When you read this, I will probably be in an airplane heading back to Japan. Thus, posts are still gonna’ be a little sporadic. Anyway, here is a new one from Madegg called “Float Ring.” Listen below!
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/40078813″ iframe=”true” /]
One of my favorite albums of the year is Meishi Smiel’s Belong, and maybe part of the reason for that is I have a hard time putting into words just why that is. I mean, I know why, but getting into words that feel appropriate feels like climbing up a mountain. It boils down to…
Zombie-Chang constructs an offbeat world in her music, but the foundation of that comes from the past. “Mona Lisa,” off of an album coming out this week (geez is this year zooming by….), reminds of the artists that she draws influence from, while allowing her room to splash her own personality into it. Really, just…
After a series of ’80s-tinged songs released as singles, synth-pop revivalists Satellite Young have released an eponymous album. Springing off of recent posts touching on various shades of backwards-appreciating music, Satellite Young is unabashedly…and gleefully!…channeling Bubble era pop, loading it up with neon synthesizer and the type of singing that would make the golden age…
Tokyo’s PLASTICZOOMS merge shoegaze pop with industrial rock with results very reminiscent of the Jesus and Mary Chain, or contemporaries The Horrors and A Place To Bury Strangers. The band’s songs are rock numbers buried under layers of surging guitars, PLASTICZOOMS both capable of letting a song lurch in all sorts of directions (“The Sonnets”)…
Japan values youth to a frightening level that would probably make America blush if a country could do such a thing. From a glut of TVs/movies focusing on “coming of age” to the schoolgirl fascination (does the panty vending machine exist? Does it matter? How does AKB48 fit into this?), its clear this country truly…
J-pop is a mess right now. The biggest challenge at the moment is sifting through everything to figure out just what’s going on, and if you zeroed in squarely on what charts say is doing well, I wouldn’t blame you for feeling underwhelmed. Yet dive into the vast middle and you’ll find all sorts of…