数年前に東京のGive Me Walletsを初めて聴いた時、踊る為の音楽というよりは、じっくり聞き込みたい、マスロック的な音楽だと感じました。マイスペースにあげられていた曲はフォールズを彷彿とさせ、好みではあったものの、ダンスフロアには適さないような気がしていました。
なので、Give Me Walletsにはよりダンサブルに、そしてエモーショナルになってくれるように期待していました。彼らの新曲、”Look After You”は、８０年代風シンセやビートで彩られ、まるで当時の曲のようでした。
また、”Look After You”のボーカルは、歌詞は聞き取りにくいものの、The Brixton Academyのように、感情的かつ情熱的でした。”Look After You”を含む、SoundCloudにあげられているGive Me Walletsの新曲は、バンドが良い方向性を見つけた事を証明しています。視聴は以下から。
Ano(t)racksというレーベルはまだ新しく、あまり多くをリリースしていません。大阪のグループThe Paellaの前作EPのリリースが記憶に新しいのですが、先週、Soon V.A.というインディーポップのコンピレーションをリリースしました。これは注目すべきアップロードでしょう。最近どのようなアーティストがインディーポップシーンで活躍しているのか知る事ができるので、シーンに詳しくない人にとっては、知る良いきっかけになると思います。今年リリースされたMoscow Club周辺のアーティスト達によるコンピ、C86を賞賛するようなリリースですが、大きく異なる点があります。C86ではシンセサイザーを多用するアーティストが多かったものの、Ano(t)racksではそうでもありません。BOYISHの”Couldn’t Remember”はシンセサイザーが使われていますが、他の曲ではドラムマシンくらいです。ギター、ドラムとボーカルのみの編成の、イギリスのバンドに触発されたバンドが多いからなのかもしれませんね。参加している大阪のPost Modern Teamの”In The City”はシンプルかつキャッチーで、The PaellasとTwangy Twangyは自分達の個性をさらに追求しています。 さらに、Ano(t)racksは女性を目立たせているグループが多いと言えるでしょう。京都のHomecomingsの”You Never Kiss”では可愛らしい女性の歌声に鋭いギターを重ねていてとても美しい世界観を演出しています。このコンピのハイライトと言っても過言ではないでしょう。Old Lacy Bedの”Coastlands”はとても楽しく、 大阪のFoodieは愛らしいグルーブでアルバムを締めくくってくれます。ダウンロード、視聴はこちらから。 Soon V.A. by Various Artists
Tokyo’s Ningen OK are a group that demand to be seen live. I lucked my way into seeing them this past weekend, knowing nothing about them, but leaving thinking this duo put on one of the better live sets I’ve seen recently. They play surrounded by what appear to be homemade white pyramids. Guitarist Takurou…
Indie-pop label Ano(t)raks plans on releasing a new compilation album in February, and have already revealed a list of artists who will be contributing to the sequel to the excellent Soon comp. The forthcoming release features a lot of familiar names – Post Modern Team, Boyish, The Paellas and many more…but also features a few…
This month’s edition of the Music Alliance Pact is out now! Among the 30-plus acts from around the world on display below, we’ve highlighted Nagano’s Boe Oakner and her barely-there wonder “Cherenkov.” Check it and everything else in MAP below! Click the play button icon to listen to individual songs, right-click on the song…
J-Pop doesn’t need to be torn down and built back up. There are lots of bad projects selling lots of albums – this week, Kanjani8 moved more than 200,000 copies of a song, making it the highest-selling single of 2014 thus far – but plenty of great stuff appears on the charts too…and even just…
Finally, Tokyo trio Jesse Ruins’ debut album will come out on May 21 via Lefse Records. In advance of the album A Film, the imprint has released a new song called “Laura Is Fading” from the group, which you can hear below. It’s more immediate than many of the songs Jesse Ruins has played before,…
When I first listened to Tokyo’s Give Me Wallets almost a year ago, their music was more math-rock than dancey. The songs featured on their MySpace page reminded me of the precision-minded rock of a band like Foals, which was good but also not particularly tailored for the dance floor (well, maybe a really awkward one). Jump ahead a few months, though, and Give Me Wallets seem to have become a bit more dance friendly…and also a bit more willing to let down their emotional guard. Their new song “Look After You” brings to mind fellow Tokyo group The Brixton Academy, as it is full of ’80s-evoking synth and a club-minded beat, the entire track sounding like it could have come out 25 years ago. Also like The Brixton Academy, “Look After You” finds Give Me Wallets evoking emotion through the pitch of their vocals. You don’t even need to hear what they are specifically saying to pick up on the longing in the lead singer’s voice. Along with other recent uploads to the group’s SoundCloud page, “Look After You” finds Give Me Wallets moving in a nice sonic direction. Listen below.
Great week for fans of near-suffocating (in the best possible way that word can be deployed) electro-pop originating out of Japan. First up is “Weekend,” a bouncy dance-pop cut courtesy of Motometointe, a duo featuring Nmotome and Intend. While the busy electronics and generally upbeat pace hit immediate pleasure centers, its the tag-team vocals that…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oETuy1KsJMM&hl=en_US&fs=1&] It takes some set of balls to name your band after Buddy Holly’s backing group, so The Crickets score points for daring from the get-go. The five-piece sounds very little like Mr. Holly’s bros though. SparkPlugged and Neaux (side tangent: that pairings the J-music blog equivalent of Nash-To-Stoudemire, totally dope) correctly pegged the sound…
Sometimes a brighter outlook works wonder, even if really digging into optimistic feelings leads to a lot of questions about how warranted they are. Cairophenomenons veer between uneasy indie-pop and more outright upbeat numbers, and “In Ten Years” definitely falls into the latter. The musical details that would have been used to unnerve in the…
There are certain songs that, for me at least, have been ruined by English teaching. These include Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” The Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye,” and John Lennon’s “Imagine” (joke, that one already sucked). Added recently…ABBA’s “Money,” which I heard about a dozen times in one week and…well, let’s…
Michiyo Honda’s “single a month” plan for 2011 marches on, this time triumphantly towards the Kansai region of Japan courtesy of “Chonmage Disco Goes West.” The title deceives a little bit – this isn’t particularly disco-ish, more like slightly funky electro-pop with some goofy retro synths added in. Though “Chonmage” does boast some cheesy stuff…
It’s easy to forget that one of the benefits afforded by the internet…at least in theory, not sure how this has gone down in reality…is the ability to just do what you want, without fear of existing boundaries and restrictions. Omoide Label has been one of the better netlabels in recent times exploring this maxim,…