. Not the most upbeat material for 3 A.M….
J-Chopped: Terio Chops And Screw Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu has been 2012’s most interesting J-Pop star so far for a bunch of reasons – her vibrant music videos, the fact she reached the top of the American electronic iTunes charts with her debut album, her Yasutaka-Nakata-produced debut Pamyu Pamyu Revolution being one of the best Japanese albums of the year. Mostly…
