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Foggy Get Together: Come To My Party’s “Clay Cat” And “Victoria Falls”

Listening to the new latest songs from Tokyo project Come To My Party reminds me of a time in the capital’s music community when a lot of dance-leaning groups were coming up and playing at fashionable venues (or fashion-first hell holes) in the city. Like Give Me Wallets or The Brixton Academy. Well, these two numbers bring that to mind…if you heard them from the next room over. “Clay Cat” (above) features a nice guitar-powered groove and some muttered come-ons, but it also has a thick layer of fuzz over it, giving a slightly off feel far different than the glitzy dance-pop of five years ago. “Victoria Falls” ends up even busier and is closer to a more traditional rock song, with a big emotional hook and even some pianos twinkling off in the back. Yet it still sounds dirty, pulled out of the muck. Which adds a nice tension to the whole thing. Listen below.

New Cor!s: Temporary Prose

Osaka artist Cor!s has been dabbling in a variety of electronic-centric styles over the last decade, whether on her own or as one half of the Addams Family Goes Mad Decent unit KWi. It’s made for a constantly shifting set of songs from her, but also not a lot of consistency at once. But now comes Temporary Prose, an eight-song album just as interested in genre hopping, but finding Cor!s better than ever before, creating sturdy numbers in every style she tries. Highlights abound — Cor!s shows off a more refined pop side throughout, with piano-and-harp-driven opener “My Favorite Things ~ Toki No Sanbun ~” and the chiming “Machibouke” making an argument that she could be involved in mainstream J-pop if she wanted (now, or maybe at the turn of the century, at least after listening to the Shibuya-kei-derived hop and skip of “TenkouMajo”). Yet then you have something like “Musées du Surréalisme,” a revved-up number that’s part future bass rumbler and part jazzy imagination (catch the flute drifting through all the electronic hiccups). Or the shuffling, surprisingly tense “Moon Garden.” Or how about “Firefly,” which improves on the big-stage EDM Cor!s has flashed an interest in over the years, but runs it through a filter that gives it a great digi-sheen and string-assisted funk vibe. Temporary Prose is a triumph of musical curiosity, and what happens when you spend some time developing those ideas. You end up with a varied set that can stand up to any style. Get it here, or listen below.

Fizzy Float: Happypills’ “Starship”

It’s the fluttery and fizzy edges of “Starship” that really stand out. Fukuoka artist Happypills mostly finds a middle ground between indie-pop and larger Japanese rock bands such as Galileo Galilei, Asian Kung-Fu Generation and maybe a little bit of Supercar. For the most part, “Starship” is a straightforward gallop, anchored by the slightly obscured vocals really playing up the melancholy sweetness. Fine and good, but it’s the little electronic ripples on the edges that make this one worth listening to. They add a woozy, out-of-place feel to an otherwise standard rock number, which makes the central longing all the more palpable. Get it here, or listen above.

New Cattle: “April Showers”

Think of this as the indie-pop inverse of Wallflower’s just released “I Wish Spring Would Last Forever.” Tokyo’s Cattle aren’t trying to extend the season as long as they can, but rather dealing with the fact it’s already in decline, with sakura pedals lining city streets and the protagonist of this song knowing some sea change is unfolding. No nostalgia, just an unavoidable melancholy. And Cattle just zips right on through it, playing an up-tempo song powered on by electric guitars that has no time to dwell, just deal with all the changes happening at once. Listen above.

New Lulu: “Hora”

Let’s end the week with the newest song from Lulu. “Hora” is a slowly unfolding number, rumbling ahead but leaving plenty of space for the artist’s voice to come through. It gets run through a layer of filters, adding an electric energy to the number, but even pushed to a digital extreme, Lulu herself gets a personal longing through. And the bird chirps just outside of the main beat help ground this downcast number in reality. Listen above.