Make Believe Mailer #112: Bandcamp Friday Special May 2024
Feel These Have Been Extra Loaded Recently
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 the last month. Welcome to the May edition!
in the blue shirt — Convex Mirror EP
Allow for a dip into the memory bank, only because this one has aged oh so finely. A little over a decade ago, Kyoto’s Ryo Arimura closed out an event at Mogra that, in retrospect, was fucking loaded from top to bottom. It probably felt that way in the moment too, and I do remember at some point late wondering “do I need to catch in the blue shirt after a whole day of this?” The answer was a resounding yes, as Arimura proceeded to play one of the best sets I’ve ever seen — not of the day, like in my life — all by splicing and colliding vocal samples, like a netlabel Large Hadron Collider producing pure joy.
That same persistent revelry courses through Convex Mirror. Arimura’s approach to creation remains largely unchanged — find vocals, cut ‘em up, place them against breezin’ synths and beats to create twisty new dance DNA strains — yet he’s still able to find new approaches to his craft without losing the brightness. The most revelatory tracks here find in the blue shirt transforming limber funk into a trap-indebted rattler on “Boo-Boo,” or taking near-barked vocals and making them feel life-affirming on “Place For Us.” Next to familiar serotonin spikers like “Into Deep (What I Need),” in the blue shirt keeps on find a way to engineer euphoria. Get it here.
computer fight — Owarinaki Nichijo Wo Ikiro
Tokyo’s computer fight seem like a band best seen live. The unpredictable nature of the group coupled with a stylistic whirlwind approach to sound — one moment, you think you can place them in some lineage of Tokyo post-punk, then they pinpoint turn into sounding like a Koenji-fied Red Hot Chili Peppers that then decide to become a punk band midway through a song — would probably just be a treat in a livehouse. I’ve yet to had the chance to see them, so I appreciate this live album — which also feels like computer fight’s most unified release to date after a series of brain-re-arranging EPs. It helps that it sounds like this show was held in like a particularly cramped practice room (Studio Dom?) or like, some dude’s Leopalace. But those up-close cheers fit in just fine in computer fight’s world. Get it here.
Hodge And Nakamura Minami — Everyday in the Club / Bounce on the Water
Bristol’s Hodge summons a version of Nakamura Minami perfect for their aggressive floor-focused sound of “Everyday in the Club.” Here, the Trekkie Trax associate plays the role of Sisyphus, her celebration of excess and hypnotic delivery of the title phrase bordering on the unsettling. Still, beats pushing a rock up a hill, and her voice plus the pounding sounds around her do make it sound pretty inviting. Get it here.
punipunidenki — HYPERGRAVITY VISIONS
punipunidenki out here reminding listeners few are as elastic artistically as they are with a concept album for an imagined sci-fi video game. HYPERGRAVITY VISIONS allows them to dip back in to the electronic sounds present previously on MIRAI Addiction and DENSHI DISCO MITSURIN, but this time around embracing something split between synth-pop precision and electro-pop (complete with vocal-pitch experiments). Their pop sensibility, though, comes through just as clearly. Get it here.
neon-neuron — Boku Wa Kanojo Wo Rima Nadzuke
Welcome to the “online-centric labels defining 2024 for me” segment of this month’s Bandcamp feature. Starting off with…the fine folks at KAOMOZI, whose latest offering is a delirious set of mutant dance-pop tunes courtesy of neon-neuron. It’s also a handy gateway into what I find so fascinating about this new era of netlabels (or netlabel-inspired, at least). The artists huddled around them approach vocals as something to manipulate completely, as neon-neuron does here stretching out their voice into electrified taffy and often letting multiple neon-neuron’s crash into one another over zippy piano melodies. The base is familiar and the sort of thing that in the past would have made major labels perk up. The singing over it aims to subvert all that, in favor of a form of expression all their own. Get it here.
kinoue64 — Haneikyukikan
Speaking of internet-impacted vocals…a new one from kinoue64, via Siren For Charlotte. After embracing his own voice, they return to casting Hatsune Miku as the eternal shoegaze siren over one of the swifter set of songs the project has offered up to date. Get it here.
callasoiled — GLASS
Sometimes, the vocals just need to blur into the sound around them and let the emotional lift do the work. The OTHER Siren For Charlotte release from this month is much more slow burning, all about songs taking time to reveal themselves while building up for a payoff. Angelic strands of singing pass through, but they are but a layer in something more grand. Even when callasoiled dismisses the meditation session to open the pit on “Yume To Kodoku To Shiroi Iro,” the singing is buried beneath noise, a textural detail to an album meant to overwhelm from multiple angles. Get it here.
Various Artists — CAR CRASH AND SIREN
Need a compilation detailing the Japanese side of hyperflip (ie Dariacore, remember Dariacore?)? Well, Lost Frog Productions has you covered. Get it here.
Stupid Kozo — Full Send EP
Had me with a song titled “Land Sax” alone, for goodness sakes. Stupid Kozo comes through with an absolute blast of a dance EP, keeping the mood casual and a little bit open while still making sure every song here bounces ahead for when folks want to let loose a little. Get it here.
fish — through being lame
A very solid set of rockers from Nagoya’s fish, fitting in a good mix of guitar heroics alongside the more ennui-soaked words you’d expect from an indie outfit based out in Aichi Prefecture. Get it here.
kurayamisaka — “Highway”
Though not to shift that sense of longing on just those outside the capital, because plenty of creators within its boundaries can still turn to indie-rock as a way to work through it all. Get it here.
LLLL Featuring Emma Aibara — “See U”
Hopefully more on this one soon…but LLLL, sure has been active lately, which is a great thing to see! Following work on the bala EP, they reunite with Zoom Lens for a fittingly dramatic number with vocals courtesy of Emma Aibara. Get it here.
Cwondo — Cwondo Memo 2020-2024
Personally, Cwondo exists as one of the most fascinating Japanese artists of the 2020s. Boasting a familiar background as a member of the rock group No Busses, his solo efforts are a fascinating triangulation between hyperpop, indie rock, dance pop and experimental. He’s just at home playing in Shimokitazawa as he is cutting it up with PAS TASTA. There appears to be a new Cwondo album on the horizon, and the creator themselves has shared this selection of sketches and oddballs for curious listeners to get insight into how the solo side of his artistic brain functions. It’s a glance into the creative process — whether strummed or synthesized, these rough melodies offer a peak into how Cwondo goes about his work — and one that is surprisingly intimate, particularly in an era of planned notes from major artists offering little and saying nothing. This, meanwhile, is raw material on display, to turn over. Get it here.
Various Artists — GIANTS
One of the many drafts lurking within the CMS of this newsletter is a piece about the Katamari Damacy soundtrack, serving as a celebration of a unified work and argument for the importance of video games as vessel for cultural trends (plenty of people listened to Cornelius and Pizzicato Five in the States…but like, I have a feeling many more heard “Lonely Rolling Star”). Who knows if that will see the light of day…but the main point should still be emphasized.
Shout out the fine folks at Brave Wave Productions for gathering a wide variety of video game composers for GIANTS, which finds heavyweights in this field interacting and creating new work inspired by the game soundtracks of yesteryear that have come to define so many lives. It’s a daunting work — 98 minutes! — but one capturing the full artistic breadth of video game composers, whether working with familiar themes (like, ones from Mega Man) to new tunes. Get it here.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies