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。
東京のプロデューサーTaquwamiは、ネットのシーンに属している、と先月話してくれました。「僕自身は東京、というか特定の地域のシーンとは繋がってないんじゃないでしょうか。どちらかと言うと地域関係なくインターネット上でって感じじゃないかなーと。なんていうかChillwaveよりはBeat重視でWitch House/Trap/Hiphop全部突っ込んだみたいななんともいえないくくりのelectronic musicがインターネットであるじゃないですか。」Taquwamiが今までコラボレートしてきたアーティスト達も、彼同様の環境で音楽を配信しています。たとえ違う国に住んでいても、そこで交流し、繋がれるのが最高の利点。最近ではヴァージニア州を拠点としているRuddypと共同で”Hold”をリリースしています。Blurrywonderで聴けるようなドラムパターンやボーカルが使われているものの、”Hold” はそのEPよりも極めてゆったりとしたペースで進みます。以前もそのようなテンポの曲はありましたが、Ruddypのテイストが加わる事により、Taquwamiの楽曲とはまた違った面白さが引き出されています。視聴は以下から。
全く予想していなかった事が起きました…東京のCanopies And Drapesがヒップ・ホップに挑戦したみたいです。最近できた新しい音楽ブログ、Lights + Music（見てね！）が最近インタビューしたのですが、”Chocolate Song” という新曲にはなんとゲストとして、オノマトペ大臣が参加しています。Canopies And Drapesの可愛らしくドリーミーなサウンドはそのままに、ラップ・ビートを使って、オノマトペ大臣がその上にラップできるように作られています。でも正直言うと、Canopies And Drapesの曲をバックグラウンドに使う場合、ラップよりも歌もののほうがマッチする気はします。一番印象的だったディテールはというと、Canopies And Drapesが数回 “Lay yourself beside me”と歌うところで、Weekendの影響かな？と思いました。この可愛らしいディテールが、彼女のタレントを改めて感じさせてくれます。
Osaka’s The Paellas have sounded like a lot of things in the past – a dreary-eyed lot playing sad lounges, aggressive indie-poppers, shadow dwellers. Yet on new song “Golden Eye” they sound incredibly…smooth. This easy-going cut still contains the slight muffled vibe that has always given them a mysterious, late-night edge…the vocals still sound like…
The Wedding Mistakes make “post-rock,” and we’ve already been over that it isn’t what you expect from that word. Listening to The Wedding Mistakes’ first album Virgin Road makes the term feel even stranger, because the duo seem post everything. The Wedding Mistakes are defiantly genreless, blending together so many disparate sounds together into a…
Nagoya’s Noah already has teamed up with one American artist (Sela) for her first release of the year, and now for number two (which…is named TWO) she’s hooked up with Houston rapper/vaporwave producer Siddiq. Whereas her first 2013 release was a split, this finds the two musicians working together, Noah presumably providing the beats while…
Maltine Records has released a lot of music during their existence – a few gems were bound to slip by. One really fantastic song I failed to write about, from earlier this year, was Pa’s Lam System’s “b00mb0x,” an absolutely thumping number that’s one of Japan’s best pure floor-fillers in 2013. Now here comes the…
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.
Sapporo producer Parkgolf is up to…something. He’s written “coming soon” in the description for latest song “Crush On,” which is in and of itself plenty to keep fans of the lightspeed artist content before whatever is next…makes itself clear. “Crush On” is loaded up with pitch-shifted vocals, the beat approaching juke territory but never quite…
Though not all uncommon for dance music, the extended intro to Studio Apartment’s “Stay” comes as a welcome change from the blog-addled mindset that if something doesn’t connect immediately, you should hit the “next” button on the Yahoo! music player until you find something that does. The back-and-forth beat ushering in this track works as…
Blame the need for instant gratification that comes with easy access to MP3s, blame a culture of “what can you give me now” or blame Twitter. But when I first listened to Michio Ogawa’s “April Collector” I kept wondering “when is this song going to open up?” Where is the singing, the chorus, the big…
It’s a rainy holiday Monday, and despite a mountain of work that needs to be done, I just want to be lazy. A situation like that calls for skippy indie-pop, and Tokyo project Easel Easel’s latest song “Lose Melberg” does the job well. It falls in that twee-leaning sea of music that works best when…
Turns out Puni Puni Denki’s recent turn to more relaxed, near-bossa-nova sounds wasn’t just a one-off thing. Wonder Underground follows up the cafe-adjacent sweetness of “Life Is Super Dope” with three more songs begging to soundtrack your next chill-out session. Wonder Underground isn’t background music or even smooth enough to soundtrack your next homework marathon….
Despite the title, The Blonde Plastic Wagon’s “Touch & Go!!” sounds like no band to ever grace the Touch & Go label. Well, maybe a little bit like Ted Leo, but that’s it. “Touch & Go!!” has more in common with modern-day indie-guitar groups like Los Campesinos!, as lead singer Nobuo Sinohara boasts a higher-pitched…