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New Foodman: ODOODO

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You can choose to be cynical about the state of everything — or you can see that Diplo And Friends allowed Foodman on to play Number Girl among other tracks and feel joy. Watching Foodman continue to nab attention with his wonderfully oddball music remains one of the most positive developments in music, and latest offering ODOODO just keeps those good vibes coming. Consider this one Foodman’s club album — like, emphasis on Foodman’s club, which would be really fun and really disorienting and definitely have a sick lighting system. The producer’s music has always had a danceable side, but often the grooves were constructed out of a wild assortment of sounds (at Foodman’s club, you will enjoy all those disembodied yelps at crystalline synths wrapping around one another). Possibly owing to its release via Mad Decent, most of ODOODO moves at a faster tempo and features rhythms not far removed from your usual big-field festival. Just listen to those big bass blurts and skittering drum pattern on “Dege” or the rumbling beat guiding “Funiki” forward. Of course, those are surrounded by warped vocal shuffles and really squishy sounding notes bordering on like…someone gagging?…respectively. This is floor-filling stuff filtered through Foodman’s mind, the energetic cousin to Aru Otoko No Densetsu more spacious offerings (down to a song called “Fue,” a title also used on that 2018 collection). It slows down a bit near the end — and veers off into pure cartoon oddballery with “Colosseum,” wherein synthesized strings collide with Superballs — but in general this is Foodman loosening up and cutting loose — with plenty of sampled screams to go around. Get it here, or listen below.

New Lulu: “Hot”

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The latest from Lulu details a scene that sounds lovely, but delivered in a way hinting at how even the best times are bound to slip away at some point. “Hot” features lyrics about pools and warm nights, but delivered over a sparse beat marked by faint keyboard notes that mostly put the focus on Lulu’s voice. She’s not melancholy or anything, but her delivery coupled with the relatively downcast beat behind her adds a sense of temporality to “Hot” that at least lets the shadow behind the fun be a little more present. Listen above.

New Y.a.M.A: BOOOOM​!​! EP

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“Pow.” “Whomp.” “Ka-Boom.” The tracks on footwork producer Y.a.M.A’s latest play out like comic book injections, and the accompanying songs deliver the same kind of frantic energy that really begs for movement rather than words. “Pow” leads off with squiggly synth stabs dancing around the skittery beat, going for constant movement over all else. “Glug” approaches Foodman territory in how it uses vocal snippets as texture, although this one still gets nudged forward by a needly beat and some energetic “ehhhs!” in the back. And it all spills over with the one-two punch of closers “Splat” and “Whomp,” busy numbers focused on just making contact. Get it here, or listen below.

A New Normal?: Kubotakai’s 305

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It’s going to be a month straight of simultaneous looking back and gazing forward now that we have an era name in hand. Eventually it will feel exhausting the way all discourse gets in the internet age, but there is something charming right now about it, being in this weird lame-duck time where time just blends together all weird (not to mention…the actual announcement of Reiwa was fun! Rare are moments everyone comes together for something that isn’t calamity).

Kubotakai’s 305 works as a good soundtrack for this moment, as it’s an album every bit lost in time, though maybe pointing towards a new normal. The young artist exists in the same category as Mom or Native Rapper or Lulu, Japanese musicians coming up in a digital age where borders barely exist, this reality reflected in their music. 305 opens with a song where city-pop-revival-adjacent sounds collide with laid-back rapping, and gets followed up by “Heisei Shojo,” a woozier rap number about being the last adolescent of the previous era (the other path this album blazes…and one where I feel more like a tourist on…is a reflection of youth in Japan in 2019, with references to late nights out and fancy Starbucks orders and longing). Like many other young indie artists in Japan, Kubotakai doesn’t let ideas of what something should sound like stop them from just blurring everything together to create something far more interesting than usual pastiche efforts. And it will sound lovely in April. Get it here, or listen below.

Haru Nemuri Teams Up With China’s Prune Deer For “Return”

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Haru Nemuri — responsible for our favorite album of 2018 — recently wrapped up a tour of China. While there, she met up with Chinese instrumental rock band Prune Deer to collaborate on a song called “Return.” The group provides an initially lumbering backdrop, a sort of post-rock adjacent lurch that Nemuri hasn’t really tackled before. But her sing-speak — about the depravity and ugliness of modern life, including a line about Jesus Christ not actually dying for your sings — fits in well here, and it allows her an opportunity to show off her vocal tempo as Prune Deer’s music mutates all around her. These are two artists who do drama extremely well meshing just right, and delivering a burner. Listen above.