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Yuigot Teams Up With Seana To Become Applekid, Shares Plena

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Netlabel artists moving a little bit away from the wild Web-oriented styles of the late 2000s and embracing more familiar formats — often with vocalist alongside them — isn’t a 2018 development, but it feels more prevalent this year. Yuigot is the latest to give this team-up a try, working with singer Seana under the name Applekid (they even made their own concept character!). Plena finds the music smoothed out every so slightly, leaving enough room for Seana to deliver her vocals with plenty of aplomb. “Cityscape” fizzes, burbles and at one point makes a major tempo change, but it also never feels too overwhelming, everything kept in just enough check to construct a pop song. “Echo” plays it even straighter, though for anyone craving something a bit more 2009, “Marble” comes through with a follow-the-bouncing-bal speed and a rush of syllables sprayed out over it. Get it here.

New Le Makeup: Matra EP

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Matra works as the bridge between Le Makeup’s two musical sides. The Osaka artist’s voice bounces off of the beats here, approaching a rap while adding an emotional urgency to every song here that really resonates when they let the edges of the songs fray a bit. “Fade” is right, Le Makeup guiding the song forward with a guitar melody slightly obscured, their voice hovering somewhere in the back. That’s the one inclusion here that feels like it could easily slide into last year’s Hyper Earthy, but plenty of details sprinkled throughout this EP remind of Le Makeup’s focus on the everyday, from guitar lines to obscured singing.

Yet Matra moves too, revisiting the dancehall and Bala Club inspired tracks appearing on something like Esthe. “Lush” pointed the way, and Le Makeup only goes further across this EP. The title track incorporates clanging percussion, but the effect isn’t intimidating but rather something that fits in nicely with the stream-of-thought vocals they bring to the song. That tension carries over to “Wilted” and “White Curtain,” both with plenty of energy surging through them. It’s two parts of Le Makeup coming together to form a distinct voice. Get it here, or listen below.

New Memoryhook: Nothing To Do EP

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It appears Nagoya dream-pop project Memoryhook has undergone a few changes over the last few months. The actual members making up this project seem to have changed, with one half (Takuma, handling bass and beats) sticking around while EMiSM has stepped up as new vocalist and keyboardist. Except…she’s also the featured vocalist here? Whatever that all means, the music on the new Nothing To Do EP offers some departures from what this fledgling outfit showed at the start of summer. The title track is blurry-around-the-edges dance-pop with a few melancholy vocal lines sneaking through the digital mist. “We Are Different” goes for something more menacing with its speak-sing vocals, still buried beneath some slight distortion and with some uneasy ripples worked in. There was a period a few years ago where all music that had sing-speak and creepy guitar solos was described as “Lynchian.” That’s the shift (well, or a move towards trip-hop) Memoryhook goes for on this number and the sparser closer “Losing Your Mind.” It’s still a dream, just a bit darker. Get it here, or listen below.

UPDATE: Looks like there hasn’t been any line-up change, thanks to Memoryhook for the clarification

New MPEG-7: ing

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Producer MPEG-7 operates in many modes, sometimes slicing up anime samples and other times creating hip-hop beats. Latest release ing might be them operating in their best mode, however. It’s a four-song set focused primarily on drama. It is loaded up with strings and piano notes, the latter making up the chilly into of “Bleaking” before drum machine beats skitter in and add tension (and sudden movement) to the track. That element defines the best moments here, especially centerpiece “Shrieking,” a slow-burn going from rumbling to sparse. ing nails melancholy, and that proves to be MPEG-7’s finest element. Get it here, or listen below.

New Soutaiseiriron: “Neo Future”

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We’ve officially gone beyond the point of no return when it comes to caring about celebrities and politics, so I’m glad Soutaiseiriron is still out here making songs about the future that aren’t really about anything in particular except for wordplay and semi-absurdist (but not really) imagery. “Neo Future” finds the band dipping into their love of nerdy tech words to create an image of tomorrow oversaturated technology, reflected in a busy synth melody eventually ripped apart by a guitar solo. Yet it is neither judgemental or giddy, just kind of shrugging at the idea. And it reaches a peak when they sing “put your hands up bots / put your hands up humans.” Hey, seems closer than you think! Listen above.