One of the earliest pieces of music writing advice I received was…don’t dwell too much on album art. But let me just take a second to note how new Kyoto-based label NC4K has established a great visual sense so far into their existence, with a cartoony psychedelic element that I really hope they continue to…
Usually, a year really starts to show itself in, like, March — that’s when releases start emerging that feel more reflective of the year as a whole (well, at least if you operate in blanket thinking). Yet January saw a lot of great full-lengths emerge from Japanese artists, including Mom’s topsy-turvy Baby Like A Paperdriver…
Glitz can sound really interesting when parts of the charm feel just off. That’s something rarely — sometimes, but rarely — found in the current crop of smoothed-out rock performing well in Japan’s mainstream. The project Abenie shows how a little bedroom-pop charm can go a long way. “Metropolis” moves at a dazzled-by-the-lights pace, and…
Miii has set his focus on tension over the last few years. The Tokyo producer has long been a fan of bass-shredding, hard-hitting drops in his electronic music, and the thrill of a punishing plunge remains. Yet he’s been just as interested in pairing sounds not far removed from the dance pens of a big=time…
I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for music that conjures up memories of the 2011 and 2012 Japanese indie rock community, when Hotel Mexico put their spin on chillwave and the entire CUZ ME PAIN universe offered an unsettling merger between dance and rock. Naturally, the one group left to emerge from…