CUZ ME PAINは最近、あまりリリースをせず、ライブやレコーディングに力を入れている感じがします。それともニコラス・ケイジ出演の映画を勉強したりしてるのかな。CUZ ME PAINのプロジェクトMasculinの新曲、”Manhattan Suicide”は、ニコラス・ケイジ主演のデビッド・リンチ映画、ワイルド・アット・ハートの台詞から始まります。２分間シンプルに淡々と流れるグルーブは、リンチ・テイストが他の曲よりは抑えめかも。ワイルド・アット・ハートからの物かは確かじゃないですが、他の台詞とピアノの流れるようなフレーズがリピートされています。そのようなサウンドが楽しい雰囲気を出していて、ツイン・ピークス的か、と言えばそうではないのですが、このような遊び心のあるリリースを聴く事で、CUZ ME PAINから更なるリリースを期待してしまいます。
大阪を拠点とするAnd Vice Versaのアルバム、”E. Tender”は４月に発表されていましたが、まだそれについて書けていませんでした。しかし聴き続ける事で、今では私の2012年度のベストアルバムの一つになりました。 And Vice Versaは単音を好むアーティストだと感じます。そして”E. Tender”で使われているノイズはまるで触る事のできるような質感を持っています。 And Vice Versaの新曲、”Its Me”は、E. Tenderには含まれていないものの、そのスタイルはとても似ています。アルバムでも使われていた素晴らしい音が多く使われていて、その特徴的なシンセや、エフェクトが加えられたボーカルは何重にも重ねられ、幻想的なレイヤーを生み出しています。更に、And Vice Versaは曲中に、見つけたら嬉しくなる、細かい工夫を多く盛り込んでいます。”Its Me”とアルバムの曲の違いと言えば長さでしょう。アルバムの曲は３分程なのに比べ、この曲は６分半近くあります。でも、この曲は一瞬たりとも興味を離さないよう、上手く工夫されています。
YMCK, like fellow Japanese artists Omodaka and the older material of 99 Letters, pulls off a rare thing – being able to make music based primarily around 8-bit sounds and turning it into something beyond novelty. “Sesetsu Shite Usetsu Shite” could be goofy novelty in the hands of someone more interested in playing Mega Man…
I’m writing up this post on a day where the Internet…or at least major pockets of it…went wild over a couple of big pop-music releases that hit the web today. First was the video for Ciara’s “Body Party” (which we can’t even watch in Japan) and then a new single by Janelle Monáe. And even…
It has been one of those weeks that has ended up being so busy, I have barely been able to pay attention to much new Japanese music this week. Thanks a lot work day! Anyway, next week will maybe be a bit lighter (and all things willing, this weekend can be a chance to hear…
This isn’t the first time Nagoya’s POP-OFFICE have covered a song…but these two latest renditions highlight what they do so well better than what they’ve done. First, they take out Sparklehorse’s “Gold Day,” itself an understated, sadness-tinged number that’s best described as very pretty sounding but with a frown hidden deep within. Well, POP-OFFICE blow…
Boys Age are a duo who force you to not make snap judgements. The first few seconds of “I Wish For God’s Sake’…like the first few second of a lot of the songs they’ve released…challenge thanks to the lead vocals. They are far from polished, sounding like a Muppet gurgling water. But give it a…
CUZ ME PAIN has been a little quiet as of late, the Tokyo imprint not putting out all that much new material lately. They’ve either been focused on playing live shows and recording new material…..or they’ve been brushing up on Nicolas Cage movies. CUZ ME PAIN project Masculin’s new track “Manhattan Suicide” opens with a snippet of dialogue from David Lynch’s Wild At Heart, but unlike most songs that get described as “Lynchian,” this one isn’t all that unsettling. Instead, it just grooves on for just over two minutes. It features another vocal sample that skips a little bit (don’t know if it’s also from Wild At Heart) and a piano line swoops in every once in awhile, but none of it sounds Twin Peaks worthy. A nice little track that hopefully means more CUZ ME PAIN tunes on the horizon.
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-haZ2I6ywis”] So is this what it sounds like when the often glee-oozing Sebastian X tackle a ballad? Not quite…they aren’t Ayumi Hamasaki-ing it up for the song “Rose Garden, Baby Blue” from forthcoming full-length Futures (say that really fast). Yet the group’s standard-operating kitchen sink sound has been slowed a bit here, sparkling piano coupled…
excoriation (瘢痕) by Cemetery Producer Cemetery is keeping busy, as much as one constructing uneasy but at times peaceful electronic music can get. The project’s latest EP, Excoriation, comes via Spanish label angoisse, and highlights the lighter side of a project that can get dark (I mean, it’s called Cemetery). The producer gets downright spiritual…
EDM, contrary to what you might have read, isn’t dead. Maybe it is slowing down in North America or Europe, but it is just hitting its stride in Asia, where festivals continue to do brisk business and K-pop juggernaut SM recently launched an EDM label. In Japan, the style still does well, though one area…
Sometimes you really need a little extra time to make the emotional explosion count. DRUGONDRAGON’s latest song “○ Tsuki X Hi” offers up a great example of how much better catharsis — even seemingly nonsense catharsis — feels when the build up to it takes its sweet time. DRUGONDRAGON is a relatively new project releasing…
Look, I’m not sure I have anything fresh to say about Yunomi or Nicamoq…let alone Yunomi and Nicamoq…as the producer releases songs at a quick pace, and they are always the same hyper-colorful, high-level quality. “Indoor Kei Nara Trackmaker” is the latest bit of cuddly EDM-pop the pair have created, and just the latest argument…
Trying to keep tabs on the Snail’s House universe can be a slightly complicated matter, as the artist behind the project also releases music under other aliases, and even that project features specific series dwelling on certain styles and moods (Alien Pop, Ordinary Songs). Love Magic works almost like a sampler of Snail’s House’s many…