At some point this fall, Make Believe Melodies turned ten. I’d known this decade milestone was looming — mainly because 2019 also marked my tenth anniversary of moving to Japan to work in the countryside teaching English to bored teenagers “for a year or two, tops” — and toyed around with ways to celebrate. Then life happened…
Producer SNJO has a new album out on Local Visions in November, but first taste “Time” is too irresistible to put off until the whole thing comes out. This is the electronic artist at their most playful to date, turning the squelchy synth sounds that added constant tension to last year’s Mikai No Wakusei into…
“Bedroom pop” implies a certain amount of roughness. This is, after all, music made in the same spot someone sleeps, a space like that doesn’t imply top-notch quality being guaranteed. But — and I’m not breaking ground here with this observation — artists have become far more sophisticated with how they create music, resulting in…
#40 Kyary Pamyu Pamyu Japamyu The world finally caught up to Yasutaka Nakata, and then Nakata himself tried to catch up with all the kids weaned on Capsule downloads. Looking at the J-pop producer’s year could lead someone down multiple paths, but the one I keep coming back to is how Nakata — always chasing…
A common failing of online musical movements is a lack of evolution. Nobody has to find new angles on a burgeoning sound, but at some point you end up with a lot of people slowing down or speeding up the same basic thing. That’s one of the reasons Local Visions has been such a welcome…