“Kawaii” music in Japan tends to embrace a sugary maximalism, aided by bells and whistles…literally. It’s a hit or miss approach, and one extending beyond SoundCloud producers who love anime girls as art — when it works, it’s a dizzying mutation on modern electronic music, but when it misses it gets really cloying. TsubusareBozz avoids the latter on “Blue Fairy” by letting a stutter into the song. The self-described creator of “cute” sounds avoids full-on cotton candy in favor of something splitting the difference between Avec Avec and a chill hip-hop beat. The key addition is a fractured vocal sample, a touch that never lets any chime or synth note get comfortable, and makes it all a little more tipsy. Listen above.
New House Of Tapes: “I Can Not Say Goodbye To You”
Nagoya’s House Of Tapes has tried out a lot over his career — and now comes something resembling a tone poem. “I Can Not Say Goodbye To You” finds the producer sing-speaking a melancholy set of lyrics against a discombobulated (but never overwhelming) electronic backdrop. While it isn’t as suffocating as their older material, their is a nice bit of tension between the singing and the music, which moves from scatterbrained to somewhat ethereal by the end. Listen above.
Two Compilations Of Music For Summer 2018 From commune310
Oh what a wonderful way to close out the remaining days of summer. The ever-reliable commune310 shared two compilations of summer material recently, and A gets off to a hot start, with Bamboo’s “I Can Feel It’ delivering some loose-limbed funk before Yuzen’s eight-minute-plus “Yourself” delivers a slow-burning blast of tropical delight, loaded up with island percussion and dazzling synth melodies that result in an early peak for this set. It only gets faster from there — complete with high-speed rework of Perfume’s “Fusion” worked in. Listen to it below, or get here.
B doesn’t really slow down from there, though it does take on a new kind of energy. It leans heavier on future bass and EDM elements, though it also makes room for the Tatsuro-Yamashita-sampling delirium of Star Jaxx’s “Shall We?” a clever re-work that avoids easy tempo-up feelings in favor of something a bit more slippery (with original vocals to boot). The pace only picks up from there, and the whole thing ends up being a good pick me up, complete with a Nelly-Kelly-Rowland flip courtesy of kissmenerdygirl. Get it here, or listen below.
New Boyish: “Saudade”
Apologies if this blog has seemed a bit nostalgic lately…that’s partially because many of the artists that were formative for me from 2010 — 2013 when doing this came back with new material that has put me in a weird headspace. And now here comes indie-pop outfit Boyish, a group that started life as a bunch of guys playing zippy and melancholy twee-adjacent rock under a layer of feedback. But I’ve also realized — especially after listening to “Saudade” — how much of my experiences with certain bands are just, like, things I’ll never really be able to share with most people. Shout out to the two dozen people who went to Shibuya Echo (more a living room than a livehouse) to watch Boyish play every few months, but for most folks this is nothing. I think this realization — which, really, I should have had much earlier in life, but that’s 2018 for you — makes “Saudade” hurt a little more. It’s a slow, mournful number, punctured by a saxophone that opts for sadness over urban chilling. It’s probably a little too long a sulk session, but I’m also in a zone where I am happy to soak myself in it. Listen above.
New Yuri Urano (Yullippe): “Autline”
Now going under her name Yuri Urano, Yullippe is expanding on her unsettling industrial-flaked sound on the first preview of an EP out on Central Processing Unit next month. “Autline” teases the same chilly atmosphere that has drifted through the bulk of her works up until now, the slow chug and rumble of the beat hinting at something ominous on the horizon. But the real unease comes from stuttered syllables delivered by Urano herself. The steady stream of “da’s” mesh well with the chirpy synth notes and the more intimidating bass touches, everything morphing around every little bit to keep the tension coming. Listen above.