Make Believe Mailer #104: Bandcamp Friday Special February 2024
Rambling Newsletter
I used to write a feature for OTAQUEST rounding up some Japanese recommendations for Bandcamp Friday. I’ve decided to keep doing that for the remaining installments of this campaign. Here’s a dive into Japanese releases worth your time, attention and money from September. Welcome to the February edition!
I’m genuinely on the edge of insanity due to a combination of work issues and my entire family (but not me somehow) getting the flu this week. Maybe shorter than usual, please send positive energy.
TAMTAM — Ramble In The Rainbow
TAMTAM embrace a gorgeous feeling of dissolving on Ramble In The Rainbow, the group’s first for America’s Peoples Potential Unlimited. Over a decade ago, the project started as a straight-ahead reggae group, respectful and reverent with little room to let loose. Yet as the years went on, they loosened up and slowly embraced a more holistic approach. Elements of funk, new age and jazz mixed into its music, with once sturdy songs starting to become looser and at times psych-ed out. Lyrical concerns focused on body acceptance and pushing forward through the hum-drum of work. With its latest EP, TAMTAM offers a set of songs that feel like a sauna session — woozy and dizzy but soul enriching. It imagines a world where cero became obsessed with self care instead of modern dread.
The songs here hang in the air, like morning fog. The dub-influenced grooves of TAMTAM’s early years help propel the songs forward, but become dizzy as vocals blur together and instruments float in and out on songs such as “Go Down The Mountain.” The title track and “Distant Look” pack a lot of sonic details into their frames, but never feel overly busy as they saunter ahead. Ramble In The Rainbow moves ahead on funkiness and blurred sounds, but out of this whirl come creations like “Doors,” a catchy string-accented fever dream offering glimpses of emotional complexity wrapped up in deep metaphor (“I’m knocking on every single door” is…a hell of a way to think about life, good and bad, that has rattled in my head since this came out). An early 2024 highlight. Get it here.
Various Artists — Juke Shiyouya Selected By POGO
Japan loves trends — just tonight, I walked by an “Instagram famous candy apple stand!” in Harajuku, confused and baffled by something pedaling hard-ass fruit could draw a line. Still, I appreciate the devotion musicians across the archipelago have for certain sounds — shoegaze never left, and the amount of bands still trying to decode the Sarah Records catalog is stunning. Juke has proven just as persistent a sound, and right on cue Omoide Label delivers a new installment of its Juke Shiyouya series, highlighting familiar names and new alike…and reminding of how many continue to explore everything possible with this Chicago sound regardless of what’s happening elsewhere. Get it here.
Lolica Tonica — Acid Future
I should have known, the signs were there! A few weeks ago, dj twinturbo released an absolute gem of an album…including a real nostalgia shot via a cut sampling Lolica Tonica’s ecstatic “Eyes On You.” “Oh wow…Lolica Tonica…what happened to those guys?” Well right on cue, they returned with a new three-song offering on Trekkie Trax, signalling a slight stylistic shift (horns samples! laid-back grooves!) without losing the energy that made them a netlabel jolt in the late Aughts. “Solid State,” in particular, shows new tricks with the same spirit intact. Get it here.
House Of Tapes — “Psychedelic Honey”
Alright, so this is closer to how my head feels this week. Get it here.
Various Artists — brutshits compilation 4
God, give me the goofiest, most fun dance compilations every time. The latest from brutshits features Vocaloid, Le Knight Club tracks getting remixed into jumbled Jersey Club, something called “Americas funniest home videos theme 1998 (kawaii mix)” featuring samples of fucking Togepi, a hardcore interpretation of a school graduation, and so much more. This sounds like a blast, which is what a trip to the club should be. Get it here.
kinoue64 — Shiawase Ni Kurasou Ne
Robo No Ishi — mikgazer 2024
I’m constantly poking at myself trying to figure out why “shoegaze + Vocaloid = hits” for me over the last few months. I think part of it is the combination itself — hardly new, but still so jarring that I respect the chutzpah to imitate My Bloody Valentine with an anime girl’s synthesized voice. That also leads into the glee I get imagining people blowing a stack when they hear Hatsune Miku over feedback, especially in the wake of oh-so-serious shoegaze discourse on Tiwtter. Yet really…I think it’s just a combo that works super well. Vocaloid creations blend in really well with guitar squall, with these two releases offering fantastic examples of their sonic and emotional impact. Get them above.
CIGARETTE In Your Bed — Lost in…
Though a group purely of humans can do the whole shoegaze thing well too. Get it here.
romhustler — snx
Perhaps another identity for rising creator iga (who also features but ehhhhh never know)? Whoever this is, they’ve used blown-out sounds in just the right way to create something angelic, albeit with dirt rubbed on the wings. Get it here.
Ackky — Existence and Cats
Hey, I like those two things. Oh, and also discombobulated dance music. Get it here.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies