New Especia: “Adventure Wa Giniru Ni”

1. Man, Especia better be breakout J-Pop stars in 2014 or I will be hyper sad.

2. LUVRAW is one half of LUVRAW & BTB, a goofy rap duo that coat their rhymes in copious amounts of talk box. They have, for me at least, always been too cheesy, the vocal manipulation coming off as a trying-to-hard stab at standing out instead of, ya know, making good music (see also: Orland). Yet time to give credit where it’s due – LUVRAW produces the latest single from Osaka idol group Especia, and he fucking nails it with his laid-back work. Mainly, his talk-boxin’ sounds great when it’s not the entire song…here, it compliments the liquid-smooth sound here, especially following up the actual group’s singing. So so good.

3. Again, Especia, this is what I want on the Oricon Charts.

4. The video is the most clear representation of their “vaporwave” image, but the music itself is more vacation groover. Both a bit of a departure for them (a new writer will do that), yet somehow slides into the retro feel they seem to be aiming for.