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。
Another week comes to a close and – confession – this one was a super-busy one around these parts. So much good stuff came out…tough to keep up! Anyway, one thing that sorta slipped by was this live version of a new Salyu X Salyu song, so let’s savor it over the weekend. Remember when…
Figureというアーティストはご存知でしょうか？この日本アーティストのBandcampのページを見てみて下さい。情報量の多いサイトですよね。どうやらアメリカツアーをするみたい！…ってそれは違うFigureでしたね。同じ名前を使ったインディアナ拠点のビートメーカーがいるみたいです。でも日本のFigureも新EP、”Come Down”でもっと注目を集める事でしょう。 このEP以前のFigureはどんな感じだったかというと、Teen Runnings登場後からすでに数年間も日本のインターネットを埋め尽くしている、やかましくファズの掛かったベッドルームサウンドを奏でていました。その過去の作品達は、厳しく言えば録音のクオリティが低かったり、ノイズの実験のような作品ばかり。でも今回の”Come Down”では、そんな遊び心とフックのあるメロディーが上手く調和しています。嵐のような轟音もバランスよく効果的に感じられ、”Soft Path”なんかがその「グッドバランス」を象徴してるんじゃないかな。今まで同様、いかつい生楽器の音が大半を占めているものの、やわらかいキーボードや、ノイズをくぐって出てくるボーカルが見事（洋楽で例えるならDIIVでしょうか）。”Place”は幻想的な曲で、ギターやベースもその雰囲気を崩しません。一方で”Come Down”は逆に歪んだドラムが印象的で、キラキラしたキーボード（木琴みたいな音）が上手く混ざっています。Come Downは凄くスローな”My Side”で終わるわけなんですが、この曲はギターストローク、キーボードと淡いボーカルのみのシンプルな構成。驚くほどの成長を遂げたFigureの自信作を締めくくるにはもってこいの美しい曲です。試聴はこちらから。
Hey I don’t know about you/but I’m feeling the hairs on my arm stand up a little bit. At long last, mysterious (like, legitimately mysterious! Not fake mysterious) outfit Neon Cloud give us new material since 2011’s stunning Knit EP. And they aren’t simply recycling old, shadowy ideas on “22.” This is, to date, the…
Talking City 1994 is one of the Japanese bands having a really good 2013. After being quiet for more than two quarters of 2012, the Osaka band has come back strong, releasing a strong three-song EP and several great stand-alone tracks. They’ve come along way since when they first popped up, developing a more polished…
Tokyo’s Elen Never Sleep has been previewing tracks from his forthcoming Silver EP for a while now, and today the seven-song release can be yours, either for free download or as a limited-edition cassette. Besides getting to hear good cuts like “Silver” and (especially) “Shine On Me,” the EP also comes with a Taquwami remix….
May 27 marks the 15th anniversary of the debut of Shiina Ringo, an artist who has released a few classic albums and has had a huge impact on a generation of Japanese music fans. To celebrate, she’s releasing a new single on that day and…it presumably hit the Internet sometime today. It’s called “Irohanihoheto” and…
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.
Tokyo-based producer Attic Note delivers a solid electronic track with “Happening,” a bit of pitch-bended sharpness that plays around with a familiar approach but hits on something all its own. It wasn’t that long ago that tipsy numbers anchored by vocals manipulated to be faster or slower were the dominant sound of the community here,…
I’ve been feeling out of it for a while now. Initially, I thought it was because I caught a cold on a trip, and all that NyQuil is bound to shoot anyone into a haze. Yet it dawned on me this has been more like a month long malaise, one where I constantly find myself…
Future Funk remains a confusing one for me personally, but when it’s used as a backdrop for an original song I’m usually on board. South Korea’s Night Tempo works especially well in collaboration with others, especially vocalists, and the Japanese version of “Catch!” with Antenna Girl certainly works. The original is a catchy bit of…
Building off a yesterday’s celebration of a nascent label, let’s turn our eyes to Kyoto’s NC4K. They’ve become a hub for some of Kansai’s more intriguing dance acts, having released highlights from Paperkraft and Stones Tarro. Now comes a two track set from CeeeSTee that pushes into delirious acid. Both “Toe” and “Chimney Up Bow”…
Like many independent electronic producers in the Internet age, Towa stitches together shards of sounds — whether it be a vocal sample, a bass slap or something else — into music all their own. Pieces highlights the Japanese artist’s approach to this, slotting Towa next to the like of In The Blue Shirt and Soleil…
A part of “internet music culture” (for lack of a better description, here mainly referring to bedroom producers using SoundCloud as a primary ground to share music and connect with others) that’s especially interesting is the sources artists opt for, especially the ones leaning on samples from things that make up the details of their…