New group Lucky Tapes – fronted by Kai Takahashi – have their debut EP out now, and here’s another taste of the laid-back group’s sound. “In Paris” is an especially Sunday-morning-in-bed-ready song, a slow groover of a number that adds sweet vocal dollops behind Takahashi’s love talk. Listen below.
That Kool Switch Works’ compilation EP introduced us to a lot of great producers in Japan – the skittering slice-ups of bbbbb, the glowing work of Exccow, the footwork fun of Poncho and Casino Tart – but the MVP of that release (at least around these parts) was PICNICWOMEN. Whereas others on Witchcraft diced up…
Sorry Fuji Rock, Summer Sonic just earned my money. The two-city festival announced the first wave of artists playing this year’s festival and it’s some excellent stuff. Let’s bust out the bullet points for this one: – JAY-Z JAY-Z JAY-Z. He’s getting top billing this year and I’m jazzed because…well, it’s Jay-Z, only one of…
Half Mile Beach Club have a new album out this week, but it isn’t quite a new album. Be Built, Then Lost serves as an intro to the outfit’s blurred take on beach tunes for a larger audience, and that partially involves a lot of familiar cuts — including many from last year’s lovely indie…
Time for the second installment of MAP for 2016, featuring a special collaboration between one of Tokyo’s finest wonky trackmakers and a rising Taiwan-based producer. Listen to it…and many more…below. Click the play button icon to listen to individual songs, right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a zip file of…
Lost amongst the talk about the revival of the saxophone or how Kreayshawn managed to become something more than the next “Friday,” 2011 has seen a small upswing in postrock. Godspeed You! Black Empire reunited and played some shows, while Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky released new albums (even if the latter ended up…
One of the more interesting trends in Japanese indie music this year as been the influence of anime in various songs. We’ve already talked about a pair of artists who create Ghibli-like wonderlands, but other musicians have been literally summoning old Japanese cartoons in their tracks. From the submerged beauty of Shortcake Collage Tape to…