It’s year-end-list season, and that means it is really easy to start glossing over new releases in favor of getting that best-50 list just right. But that would be a mistake, with so much good music still rolling out. Haruru Inu Love Dog Tenshi’s debut album came out this week, and it’s a gem, highlighting one of the more promising voices to come out of Japan’s underground rap community, one bridging the gap between whisper-rap and more Atlanta indebted. “Machi Made” is her in a particularly reflective mood, the song set against a twinkling backdrop produced by ORKL that plays around with City Pop ideas without going all in on it (see also her English description, which plays up her arrival at the end of the Heisei era…fit in all the nostalgia you can). But she sing-raps over it gracefully, adding in a fitting melancholy to the off-in-the-distance-neon vibes. And guest rapper Yungyu ups it even more with a great Autotune-soaked verse upping the emotion even more. Listen above.
