Make Believe Mailer #118: Five 2024 First Half Faves
Dos Monos Not Included Because They'll Get Their Own Post (Have To Read Essays First)
God, this year has been busy. I’m not complaining really…better to always have something to do rather than sitting around trying to find work. Yet I definitely feel more woozy come this point of the year than usual. Turn the clocks back to 2023 for this post, and I was mostly struck by how fast everything seemed to be moving. Now, I barely can keep track of the days and am not really phased by it.
This is the point where I’d usually go “aw shucks” in explaining how this condition prevented me from being as on top of music over the last six months as usual — but I’ll zag and instead note that I’ve actually been pretty darn good on that front actually1. So far, 2024 has been an absolutely dynamite year for Japanese music — especially in the underground spaces and middle-class spaces of J-pop — and there’s multiple releases a week wowing me. Sure sure, I’m missing something…but I’m largely feeling just so spoiled with quality yet so starving time where writing about it all becomes the challenge.
With 2024’s first half ending, here are five albums I’ve enjoyed from the last six months that I’ve yet to properly celebrate around here.
Emerald Four — Makyoo Ni Te
Nothing can ever be purely smooth for a project like Emerald Four. Whether operating as a spacey synth duo or as four-member band, the Kyoto group excels at adding a chill to the pretty. It’s not quite the uncomfortable energy a lot of Make Believe Meldoies’ favorites boast, but rather a feeling akin to walking into a familiar room and knowing something is off. Was the picture always like that? Is that a theremin playing over an easy-breezy ‘70s guitar melody? What’s going on here?
Makyoo Ni Te keeps the Devil in the details. Surface wise, it isn’t far off from the new-music memories of the band’s last album, with some particularly catchy grooves not far removed from the sounds of someone like Mei Ehara. Yet the band never allows it to be all sunny. Synthesizer notes add a wonky lurch to multiple songs here, or a downright creepy vibe to “Ima.” Even when they come across some of the catchiest melodies in Emerald Four history — “Yume He” and “Kaikou” — the lyrics disrupt the upbeat music by pondering about the passage of time, existential dread and the very act of being (“Kaikou” in particular gets heady…and the inclusion of lyrics about “telepathy” put it in the Sotaisei Riron lane of surreal writing). A bright listen hiding something far trippier underneath. Listen above.
masaboy — MASOCHISTAR
“Hyperpop” was everywhere, and then it was cringe, and now it’s…back? Perhaps not truly in the sense of that genre name having the same shine it once did, but the actual sonic elements of it — whether spilling out from recent acts or accumulating from all the artists who influenced these younger artists — have been celebrated via Charli xcx’s brat. Rightfully so, and doubling as a good reminder that even as the terms and marketing copy around a sound can become cruddy, the actual artistic elements within can continue to be explored and expanded.
That’s been true in Japan for the last few years, where artists have really dug into the style (even if the name “hyperpop” itself tends to be more divisive). A lot of the continued thrill of this scene comes across on masaboy’s MASOCHISTAR, a fuzzed-out set of songs capturing the central artist’s flexibility while also making space for others around them to shine. masaboy themselves hop-scotches between bedroom belting, rapping and throaty come-ons throughout, bolstered by production courtesy of exciting young creators such as lazydoll and hirihiri (the latter transforming masaboy’s groans into a rollicking beat on “Internet tough guy”). Features by lilbesh ramko and Asstoro add even more juice to the album, and turn it into a celebration of a still-growing community. Listen above.
Satoko Shibata — Your Favorite Things
I have been trying to wander around aimlessly more this year. Perhpas as a result of being busier, it can sometimes be too easy to find myself sitting in a room for upwards of 10 hours a day. This is no good. It’s essential to walk around for a bit, or take advantage of trips to other parts of the city…particularly the new-to-me neighborhoods…to just stroll about. Aimless movement like this demands a very specific soundtrack. Say, an album that sounds effortlessly catchy and unfolding at the same speed my goofy legs go, but with songwriting smarts that reveal more details as you revisit it.
Your Favorite Things is a strolling album. Satoko Shibata sets her speed to midtempo and focuses on creating grooves that sound particularly delightful while walking around a moderately busy street, a train station or a suburban stretch. She uses electronics a few times to add some dazzle to it, but she’s mostly locked in here, crafting a funky stepper on “Side Step” and making a sun-grazed bit of daydreaming on album highlight “Reebok.” Yet the way she lays out her vocals and the way these songs slowly develop — something like “Reebok” sounds efoortless, but it’s passages are intricate and interlocking, the attention to detail done so well as to be invisible — adds depth to it all. Like TAMTAM’s fantastic Ramble In The Rainbow released right before it, Shibata makes it all look like a walk in the park. Listen above.
Hideki Kaji — BEING PURE AT HEART ~ Ari No Mama De Iinjyanai
Some artists use an album as a way to re-invent themselves, or challenge who they are, or just to try something new. Others, meanwhile, treat every new LP put out on a three-year cycle as something like a postcard to a friend. “Hey how are you doing? Things over here are pretty much the same…doing well! Hope to catch up soon.”
You could put all of Hideki Kaji’s 21st century albums into a Twee Grrrls Club tote bag, stick your hand in, pull out any of them, and pretty much be guaranteed to get as solid a set of indie-pop songs one could ask for. This man hasn’t mixed up his approach to youthful guitar pop save for occassionally breaking out a keyboard. But you know what? He deserves it! Partially because he was once mugged in Sweden while dressed as a pineapple for goodness sakes, imagine that! But really it’s because he’s just so darn solid at this. I don’t need Hideki Kaji’s jazz-rock oddyssey…give me more songs about espresso, soccer kits, and being young and in love.
That’s exactly what his latest is. Zippy indie-pop with some splashes of Shibuya-kei memories (“Preppy Peach”) to support lyrics focused on romantic yearning, eating breakfast and “Walkin’ After Dinner.” The second track here is a Christmas song…on an album released in April. Hideki Kaji can do what Hideki Kaji wants artistically, because he’s so good at this specific thing that the calendar doesn’t even matter. Listen above.
AIR-CON BOOM BOOM ONESAN — AIR-CON BOOM BOOM ONESAN REPUBLIC
So…is it a goof? Or is it such an earnest expression of what one comedian-turned-musical-chameleon as to feel like a gag? Can a joke still be aching? Are we experiencing a boom in TV-comedy types turning to song? Did we not give Pikotaro enough credit for his musical vision?
I don’t know, but I love the sounds established on AIR-CON BOOM BOOM ONESAN’s REPUBLIC. Like any good comedian, she gets us with a fake-out early on — “So,” above, follows the no-wave thrashing and wild saxing of her debut 2023 EP. “More of this? Oh, I’m ready for it!” Then she delivers a…pretty straightforward take on Strawberry Switchbalde’s “Since Yesterday,” a favorite of the musical community I imagine AIR-CON associates with. Followed by…a smoky jazz number? What’s happening here?
Something very playful and fun, even if not every song fits her performing energy right (the jazz and the ballads…I respect the hustle). She’s eager to experiment, whether by swinging into punk or laying down a six-minute new age-ish number. She covers “Time After Time” but warps it into a UK garage song. She follows THAT up with an out-of-body trance. AIR-CON BOOM BOOM ONESAN has given Japanese music it’s wildest karaoke session of the year. Listen above.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Follow the Best Of 2024 Spotify Playlist here!
The actual knock against myself I’d deliver is that I feel stupider about it all, and sometimes I’ll read something I wrote three months ago and be like…yeesh.