The mini-album may not be as strange as Japanroos, but it’s still a weird format for a record. A little longer than an EP but apparently not enough minutes to be an album, the mini-album has become the go-to format for many indie bands in Japan. Though it sometimes seems like a band releasing a…
The Summer Sonic Festival, now entering its second decade of existence, might very well be the most disconnected music festival in all of Japan. Whereas the Fuji Rock Festival stockpiles dozens of domestic bands to compliment the various foreign acts playing, Summer Sonic mostly relegates Japanese acts to “opening” slots before noon. It’s the “international”…
Perfume’s 2010 output has followed a pretty business-like pattern thus far. The girls tackle a typical Perfume-sounding song for side A, said single getting the majority of playtime and advertising push. Meanwhile, Yasutaka Nakata puts in overtime at the lab for the B-side, creating thrilling new pop-concoctions which push the trio into interesting new territory….
On “Say What?,” the sixth track on Cubismo Grafico Five’s new album Double Dozen, the band seemingly stumble into a song doubling as an appropriate description of their music. “Are you garage band?/Are you trash band?” lead Cubismo man Gakuji Matsuda shouts at some unknown entity. “Are you really punk?/Are you hard core?/Are you electro?”…
Seems most of Japan missed the film PCU, because most concerts feature tons of fans being “that guy” wearing a t-shirt from the band playing that night. It’s a weird flip-around, realizing you, the dweeb wearing another group’s swag, might actually constitute the minority. Self-consciousness doesn’t seem to exist at Japanese shows, replaced by real…