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No Time To Chill: Yuri’s “Nijuuichi Seiki No Rinri”

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While I respect how so much music in the digital-and-streaming age can help people focus or get various chores done, I’m also a little hesitant of how frequently songs simply become background music. Besides often being boring, it just feels like a cheap approach to art, to reduce it to room filler. Yuri’s Nijuuichi Seiki No Rinri doesn’t allow listeners to drift off, because every track here moves in way demanding attention. This comes close to being a beat tape, underlined by the two guests here being rappers (including Tamana Ramen on . But these aren’t songs to do homework too. Opener “Kyou Mimei” matches bell chimes with pleasant electronic notes…before letting clanging percussion rattle off in the back, disrupting the dream-like state Yuri initially creates. This ever-present disconnect between the relaxing and ruptured proves to be the album’s strength, with numbers like “Access” not even settling into a beat structure, but shooting off all over from rhythmic to uneasy. Get it here, or listen below.

Into The Move: Yukio Nohara Featuring Pee. J Anderson “Floresta”

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Yukio Nohara teams up with Pee. J Anderson for an understated disco cut. Nothing too complex with this one — the pair start simple with a beat and a bass line, slowly adding a few other elements. Yet they never go overboard with it, as the bulk of “Floresta” revolves around the same two pieces that start the song off, just explored in different ways. From that, the pair construct a bouncy dance track. Listen below, or get it here.

New Okinawa Electric Girl Saya X AX: “Chastity”

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Noise can be escape, but it can also be confining. Early on, it feels like the latest from Okinawa Electric Girl Saya and AX might go too hard on the intense stuff. “Red Noise” and “Vacuum” lean into feedback, creating these blasts that would fit at home in any “Japanoise” show going down at an underground club. But it also feels like a lot, and a whole album of this onslaught might be better as an idea than a listen. Saya, however, mixes in plenty of other ideas alongside the harshness. She creates steely beats bordering on the industrial on the physical “Saya Goes To The City” while she conjures up mirage EDM for the sweltering “Heat Haze.”

The biggest revelation here is how well Saya works with others. CRZKNY stops by to add some ominous beats to the noise on the apocalyptic “Love Machine,” while Foodman lays down an on-brand off-kilter beat for her to sing over on “O.K.N.W.” The highlight comes in collaboration with Soejima Takuma, the team creating a glassy and breathy electronic number late that is a total departure from the noise around it. Yet all this variety only makes those passages of aggression feel so much more liberating. Get it here, or listen below.

Self Analysis: MON/KU’s “Inner Odyssey”

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“Inner Odyssey” aims to figure itself out, though the journey itself really does end up being the highlight. Artist MON/KU has dabbled in the disorienting and downright suffocating, but here they get a bit more playful. With singing coated in digital effects, MON/KU slithers through the slight electronic backdrop, just trying things out until a saxophone rips in. From there things slow down, fizzle and pick back up, almost feeling like electronic improv. Yet this unpredictability sells it. Listen above.

New Nate And Flip Flop Fly: “Reflects My Self” And “Intersect”

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Big week for rapper Nate, involved in two of the best songs released out of Japan over the last seven days. She takes centerstage on “Reflects My Self,” a woozy number that finds her sing-rapping (and adding in some delightful ad libs) over a rippling electronic beat close to Local Visions’ brand of out-of-time-ness. It is just the right backdrop for Nate’s delivery, here concealing plenty of longing, and prone to being manipulated into a near-Vocaloid thing that helps it meld in well with the electronic backdrop. Listen above.

She also teamed up with another rising act, Magical Ponika, as Flip Flop Fly on the song “Intersect.” This one inches a bit away from ennui in favor of a tag-team approach over a kitchen-sink beat that finds the pair pogoing on top with boasts and a generally upbeat disposition. Listen below.