Make Believe Mailer #133: Make Believe Melodies' 100 Favorite Japanese Albums Of 2024

(More Than 100, But Ehhhhh All Good)

The story of Japanese music in the 2020s — which, surprise, reached their halfway mark — is the acceptance of songs from the country have become on a global scale and in turn how many international opportunities artists now have.

The last 12 months offered a banner example of this, with massive viral hits coupled with J-pop performers selling out world tours and wowing crowds at marquee events like Coachella. As someone who has been following the nation’s music industry since 2009 — Make Believe Melodies turned 15 this year, by the way — this long seemed impossible. Yet it’s a reality now.

J-pop’s step onto the global scene may be huge, but it does distract from another development that I found undeniable across 2024. We are in a golden era of Japanese music on all levels. Both familiar names and new creators are putting out work poking at the edges of familiarity, often giddy to let songs nearly collapse like sonic Jenga blocks. Genres and scenes are intersecting more than ever, producing mutations. Web-born styles have grown and splintered. There’s so much oddball stuff out there — especially in the underground — with no shortage to experience most of it live for those living in the country. A sold-out arena show in New York or a slot at a festival is neat, but one could come away as exhilarated by Japanese music this decade by simply poking around YouTube or Bandcamp, discovering brain-breaking sounds coming from rock outfits, producers or Virtual YouTubers.

I often come away feeling like I should maybe expand this list beyond the safety of “100 Favorite Japanese Albums” because I can always find a netlabel oddity or self-released rock album worth shouting about. Yet 2024 felt especially noteworthy — I mean hell, like 8 releases arrived in December that could climb up into the top 20 six months from now — and the urge to make this even longer was stronger than usual.

Some semblance of editorial oversight won out…though, as it is each year, multiple releases from an artist get wrangled into individual entries, meaning this is already over 100. My blog, my rules.

Here’s Make Believe Melodies’ Favorite 100 Japanese Albums of 2024, the latest installment in an annual effort to shine a light on music that rarely receives the attention I think it deserves…even as the concept of “J-pop” starts gaining momentum globally. There’s so much to discovers in modern Japanese music…consider this a bridge into it all.

As always, thanks for reading Make Believe Melodies in 2024! Consider going premium to support this blog further (and get an extra post every week).

Make Believe Melodies Favorite 100 Japanese Albums Of 2024

#100 callasoiled GLASS

#99 MEZZ mezz bunny 2

#98 in the blue shirt Convex Mirror EP

#97 Eve Under Blue

#96 ru-a MAD LOVE HARASSMENT

#95 Perfume Nebula Romance (Part 1)

