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…
#10 Suiyoubi No Campanella (Wednesday Campanella) Galapagos I shouldn’t be surprised by anything KOM_I of Suiyoubi No Campanella does, yet back in the early days of summer I watched slack-jawed as she left the stage at a quaint venue near Mt. Fuji and wandered into a field that had been set on fire sometime during…
Navigating emotions and then simply going for total release is a constant element of Harunemuri’s music. It’s part of the reason her Haru To Syura album from earlier in the year is among 2018’s finest — the constant tension between turning things over frequently and using words as a way to figure out what’s happening,…
Harunemuri doesn’t represent a new standard in Japanese pop music, but she does point towards a direction where a lot of things are starting to go. Last year’s Atom Heart Mother (really!!) offered a great introduction into what she’s all about, placing her rap-sing delivery in the spotlight against a mix of wonky beats and…