I’m trying to finish (errrrrr, start) the official Make Believe Melodie’s “our favorite songs” feature, so in the meantime, enjoy this new song courtesy of Osaka’s Seiho. “Clipping Music” starts off quite sensual – some lovely, lounge-ready electronics playing over the sound of waves reaching the shore – but soon enters territory we are more used to from Seiho, albeit with a rapid stream of hand-clap noises this time around. Listen below.
Plenty of bedroom-based musicians do not deserve your time, but when a good one pops up, they are special. Japan’s introduced a lot of good ones into the musical conversation over the last year, and even more continue to pop up online. Out of the digital ether comes Juliana Paris, a project whose latest track…
“Pppppppp-picnicwomen-women-women-women”という強烈なタグの曲。Picnicwomenがジュークにチャレンジし、今年のお気に入りの一つになりました。このプロジェクトの最新EP、Stylusには、 “Ripstick Girl”という曲意外に、同じKool Switch Worksのアーティスト、Ahmad Jackson Jr.の曲も含まれています。”Ripstick Girl”はゆったりとしたギターで始まり、攻撃的なマシンガンのようなビートに、ググっても探すのが不可能に近いマニアックなサンプルが乗っています。その後、曲はテンポが速まり、他の要素が入ってきたりして、複雑になっていきます。Ahmad Jackson Jr.の”Done For You”も面白く、ホーンがや、泡がはじけるような音がふんだんに使われ、ミックスの奥には、J. Dillaがやっていた事で有名なサイレン・サウンドが聴こえます。購入はこちらから。 stylus ep by KOOL SWITCH WORKS
Rare are the times when you stumble across a SoundCloud or Bandcamp page unironically tagging itself as J-Pop. Even rarer…finding an earnest stab at the outright poppy through these sites that isn’t terrible. There are certainly exceptions – everything on Maltine that goes by that, mostly – but try spending some time with that tag….
いわゆる”レイブ”という所には行った事がないので、もし誤解を招くような発言があったら申し訳ないです。イメージしているのは、日常から解き放たれ、そのトランス状態を楽しむ為のイベント。大阪のSeihoの新曲、”I Feel Rave”も、そのイメージに近いです。軽快なビートの上で、様々なトーンを行き来する複雑に調律されたボーカルが、繰り返し”I feel you”と歌い、リスナーを幻想の世界へと呼び込みます。この曲はSeihoを次のリリースへと繋げる堅固なステップと言えるでしょう。 レイブと聞いて他に思い浮かぶのは…偏見かもしれませんが、ドラッグです。Seihoは幻覚を思わせるような工夫を曲に入れていて、後半の水滴が落ちるような音の後、ボーカルは更にめちゃくちゃになっていきます。終盤にこういった工夫もいれる事で、曲のユニークさが際立っています。視聴は以下から。
Maltine Records has released a lot of music during their existence – a few gems were bound to slip by. One really fantastic song I failed to write about, from earlier this year, was Pa’s Lam System’s “b00mb0x,” an absolutely thumping number that’s one of Japan’s best pure floor-fillers in 2013. Now here comes the…
When someone wonders “what the song of the summer” is going to be, what comes to mind? That’s usually code for wondering what’s going to be the most popular single of the season, what one will hear blaring from passing cars and at outdoor BBQs. It’s gonna be energetic and upbeat. And those are all…
今必死にMake Believe Melodieの2012年ベストソングリストを終わらせようとしてます（というか始めようとしてます…）。なので今は大阪のアーティスト、Seihoの新曲をお楽しみ下さい。曲はレイドバックで穏やかな気持ちにさせてくれるエレクトロ・サウンドと波打ち際の音から始まります。そこから我々の知っているいつものSeihoサウンドに突入するのですが、ノイズのような手拍子が軽快で魅力的です。試聴は以下から。
Perhaps in an effort to counter Uniqlo’s line of doofy music t-shirts, the GAP has recruited a handful of younger, vaguely “in” Japanese artists for a new campaign. Up until this week, they had gotten Awesome City Club,* Happy and Never Young Beach to model clothes and play music, an alright line-up but not one…
With just a glance, it seems like Herajika exists to be just another Tokyo band filling in the cracks in a slowly blooming scene. Mental flares went off when I stumbled across the band’s latest EP Test 02 on the Violet And Claire web shop, the digital incarnation of a physical joint associated with Merpeoples,…
In general, the longer a trend lasts, the more exposure to it is likely to make listeners hesitant. Which is to say…the opening notes of Leave E’s Youth, full of bubbly synth building up to a big, bass-centric drop, made me think “here we go again.” This style, which you could call “future bass” bordering…
The point has been reached where 8-bit bloops and bleeps popping up in music aren’t a novelty, but an honest-to-goodness source of nostalgia for many young adults, who grew up with Nintendo and Sega as close friends. Those sounds were among the first a lot of artists today probably heard, so it seems somewhat natural…
Dear Ear Records is a new label from Kyoto, one that has just appeared this past month. Which makes sense because – at the moment it feels like a fledgling imprint. Beyond being from Kyoto, they haven’t had time to shape out an identity. They have put together a lovely compilation, though, and even if…
Nagoya-based electronic artist Noah’s new album Siviutie came out today in Japan via Flau. If you live in Japan, definitely go get that, otherwise you should pre-order because it is one of the best albums released out of this side of the world thus far in 2015. I’ll have a bit more about Noah and…