日本のジューク／フットワークって聞くと少し取っ付きづらいイメージがありますが、”Japanese Juke & Footwork Compilation“というそのまんまのタイトルのコンピは、シーンの入門にはうってつけ。様々なプロデューサーが、多彩なアプローチでこのシカゴのジャンルに挑戦しています。でも４５曲も収録されているので、もっと手軽にジャンルを知りたい場合は、食品祭り A.K.A. Foodmanの新曲、”Tantei Kun”がオススメ。切り刻まれたサンプルはジャンルの特徴を上手くとらえているのですが、テンポは比較的ゆったりぎみ(的確なのが聴きたい場合はPicnic Womenとか、アメリカのTraxmanをチェックして下さい）。でも、ソフトロック調の心地よさは素晴らしいです。視聴は以下から、もし気に入ったら、４５曲のコンピにも挑戦してみて下さい。
Few sounds get me more ramped up than that skittery “PICNIC WOMEN” sample that pops up in every song the Japanese footwork creator makes. Doesn’t matter what comes before or after (though that also tends to be good) – when I hear those four syllables, I get excited. Seiho played a Picnic Women song at…
最近ツイッターで村上春樹についての会話をよく目にします。激しい議論の中、支持する人は彼の表現する「美しい日常」を絶賛しているようですね。確かに村上春樹特有の、ありふれた日常をいかに美しいものにするか、という表現は素晴らしいと思います。私もそのような感性は好きですし、日本のアーティストのi-flsも普通だったら忘れ去られるようなテーマを音楽を通して表現しています。物やサービスがテーマだったり(“Twitter,” “Vocaloid,” “Family Restaurant”)自然がテーマだったり(“Summer Breeze,” “I Saw Raindrops”) 女性の名前が含まれていたり(“Satomi,” “Chiaki Gazed You,” “Yui”)。Garagebandで作られたボーカルレスな楽曲達は、驚く程少ない数の楽器から構成されていて、短くもノスタルジック。まるで気持ちをスケッチしたかのような。i-flsはここ数ヶ月だけでも数多くのリリースをしているのですが、Enhanced GardenというEPに収録されている、飛び跳ねるような”No Adventure”、幻想的な”Stardust”、そしてまるで好きな女性が自分を見つめているような気持ちにさせてくれる”Chiaki Gazed You”がオススメです。”Chiaki Gazed You”は嬉しくも不安なあの気持ちを上手く表現できているのではないでしょうか。i-flsの楽曲はまるで日記のようにシンプルで、日常を美しいものとして表現しています。
Honestly, I’m still not sure how this grabbed my attention. Was it the name of the band and song, neither of which really make any sense? Was it their minimalist Bandcamp, featuring just this one song and with a header that’s nothing more than an e-mail address? The track at the center of all this,…
1. Man, Especia better be breakout J-Pop stars in 2014 or I will be hyper sad. 2. LUVRAW is one half of LUVRAW & BTB, a goofy rap duo that coat their rhymes in copious amounts of talk box. They have, for me at least, always been too cheesy, the vocal manipulation coming off as…
全く予想していなかった事が起きました…東京のCanopies And Drapesがヒップ・ホップに挑戦したみたいです。最近できた新しい音楽ブログ、Lights + Music（見てね！）が最近インタビューしたのですが、”Chocolate Song” という新曲にはなんとゲストとして、オノマトペ大臣が参加しています。Canopies And Drapesの可愛らしくドリーミーなサウンドはそのままに、ラップ・ビートを使って、オノマトペ大臣がその上にラップできるように作られています。でも正直言うと、Canopies And Drapesの曲をバックグラウンドに使う場合、ラップよりも歌もののほうがマッチする気はします。一番印象的だったディテールはというと、Canopies And Drapesが数回 “Lay yourself beside me”と歌うところで、Weekendの影響かな？と思いました。この可愛らしいディテールが、彼女のタレントを改めて感じさせてくれます。
Three songs to take you into the weekend (oh thank goodness it is here!). Let’s get into it: – Kobe’s tofubeats had a really busy 2013, and he appears to not be slowing down as the calendar turned over. “CHNGEYRHRT” though finds him stepping away from the nearly all-original sounds that dotted his music last…
Japan’s juke and footwork scene can seem intimidating to dive into – the aptly titled Japanese Juke & Footwork Compilation collects 45 tracks from a wide range of producers serving up their take on the Chicago genre – but sometimes all it takes is one song to serve as a guide. Shokuhin Maturi A.K.A. Foodman’s newest song “Tantei Kun” might be one such entry point, as it hits on all the elements of the genre without feeling like too much to take in at once. Foodman dices his samples up, but the song moves at just a slightly slower speed than most footwork tracks (see Picnicwomen or American artist Traxman for examples of something that darts more). Most importantly, the purée of soft-rock sounds sound really nice. Listen below, and if you like that, give the aforementioned 45-song compilation a whirl.
Cleverly named house artists HARUOSEVEN’s new track “Feel It On” easily could have been just another bubbly jam floating around on the Internet. That wouldn’t have been a terrible thing, as “Feel It On” boasts big multi-colored blasts of keyboard surrounding an appropriate vocal sample. Cherryboy Function released an EP knocking out similarly dizzy wooshes…
Don’t call it a chill out. Group2 have been embracing wonkier and at times confrontational stances since releasing indie-pop gems via Ano(t)raks, but for “Ceremony” they slow everything down a notch. As a first taste of their forthcoming debut full-length, it might be a bit unrepresentative of what they’ve done up until now — it’s…
America’s Orange Milk recently wrapped up a tour of Japan and, despite a few setbacks — mainly, the lack of Giant Claw — they put on a great set of experimental loopiness (well, at least at the Tokyo leg at WWW I attended). As they are central to the label as a whole, the performances…
After the interstellar get-down of Alien Pop II, Scenery gives Snail’s House a chance to catch their breathe and return to carefully constructed pieces that reveal themselves slowly but surely. This album comes much closer to last year’s intricate L’été, a series of numbers coming close to fading into the background but have been put…
Uchu Nekoko have a busy August in store, as they’ll release a new EP and and a new album a few weeks later. “Summer Sunny Blue” appears on both, and features singer Irie You delivering laid-back vocals over a very easy-going arrangement, full of keyboards and horns. It’s very much in line with one of…
Writing about Avengers In Sci-Fi rules because I get to break out (does blast-off work there?) all sorts of space jokes and it’s OK because the band seem to have no problem sounding as intergalactic as possible. The group just released a new album, Dynamo, last week and have put up a sample of track…