宅録ミュージシャンのトクマルシューゴが、2010年の作品”Port Entropy”に続くシングル、”Decorate”をリリースしました。今までの楽しいおもちゃ箱のような曲以上を望んでいる人にとっては期待はずれかもしれませんね。今回も、遊び心に満ちた曲に仕上がっています。ベル、木管楽器とアコースティックギターが曲の多くを占め、目覚まし時計のような茶目っ気のある音も面白いです。彼のスタイルは全く損なわれていないです。視聴は上から。シングルを購入すれば、トクマルシューゴによる、かつてMTVで大ヒットしたバグルスの、”ラジオ・スターの悲劇”のカバーも聴けます。シングルカットがどうなっているかは知りませんが、ライブバージョンは以下から視聴できます。
There are an abundance of hip-hop beatmakers in Japan right now. Lidly belongs in the upper echelon of these types, creating instrumental music that is not just the result of somebody listening to a few J. Dilla CDs and calling it enough of an education. His stuff is far more abstract, far stranger than the…
Call And Response Recordsの新しいコンピレーションアルバム、”Dancing After 1 AM”は、我々の友達、イアン・マーティンのレーベルのものなので…探す手間が省けました。１８曲も収録されているこのアルバムには、日本屈指のロック・アーティスト達も参加しています。She Talks Silenceが陰のような美しいギターを奏でる一方で、The Morningsの”Fuji”は去年にリリースされた”Save The Mornings”に引き続き、彼ららしい作品。POP-OFFICE、New HouseやTacobondsなども参加していて、さすがだな、と言わざるを得ません。今まで紹介してこなかったExtrudersによる“Collapsing New Buildings”はミニマルで、呟くようなボーカルとギターの鋭いストロークが良い味を出しています。Puffyshoesも１分程参加しています。 “Dancing After 1 AM”が持つフックといえば、ニューウェーブ・デュオのMIRがこのアルバムでカムバックし、新曲を１曲提供しているという所。これからの活動も期待しているのですが、“Dance”は、このグループの過去のハイライトを５分でまとめたような曲になっています。シンセとビートが良いグルーブ感を出しているのですが、それだけで終わらないのがこのグループの強み。決してアップビートではない、ナイーブなボーカルが、この曲を独特にしています。このような悲しげな、かつアップテンポなダンスミュージックは中々探しても出てこないですし、巧みにひねりを加えた独特な楽曲が多いので、Dancing After 1 AM、オススメです。 List of where to buy the album here.
This dropped a couple weeks ago, but it has finally floated into my ears at a deeply appropriate. This is a concept album about sleeping – the song titles feature specific times of the night and what’s going on as the central character sleeps. Like last year’s Sleepy Tokyo album…a concept record about lack of…
Another day, another electronic music comp combining familiar faces with new ones, so let’s just run through this quick, yeah? The old: mus.hiba and his Vocaloid partner in art Sekka Yufu contribute “Hitori,” another slow-moving stunner in a song catalog that’s starting to overflow with great work. It’s one of his most glacial numbers yet,…
One of the tougher parts of putting together a year-end feature – like our “favorite songs of 2012 lists” – is cutting it down. This means some really great stuff gets left outside…and last year, one of the toughest omissions to make was Tokyo murmur-pop dude Elen Never Sleeps, whose “My Aquamarine/Spinning Wheel” single featured…
This last year has seen a handful of electronic-heavy acts, outfits unafraid to mess around with vocals and tempo to create something that a few have labelled “future pop” because of how left-field it sounds for something capable of topping charts. English acts like AlunaGeorge and Disclosure, Scotland’s Chvrches and Canada’s Purity Ring have been…
Bedroom-whizz Shugo Tokumaru has released his first glimpse of the follow-up to 2010’s Port Entropy in the form of new single “Decorate.” For those expecting his whimsical, toy-instrument heavy music to morph into something new by now, prepare to be let down because “Decorate” is another solid example of his playroom pop. Tokumaru’s usual assortment of bells, woodwinds and acoustic guitar dominates this song, and at one point he even works in the sound of an alarm clock ringing off. Also intact – the same sense of wonder the majority of Tokumaru’s tracks possess. Listen above. You can buy the single in stores now, and if you do, you also will get the chance to hear Tokumaru’s take on The Buggles’ MTV-launching “Video Killed The Radio Star.” I don’t know what the single version sounds like, but watch Shugo deliver a cutesy live cover below.
Tentenko presents a dilemma. She’s one of the most prolific artists of this decade, releasing CD-R after CD-R of songs skipping across all kinds of genres — she experimented with juke recently, what the hell! But also, hell yeah! — and genuinely going off in whatever direction she wants to. She has one perfect song…
Nemui PJ, the collaborative project between Noah and Kidkanevil, released their first EP at the start of the week, which further highlights the duo’s bleary-eyed sound. A pairing of two artists with established styles either needs to move in an entirely new direction, or reveal new layers to what each participant has been doing. Pumpkin…
Norwegian artist Henrik The Artist recently shared the buoyant “Peddi Max,” and then got a bunch of pals to remix the colorful hopper. The whole list premiered at Nest HQ, but we will focus on — as you’d expect — the four Japanese producers who put their spin on the track. It’s a netlabel-centric crew,…
House producer FPM boasts a lot of great music worth you’re time over at his MySpace. Despite sometimes flirting with too-much squanky crunchiness (picture a parrot stepping on leaves for all eternity), he finds a way to inject a good bit of charm into his track. “Without You” loses any of the electro-house connections and…
Sometimes, you just want something pulsing with energy. Trekkie Trax tends to have a good sense of that sort of sound — sure, they also have picked up on more zig-zaggy stuff, but their proverbial bread and butter is stuff that gets you moving (or at least imagining what moving to it would be like)….
Kosmo Kat has proven he doesn’t need to have guests on his tracks to make them shine — the majority of the numbers on his very good Square EP find him providing the vocals — but he also tends to produce some really lovely work when he does team up with new people. “Ere Sora,”…