Suburbia had its moment a few years ago, at least when you look back at the shape of the North American rock scene (limiting, but it was still a thing). Exclamation-pointed by Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, this interest in the communities outside major cities was also propelled by acts like Real Estate, Ducktails and Titus Andronicus, all from New Jersey, who sang about life in what a lot of people view as simply as state-sized suburb of New York (for the prior, a hazy-lazy nostalgic thing…for the latter, the angsty side of it all). That brief thematic interest in the suburbs faded…in 2013, the biggest releases have been obsessed with bright lights and big cities.
In Japan, life in a metropolitan area (Tokyo, mainly) remains prevalent, but 2013 has seen some wonderful exceptions. The best has been producer i-fls who, using mostly Garageband, has created several albums and EPs of emotionally rich, suburban-obsessed music. Add to that an artist who i-fls has been writing a lot about on his personal Tumblr, complete with appropriate name – The Bed Town. The two don’t sound remotely similar – The Bed Town is, I believe, a one-man operation who creates actual songs, with like guitars and drums and actual lyrics as opposed to i-fls beautiful vibes. But both are concerned with life outside the city. With The Bed Town, this has become even clearer via two video he released for his new album Karupirusu.
The first is of The Bed Town in (presumably) his home, sorta goofing off. Even better is the clip for “Namida No Time Card,” which is mostly shots of a typical Japanese suburb – lots of parks, apartments and blue sky. The music itself on the album is solid indie-pop,sometimes fast and fierce (“Third Cup Of Moscow Mule”) and other times very much laid back (“Orange No Niwa,” the whispered “Zenya”). It comes off as a release where the words are very important and that has made it tough for me to really crack through this (this came out like two weeks ago, and I’ve been listening to it a lot), but the videos helped me a lot. Still digesting it, but I am intrigued by The Bed Town’s suburban view. Get the album here.