“Kimi Wa Queen” finds somewhat of a middle ground between the bossa-nova-inflected Wonder Underground and the dance-floor-eyeing Mirai Addiction. The general pace is still pretty relaxed, but Puni Puni Denki lets a nice bounce sneak in that gives this one a little more of a strut. That’s partially thanks to assists from production team Mikeneko…
Uami is one of those artists who releases songs at a rapid clip, making weekly visits to their SoundCloud a good exercise to get into. Some numbers stand out among the rest, though, and “Yoshinayo” stands as a recent highlight. What starts as some easy-breezy keyboard notes soon gives way to a busier main melody,…
Tokyo duo Pinballbally’s debut album Hi-Fi Vitamins is a streaming gem for those who like their electro-pop on the jittery side. “Waves” serves as a good gateway in — well, it is the opening number so I’m not offering you anything clever there — as it features lightly-filtered vocals hopping over a fizzy melody. The…
The standout ability of Kissaten is to take an array of sounds that easily could have turned into chilled-out background tunes and make them demand your attention. Producer Ikechan uses keyboard and weather-report-ready beats to create relatively easy-going tracks, but wraps them up in a layer of crackle that serve as another layer rather than…
The past two weeks have been packed with work, meaning keeping up with new music has been a challenge. Hopefully I can find a way to vanish to a mountain retreat or something and just catch up on everything in the near future (more likely, actually get back to all my emails and, uhhhh, do…