Producer Laptopboy dabbles in all kinds of -like beats, but the tracks that seem to pop up in the fledgling Japanese online rap community tend to have a very specific sound to them. They are dreamy, guided by keyboard and featuring touches that give them an out-of-body feel while still offering a nice kick to the song. Laptopboy created the sound of “Doll,” a great number that rapper mqrn…? slides right into and makes her own. Again, familiarity goes a long way — she sing-raps in a higher pitch, approaching the cuddly zone found in a lot of the more “kawaii” J-pop, but disrupting that fluffiness with use of Auto-tune and some welcome ad libs. Listen above.
New Cairophenomenons: “In Ten Years”
Sometimes a brighter outlook works wonder, even if really digging into optimistic feelings leads to a lot of questions about how warranted they are. Cairophenomenons veer between uneasy indie-pop and more outright upbeat numbers, and “In Ten Years” definitely falls into the latter. The musical details that would have been used to unnerve in the past get turned into sonic sunshine here, like the just-unsteady keyboard melodies lurking under the “many flowers” hook. Yet nothing sinister comes from them, but rather they contribute to the sweetness the band deliver via the lyrics and the guitar melodies, which have a bit of sleep in their eye but are approaching the day in a positive manner. Listen above.
New Rima Kato: “A Ring Upon Her Finger”
The past always offers an attractive source of inspiration, but singer/songwriter Rima Kato travels back to an unlikely destination for her forthcoming album Sing-Song. She became fascinated with the works of Victorian poet Christina Rossetti, and her latest finds her offering her take on her work. “A Ring Upon Her Finger” captures a pleasant, charming portrait of one of Rossetti’s romantic creations, focusing on one’s wedding day as a bride walks down the aisle. Kato drapes this story with guitar strums, some light percussion and later on some twee flute playing that gives this a particularly warm air. Listen above.
New Le Makeup: “Aisou”
One of the elements that made Le Makeup’s Hyper Earthy such a striking album was the emergence of the Osaka’s own voice on the album. Since then, Le Makeup has been playing around with how their singing can be deployed over beats and acoustic guitar. Aisou finds the artist getting even better at using their own instrument, including knowing when to pull it back completely. The project’s focus on capturing the everyday feelings of life continues, immediate on the opening title track, one of the more spacious tracks Le Makeup has made. Yet look in the background to hear them playing with their own voice, manipulating it into another layer, including a late song stretch where it becomes fuzzed-out. The way Le Makeup places his vocals changes drastically over this release — they start a bit buried on “Delay” but eventually shove their way to the front just as the music picks up energy, while “Bangkok” pushes them further back, turning them into a memory. Then you have “Galfy,” where Le Makeup just takes the singing out entirely to dip back into the Caribbean-inspired dance music they played around with early in their career. Aisou follows the blueprint Le Makeup has been playing around with for a bit, and just shows how much better they’ve gotten with it. Get it here, or listen below.
New Half Mile Beach Club: “Chasing The First High”
Half Mile Beach Club have a new album out this week, but it isn’t quite a new album. Be Built, Then Lost serves as an intro to the outfit’s blurred take on beach tunes for a larger audience, and that partially involves a lot of familiar cuts — including many from last year’s lovely indie release Hasta La Vista — popping back up (or in the case of “Yankee,” being re-recorded while still maintaining the alien-visiting-Zushi vibe it first conjured up). Still, they also have plenty of new tunes, including the psych-smudged “Chasing The First High.” Imagine if the jammy experiments on Suchmos’ last album actually let themselves get truly spiked, with samples and vocal filters aplenty to contribute to the spaced-out mood. Most importantly, it constantly teeters towards collapse — that janky organ! — but holds together. Listen above.