The guiding principal behind Make Believe Melodies, ever since I founded it all the way back in 2009, was to focus exclusively on music from Japan. Truth is, though, I have certainly broken that guiding principal every once in awhile – I’ve written about Japanese artists who currently reside in other countries, and have even…
Netlabel Maltine Records has always taken cues from J-Pop, but in 2012 they seem to be hosting more and more music sounds like proper pop rather than simply inspired by it. The title track to Avec Avec’s Oshiete EP was one of his most streamlined tracks yet, while later in the year several Maltine artists…
Something called Rabbitbass…and blessed with album art like the above…can’t possibly be an aggressive blend of electronic-music styles that slaps the listener around like a particularly sassy, sugared-upped toddler, can it? Well, by posing that question you probably know where I’m going with this…Miii’s Rabbitbass EP does the above, with the attention-span of a typical…
40. Nanba Shiho’s “Kodona No Kaidan” Because Sakanaction needed even more praise this year – that group’s lead singer Ichiro Yamaguchi helped produce this single, which explains why this sounds so exciting and different from most whizzing-and-whirring idol pap in 2011. The opening synths icicles bring to mind “Rookie,” and the dance-centric beat was all…
Maltine appears to not be huge on celebration. The Internet label hit 100 releases recently, but skipped over it in favor of diving right into release number 101. Some labels probably would have celebrated such a moment with lists and look backs and all sorts of other features. Maltine had an unrelated live event in…