#94 LAUSBUB ROMP

#93 Kyozo Sasaki Me Wo Satoru Mashita

#92 Togenashi Togeari TOGENASHI

#91 usabeni AIR

#90 neon-neuron Somewhere, but not here

#89 Satoko Shibata Your Favorite Things

#88 Carpainter Enoshima Ocean Blue

#87 DECO*27 TRANSFORM

#86 yuzuha Love Notes

#85 7th Jet Balloon S/T

#84 Ako GENE

#83 Stupid Kozo Full Send EP

#82 lazydoll music for ecology

#81 Hideki Akiyama Yumihamagasuri

#80 xiexie wellwell

#79 Dove Palomino

#78 Jiyugaoka And Sangatsu Syndrome

#77 LIL SOFT TENNIS BIG HARD TENNIS

#76 Various Artists Ganymede Ginza Elevator Hour

#75 CULT P Morphine + Epicure

#74 masaboy MASOCHISTAR

#73 King & Prince Re: ERA

#72 saya Saya

#71 iVy Yuyui Program

#70 bala bala-llel world

#69 AssToro Self-Assertive + grotesquegrandmother

#68 sonotanotanpenz Dance

#67 Gliiico The Oath

#66 BBBBBBB Shinpi

#65 Violent Magic Orchestra DEATH RAVE

#64 Kenshi Yonezu LOST CORNER

#63 Takuma Matsunaga Epoch

#62 HAKU Imaginary Friend

#61 CVLTE DIGITAL PARANOIA 2052

#60 iga BLUESKYFISH

#59 Emerald Four Makyoo Ni Te

#58 Haru Nemuri And Frost Children Soul Kiss

#57 yama awake & build

#56 4s4ki Collective Obsession + Jiai equal Jiai

#55 T.M.P Desktop

#54 Big Animal Theory Twofold

#53 A Taut Line Restoration

#52 kinoue64 Han Ei Hisaki Seki

#51 cosame chan Wraiths

#50 Cwondo Memoride 1

#49 effe eternal

#48 Rikon Nozaki Gunzo

#47 Haruko Tajima Rainbow Mements

#46 Rika Madobe Infinite Window

#45 CANDYGIRL BLUEBERRY + redberry

#44 HYPER GAL After Image

#43 Kazumichi Komatsu Computer Music

#42 Eiko Ishibashi Evil Does Not Exist

#41 Houshou Marine Ahoy!! Kimitachi Minna Pirates

#40 Ikkyu Nakajima DEAD + LOVE

#39 Cyber Cherry Fake California Forcefield

#38 Yukiguni pothos

#37 Suiyoubi No Campanella (Wednesday Campanella) POP DELIVERY

#36 PeanutsKun BloodBagBrainBomb

#35 TAMTAM Ramble In The Rainbow

#34 ex. happyender girl this year’s loid

#33 DAOKO Slash-&-Burn

#32 PICNIC YOU YOU & I

#31 Gokou Kuyt I’m Back

#30 IN THE SUN Dawn

#29 Fellsius Blue

#28 Liminal Mafia Liminaltaple vol1

#27 NENE Gekiatsu

#26 Inu loop/boy + Retype

#25 valknee Ordinary

#24 Homecomings see you, frail angel. sea adore you.¹

#23 Batten Girls CUE-DEN

#22 STARKIDS ASIAX + G-SPOT

#21 pppppfffffuuuuuiiiii Mofu in’

#20 CVN Xeno

The blurb portion of this list begins with a fitting album highlighting the collaborative bend so much underground Japanese music has taken on. Nobuyuki Sakuma has always played connector, whether in his role in the label CUZ ME PAIN or as editor in chief of leading music website AVYSS (which launches an imprint in 2025). Latest solo effort as CVN Xeno expands on that spirit of linking up by placing a greater emphasis on guest vocalists. Sakuma’s skittering electronic backdrops and mutant takes on neoperro remain as dizzying as ever, but now receive a dash of drama courtesy of singers like Milky or added chaos via sonic pranksters BBBBBBB, among many others. An experimental set inviting a wide range of creators to get involved, and a triumph of community. Get it here, or listen above.

#19 AIR-CON BOOM BOOM ONESAN AIR-CON BOOM BOOM ONESAN REPUBLIC

What’s the secret of comedy? Timing. What’s the secret of AIR-CON BOOM BOOM ONESAN REPUBLIC? Not having a fucking clue what’s coming next.

The musical side of comedian AIR-CON BOOM BOOM ONESAN (real name Nanami Hosaka) caught my attention last with an EP leaning fully into no-wave freakouts. I figured the full-length followup would be more of the same sax-assisted madness. And that certainly happens…on second song “So,” after an intro riffing on North Korean news broadcasts. From there though, her REPUBLIC offers a cornucopia of genre experiments delivered in varying shades of sincerity. You get trippy new age slow burns (“Name In The Moon”) and exercises in heavy metal goofballery (“WHITE WOLF”) following up stabs at wartime rah-rah (“Konya”). But those are joined by earnest attempts at lounge (“George JAZZ”) and almost straight-ahead covers of Strawberry Switchblade and Cyndi Lauper (OK, the latter imagines “Time After Time” as a 2-step joint…but it kinda works, with no traces of irony). At times resembling a group of housewives doing a karaoke session and others like Guernica, no 2024 release keeps you on your toes like this one. Listen above.

#18 Various Artists Watashi No Machi LP

It’s so easy to reduce internet music or web-centric scenes like Vocaloid as online phenomenons, floating around the digital ether between Ronald McDonald memes and assorted message board summary sites. Actual people in real places, though, make those songs, putting their own history and circumstances into what they do. The Watashi No Machi LP is a lovely reminder of this reality, as it gathers 12 Vocaloid producers from across Japan to create a song about their hometown, whether it be Tokyo or Okinawa or the middle of Mie Prefecture. It’s a clever exercise made special by how everyone involves approaches the prompt, with some calling upon their favorite synthesized vocals to unravel the locales most meaningful to them (over pretty loopy beats, I might add), and others using their own voice as a way to share the local scenery. A neat idea, but one turning into something deeply earnest. Listen above.

#17 Guchon (And Friends) Piano Bros + You Know What + Dream Team + Raccoon Hill

Guchon remains Japan’s premier provider of party tunes, extending a streak that has run through all of the 2020s, if not further back. Across four releases…and honestly, I’m probably forgetting something, Guchon is every bit as prolific as he is consistently funky…he continued to offer up elastic dance tracks dabbling in multiple genres, showing off his range while never straying too far off path to get in the way of good times. The noteworthy development here is a pair of works bringing friends from the Trekkie Trax universe into the fun fray, calling upon ONJUICY to add some vocal flair to the bounce house of “You Know What’ while linking up with Seimei, Carpainter and andrew for a tune a piece on the aptly named Dream Team. Though even when left to his own devices, Guchon can shine, with Piano Bros offering up delirious house and Raccoon Hill providing sounds a touch more sentimental, like a Ghibli movie set in an outdoor rave. Listen above, or click all those links up top to buy them.

#16 Soshi Takeda Secret Communication

There’s nothing escapist about the deep house meditations of Secret Communication. The tracks on Soshi Takeda’s latest glimmer and groove, but there’s a tension from the real world lurking within those crystalline visions. “Wars broke out. On the other hand, my child was born. There were sad and beautiful moments in my life,” he wrote of Secret Communication, and this blur of life casts the sounds in a new light — chirpy electronics turn euphoric, bell chimes become melancholic, a subtle breath carries newfound emotional weight. None of that ever gets in the way of the dance-floor-aimed goodness at its core, but rather the complexity of being enriches it all. Get it here, or listen above.

#15 Various Artists kaomozi compilations vol​​​.​​​3

The concept of a “netlabel” seems completely out of date in an error where all music, give or take, is online. What once felt like a true alternative in Japan via the likes of Maltine Records, Bunkai-kei Records and many more is just now part of a larger digital mess of sound, mainstream or independent. That era’s spirit, though, lives on in myriad web-centric operations that might not be netlabels by a purist’s definition, but very much carry the torch of revealing a new side of Japanese music one .ZIP file at a time.

Ren Komasawa’s KAOMOZI label offers one of the finest examples of this attitude to showcasing the offbeat and online in the 2020s. Numerous releases from it have dotted the prior positions of this list — ranging from iga’s melancholic bedroom hyperpop to the madcap electronic barrage of pppppfffffuuuuuiiiii — but the best summation of the KAOMOZI sound can be found on this compilation, which features a little bit of everything making them special. It’s not just a well-portioned sampler, but a mission statement. Whether sounding a few degrees away form the outer edges of J-pop or being closer to pure ambient vapor, KAOMOZI champions anything offering a new bend on the familiar. Get it here, or listen above.

#14 uku kasai Lula

Lula is a rave made for a 1R apartment. It’s hyperpop turned inside out. It’s fledgling artist uku kasai taking the experimental flashes of their early work and placing them alongside racing beats and dance skitters without ever losing the woozy feeling their warped vocals and off-kilter touches create. The songs here exist on the same plane as fellow young creators when it comes to what it draws from and the shifty structures within, yet rather than seek outright euphoria the reserved uku kasai — having never even been to a club for fun until going to Berlin last year — aims for a smaller-but-still-powerful release, one where the joyous melody of “Silver” seemingly appears out of fragmentation and where a big name like tofubeats can be transformed into just another instrument. Listen above.

#13 TEMPLIME EMPT MILE

Electronic duo TEMPLIME made a strong first impression a long time ago, primarily via a collab with virtual singer Hoshimiya Toto. That partnership produced plenty of excellent tunes — see last year’s rock-addled masterclass POP-AID — but never truly centered the pair behind the sounds. EMP MILE fancies itself as TEMPLIME’s sonic business card, a set of songs nodding to their influences and showing just what they can do. Guest vocalists play a vital part, but they often work as a compliment to the music itself, whether it be sweet electro-pop (“Gomenne,” the best Yasutaka Nakata song of the year), sparse synth-powered daydreams (“BEACH”) or swift floor fillers (“AIRSHIP”). Among the poppiest material they’ve ever offered (“Love Tennis”) exists alongside experiments in disorienting Vocaloid-frayed dance (“Dan Dab Hey”). Perhaps not a needed intro for some, but for everyone else — here’s a gateway into one of the most exciting young projects in the country going. Listen above.

#12 Zazen Boys Rando

The songs on ZAZEN BOYS’ first album in 12 years play out more like short stories than the frantic rushes of the project’s previous works. Leader Shutoku Mukai drew from his experience cycling all around the greater Tokyo area for Rando, particularly the ho-hum suburbia concealing emotional complexities galore. Across the band’s big return are character sketches of lascivious older men, melancholic folks spending the evening alone in parks, Suginami girls and beyond. The everyday get disrupted at times — highlight “Eien Shojo” meditates and snarls at the devastation of war on civilian life, tranquility ripped to shreds in graphic detail — yet even when exploring darker themes Rando finds ZAZEN BOYS offering some of its sturdiest creations ever. Anger and catharsis find a way through (as does Mukai’s skeevy put-ons via the tipsy “Barracuda”) but after a long wait, the group returns focused with one of its finest displays in songwriting. Listen above.

#11 Kyogen Hoho Ni Tsuki Wo Yadoshite + Landscape Design EP

The always-fluctuating Kyogen spent 2024 exploring airier space. They provided a stellar release for the Siren For Charlotte label Hoho Ni Tsuki Wo Yadoshite, an exercise in imagined nostalgia created using a sonic palette nodding to ‘80s ambient, funk, Balearic and more. Like any good examination of longing for the past, Kyogen’s songs here weren’t interested in recreating reality but constructing something twistier, built out of discombobulated beats and the smoothest bass line you’ve ever heard looped over and over again, with sweet guest vocals drifting above. At times peaceful and others turning into New-Age-damaged rap, it would have been a highlight all its own if they hadn’t followed it up with the Landscape Design EP months later. Seemingly inspired by Pasocom Music Club’s glassy 2021 SEE-VOICE, it was a set reimagining the sounds of Hoho Ni Tsuki Wo Yadoshite as instrumental electronic pieces approaching neo kankyo ongaku. Still, no simple dips into yesteryear, but rather a chance for Kyogen to showoff yet another side of their sound. Listen above, or get them by clicking the links at top of this blurb.

#10 tofubeats NOBODY

This was the year where the intersection of AI and music became undeniable. In 2023, the technology felt like a novelty than anything else — sure “Heart On My Sleeve” inspired anxiety, but the bulk of it was glorified memery. Yet take in 2024 and remember how the Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake beef — the biggest music story of the year — featured two instances of AI, with the latter in particularly spawning a trend rather than scrunched faces. As Stereogum noted recently, lots of artists are getting into this space, and who knows how many more are under the radar. It’s only going to get bigger in the near future…and that means the discourse alongside it will also become unavoidable.

NOBODY exists in a weird triangulation of the AI debate, being presented as essentially AI when in reality that’s inessential as a selling point but ultimately essential to getting at what makes it great. Long-running artist tofubeats’ latest full-length featured what every news story on it and interview about it described as “AI vocals,” conjuring up scary images of computers writing poetry. In truth, it’s tofubeats embracing Synthesizer V technology, itself mostly just a singing synthesizer not far off from Vocaloid. As he has said, he embraced it because he tried using his own voice over a demo of the rollicking “I CAN FEEL IT” and thought it stunk, but played around with his new software and thought…sounds good!

Yet that was the only “AI” addition — and even those were then run through analog equipment, to muddy it up further — and NOBODY primarily sounds like tofubeats fully embracing his club side, creating some of the liveliest dance tracks in his catalog to date. Seemingly free of the pop worries surrounding earlier albums, tofubeats rides shuffling rhythms into acid-house-frayed fever on “EVERYONE CAN BE A DJ” and channels Soichi Terada on the darty “Why Don’t You Come With Me?” It’s a euphoric set, topped off by those female vocals…at times fitting in like any other diva would but often actually sounding just off, like a mannequin turned into a vocal star. It’s that intentional unease, though, that gives NOBODY it’s extra power. There’s something unnerving about that voice, which tofubeats identifies as a “new emotion” one experiences interacting with the disappointment of realizing what you thought was a person turns out to be a glorified robot. It isn’t human after all, but NOBODY, and nothing made me wrestle with artistic questions more this year. It’s the first great album dealing with the AI age. Listen above.

#9 marucoporoporo Conceive the Sea

Consider this the opposite of a NOBODY…the power of Conceive the Sea comes from the warm breath of humanity breathing through its passages. Aichi-based project marucoporoporo was inspired to make her second album by creating music for an art installation in 2022. She focused on the relation between two life giving forces — the ocean and amniotic fluid. Accordingly, her own voice drifts and bends throughout these ambient works, gifting a sense of intimacy and care to otherwise otherworldly songs.

It’s the way marucoporoporo deploys her singing that makes Conceive the Sea into something mystifying and entrancing. Of course this one came from Flau — it follows in the lineage of the hushed world of Cuushe and the skeletal mutations of Noah among others, with marucoporoporo particularly fascinated in the textural qualities of her delivery. Over beds of acoustic guitar and synth, she sometimes sings directly through the blurry soundscape (“Cycle of Love”) but elsewhere she transforms her syllables into schools of fish moving forward (“Reminiscence”) and other times into whale songs (the title track, “Core”). She turns inhuman on “Double Helix,” digitally contorting her voice into an unsettling presence skulking about…with traces of her own real self scattered around the edges. If Hakushi Hasegawa didn’t exist, here’s your most fascinating use of the human voice on a Japanese album this year.

All of the usual adjectives used to describe great ambient apply — etherial, absorbing, hypnotizing, you can pull some more out — but marucoporoporo’s voice and the way she uses it adds something rare to this style, and makes for a 2024 gem. Get it here, or listen above.

#8 lilbesh ramko haikaicollection

Let us not dwell too much on what “hyperpop” in the 2020s means and its failed promises. For me at least, that’s because the actual sonic and attitude impacts it brought to a Japanese musical space dominated by young folks trying to navigate big cities and modern society carries on stronger than ever in 2024. OK, not everyone is eager to use the term “hyperpop” — but from major labels to all-night affairs at shiny-shiny club ZEROTOKYO to random weeknights at Asagaya Drift. The underground in particular remains charged by its effects, and have twisted them into something all its own.

Nobody is doing it better than the tireless lilbesh ramko. Live they are an unpredictable ball of energy, while on the songs included in haikaicollection they use blown-out bass and warped synths as their own personal SlamBall court to bounce all over the place. In 16 explosive minutes, we get every side of lilbesh on display — the angsty outbursts through layers of rock distortion on “Himitsu!!!!!,” the madcap electro-pop sweetness of found on “Digital:Love,” and the ennui-grazed frustrations at everyday life on the rumbling highlight “Nichijou:Loopmania.”

The relentless energy and emotional shrapnel wow, but the real triumph of haikaicollection and lilbesh ramko at large is their joy at warping everything around them. Like a Foodman going through puberty, lilbesh ramko loves seeing what sounds can become, whether that ends up as bouncy-ball synths on “Mokuyobi:Freestyle” or high-frequency screams buried under a gabber beat on “Usotsuki.” Simply hearing how they tear apart the sonic fabric of these songs is among the most thrilling things you can hear this year, topped only by how they rearrange them into something all their own. Listen above.

#7 Stones Taro / Stones Taro And Kaoruko Dwellers Of The Seabed + Clutch + Y

Each year, a producer steps up and becomes a force in the Japanese music landscape, spilling out of the spaces they began in and flooding other zones. Kyoto’s Stones Taro might not be there quite yet…but 2024 saw a huge leap forward for the NC4K co-founder. He inched towards the J-pop mainstream by producing songs for artists such as MFS and chelmico among others, all while still continuing to tear up crowds across the country and beyond. Hopefully 2025 leads to Stones Taro becoming the behind-the-boards mastermind of J-pop, but for now let’s savior his solo offerings, which were every bit as high points as his production spots, while offering new angles on his approach to house.

It’s hard to believe that this summer’s Dwellers Of The Seabed was Taro’s first full-length album, but that’s how it was presented. This expanded frame allowed him to play around with a deeper conceptual idea — the exploration of ocean creatures and their way of life — that in turn prompted a greater sonic experimentation, resulting in his familiar dance floor anthems being joined by more contemplative and downright ambient passages. By the end of the year, Taro pushed towards harder-edged sounds on the Clutch EP, returning to the club but bringing something spikier to the party.

Personally, I’ll take his collaborative EP with artist Kaoruko as the personal Taro topper of 2024. Y unlocks the full pop potential of Taro’s breakbeats and house fever dreams, with Kaoruko’s voice weaving between them to create slightly off-kilter dance-pop delights, at its best when her voice was run through effects to make the disorienting feel all the more woozy. It was a year of new horizons for Stones Taro, each solo release pointing towards fresh paths…and this one showing a particularly exciting path. Listen above, or get them at the links at top.

#6 COR!S TAKE FAKE LAKE

The failure of nostalgia is how it opts for settling rather than building on what came before. There’s very little interesting about a musician in the 2020s trying to recreate the funk glitz of city pop or textural wonders of bubble-era ambient sounds, as if they were a student making a diorama of what has been. Far more intriguing are those who look at the past and see how it connects to the now…and actually build on it.

Prolific electronic artist and half of horror-bop duo KiWi COR!S delivered a highlight with TAKE FAKE LAKE, a set of texturally rich tracks drawing from both the far-behind and just-in-the-rearview past. The concept alone gives it a feeling of ‘80s conceptual core — it’s the story of a man and a woman exploring an imagined resort dubbed “Lakeside Memory.” Within this framework, COR!S creates her most enthralling songs to date, moving at speeds meditative (“Sunset Lagoon,” “Storm is coming at 3pm”) and urgent (“Floating,” “Boy meets SS”). Familiar genres ripple across its surface — digi-age fusion on “Lakeside memory,” Chicago juke on “Xabon,” Playstation-era liquid jungle on “Water Recreation” — but TAKE FAKE LAKE never settles for being simple imitation, with COR!S shaping them into surprising forms (assisted by her attention to sonic design) and often singing over them. Yesteryear echoes throughout, but it’s a decidedly 2024 triumph. Listen above, or get it here.

#5 Pasocom Music Club Love Flutter

Welcome to the top five, and a perfect place to step back a second to observe some bigger arcs running through this list…and Japanese music at large. While I understand why nobody seemingly wants to talk about it in relation to art, it’s unavoidable how much the COVID-19 pandemic shaped nearly everything about pop culture in this decade so far, for better or worse. When taking in my favorite releases of 2024, I realize…this was the year Japanese creators returned to and embraced the club. So many of the albums and EPs above feature a sound designed for the small-to-midsize spaces that have popped up since 2020, while also hitting at a general return to revelry that started in 2023 but really settled in over the prior 12 months. Whether because of a young cohort reflecting the places they like to turn up, or a slightly older set of artists realizing where their tunes hits hardest and adapting, it was hard to separate a lot of these works from the tactile experience of going out, whether for an early evening or post last train.

Love Flutter is so intoxicating, anxious and ultimately cathartic because duo Pasocom Music Club tapped into the pure pleasure that was a night at the club in constructing its songs. Part of it was aging as artists and people — what started as a Kansai-based “desktop music” concern just as interested in messin’ around with ‘80s classics from the comfort of home has mutated into a Tokyo-residing outfit exploring sparkling new-age-isms and pop delight among much more. Their masterpiece to date, though, comes from a collection of floor-focused sounds, running from drum ‘n’ bass skitters to fidgeting house melodies to slowly building techno rhythms. It’s a kinetic set, but one full of incredible details helping to enrich the grooves and vocal touches adding a human longing to it all.

This is an album about love — which, of course, means it can be every bit about clubs, as the two cross more often than not — and the memories of the moments within. There’s a nervous energy throughout, racing through the dash of “Child Replay” featuring Satoko Shibata and turning a touch more shadowy via rapper MFS on the rumbling “Please me” and going full euphoric with help from Mei Takahashi on the strobing “Drama.” The pair explore slower and reflective ideas, yet even those carry a whiff of the nightclub, a chill-out before venturing back into the excitement and unknown. It’s shaped by the feeling of places — and the emotions that swell up in them, captured in all its topsy-turvy glory. Listen above.

#4 Dos Monos Dos Atomos

“I’m not a NewJeans ojisan / Vision Creation Newsun”

With one line, Dos Monos offered something radical in 2024. It’s a line drawn during a year where shrugging and accepting all art as “OK.” It’s the embrace of the challenging in the face of settling. It’s of opting for the music that will get you looks in the supposed era of “let people enjoy things.” I love “OMG” and “Ditto,” but I also appreciate an artist taking a stance, of rejecting the zeitgeist in favor of peak Boredoms.

That energy overflows across Dos Atomos, part re-invention of rap trio Dos Monos as near-prog rap-jazz-rock prophets and part broadside against modern Japanese culture in search of something better. Over the course of 11 songs, the group runs the ropes over the entire post-war history of Japanese culture — you get Shigeo Nagashima running to fucking Pikotaro — while also suplexing language around to create an out-of-time barrage doubling as an examination of what it means to be Japanese in the 21st century, particularly a “lost feeling” as member Botsu said in an interview. Animating it is a heavier sound, summoned by a stronger rock base joining the outfit’s usual heady mix of hip-hop and jazz, frequently nodding to the group’s influences and the history of harsher rock in the country (an Otomo Yoshihide guest spot!), all while building towards an openly aggressive sound at times rejecting melody completely in favor of pure energy…Vision Creation Newsun indeed. Get it here, or listen above.

#3 Hakushi Hasegawa Mahogakko

Perhaps the head-spinninest moment of the year for me was seeing that Hakushi Hasegawa — a mind-melting jazz-slamming-with-breakbeats-meets-chaos-oh-also-beauty architect best known for sonic dizziness — would be appearing on THE FIRST TAKE. Here was both the most experimental electronic artist in the country and the most hyped up creator by music media intersecting with a YouTube program that like, helped launch YOASOBI, nabbed Harry Styles and remains an important part of the J-pop ecosystem. Yet what I found particularly fascinating was the focus itself — Hasegawa has long evaded the spotlight, yet this show requires one to be front facing. This signaled a change.

THE FIRST TAKE appearance serves as a simple but effective of example of what makes Mahogakko — Hasegawa’s latest and debut full-length with Brainfeeder — such a highlight. Oddly enough, the frantic pace and pinpoint light speed turns of the music itself was to be expected. Since emerging on SoundCloud nearly a decade ago and getting a platform via Maltine Records, Hasegawa’s music has always stood out the most. It remains shifty and unpredictable as ever in 2024, whether playing out as fast-forwarded marching band stomp (“Mouth Flash”), ruptured rock Ragnarok (“Gone”) or textural trip (“Enbami”) among so much more.

What is revelatory about Mahogakko is the central role Hasegawa’s voice plays across it, more so than ever before. They manipulate and mutilate and mutate their singing into all sorts of forms, with a stated purpose of showing listeners that a voice can sound like anything and be anything. “On this album, I try to expose people to things they would normally try to avoid,” they told me. It gets pitched up and down and in directions the folks who determine these things probably haven’t even found yet. It turns into an avalanche of maniacal rain of cartoon Hasegawa’s at the start of “KYUFUNOHOSHI,” a number later finding themselves turned into…a treadmill? The downright joyful “Boy’s Texture” gets a lot of its uplift courtesy of warped hooting and hollering thrown like confetti. There’s a self-cover here of a song Hasegawa wrote for the virtual artist KAF playing around with what delivery can be…and what it could allow us to become.

Despite working so hard to obscure what it sounds like for textural impact, Mahogakko is the most personal Hasegawa has ever gotten, placing themselves right in the center (underlined not just by THE FIRST TAKE but the decision to show themselves for the first time) and completely unloading. “I’ve come to appreciate my voice as my best instrument, because I can manipulate it however I want to present myself,” they told me. This is the triumphant end result. Get it here, or listen above.

#2 PAS TASTA GRAND POP

GRAND AMBITIONS

When I let my mind drift and forget that I’m listening to PAS TASTA, I can easily hear the songs on second album GRAND POP occupying the spaces mainstream J-pop always occupies. What’s stopping “Isewan” from soundtracking an ad for Honda’s new electric vehicles? I could see “BULLDOZER+” wowing on one of those music performance shows, maybe not quite Music Station but somewhere. Everything here could wow as an anime opening and / or closing.

If last year’s GOOD POP served as a perfect gateway into the twisty-turny world of modern Japanese music, GRAND POP builds on it and underlines the potential PAS TASTA have within this ecosystem. The guest names are bigger — Tatsuya Kitani, chelmico, Hatsune Miku courtesy of PinocchioP — and the sounds at times feeling closer to the enter of J-pop, particularly when using rock as a foundation. Yet the intricacies of this producer collective still come through. I’ve written this elsewhere, but PAS TASTA is kind of like an inside-out Mrs. GREEN APPLE, with the experimental elements taking priority but grafted onto really catchy creations, pointing towards a reality where this project plays an even more central role.

GRAND IMAGINATION

Anti-capitalist observations delivered by stuttering Vocaloid over a shuffling beat topped off by gnarly throat shouts. Fittingly inhuman R&B slinks refusing to stay still. The “global” music played inside Muji stores reimagined as far-future club bangers about dinosaurs. Driving rock interrupted by echoes of metal and EDM. PAS TASTA remain as sonically playful as they were on its debut here, with a greater embrace of rock, both of the type often affixed with a “J-” and, on slow-burning closer “The Car,” midwestern emo in all its glory.

GRAND PALS

The release party for GRAND POP a few weeks ago could have been the moment PAS TASTA truly made their greater ambitions clear, and as they took the stage they looked like a proper band, everyone in their own space. Yet as the show went on, they would gravitate towards the center, around the DJ equipment, where these six creators from disparate corners of electronic music would crowd together and just having a blast.

For all the pop potential and big-name guests, the power of GRAND POP and PAS TASTA remains the playful nature these artists take in experimenting with sound. It’s that sense of fun — both in terms of seeing what sounds and songs can become, and just creating together — that makes them so special, and GRAND POP another strong entry pointing towards a better pop tomorrow. Listen above.

#1 inuha Hi no Kakera +Hitorigoto

I could — and technically have — spent paragraphs describing sounds and the context in which they arrived in 2024. Dance music built out of the unreality of AI, and warped vocals reflecting the malleability of the human voice itself, and genres colliding like souped-up bumper cars. It’s much harder to pin down the vague emotional power great music inspires in a listener. Not “this makes me happy,” “this makes me sad,” but the more…euphoric and melancholy ways art can hit you personally.

That feeling closely hovers the two 2024 releases via the artist inuha. They’ve kicked around for a few years now, mainly posting to video site Niconico alongside some scattered EPs on Bandcamp. They play rock, primarily drifting towards what could be dubbed shoegaze but has always been more varied than that. Over this bedroom sound, they share lyrics about the ups and downs of being. The words are delivered by the familiar digital delivery of Hatsune Miku, serving not as a central character but just the voice, part texture and part narrator.

Released at the very start of the year, Hi no Kakera spent the following 12 months flooring me. It’s the crown jewel release from label Siren For Charlotte, in large part because it perfectly captures their idea of “Angelic Post-Shoegaze.” The style shouldn’t be limited by tradition — as many around the world during an ongoing “renaissance” in it often retreat to, seeking the familiar — but rather be a base to build something new. Here, singing-synthesizer vocals rise up alongside a euphoric wall of sound, joined at times by drum machine skitters or synth dapples to add extra warmth.

It could just be novelty in the wrong hands, yet inuha uses this palette to create some of the most affecting songs of the decade at its midpoint. Death lingers over Hi no Kakera, yet the music is usually triumphant even when facing down unfair endings. “Chiekura E” features a jolly melody that approaches a distorted waltz come the chorus, yet it’s all about navigating the world after someone near to you passes. “Byouki No Kodomotachi” centers around a sick child saying goodbye to their friends as they fade away (complete with the jarring touch of what sounds like a flatlining), yet the guitar swell and singing frame transience not as something to mourn but something to celebrate.

There’s a moment on the wistful and longing “Tori Wa Kirei Suki” where the drums lock in and the guitar melody speeds up, made tactile by samples of waves crashing and birds chirping, and our narrator finds some kind of transcendence. It’s catharsis.

Hitorigoto, released by inuha independently as their first full-length album in August, shows further range to their sound and emotional outlook. It’s more downcast than the often optimistic-in-the-face-of-life Kakera, though brightness finds a way in threw the cracks. There’s heavier riffs, like on the regret-laden lurch of “Umineko Wa Neko Jyanai” or on the swifter dreaming-of-becoming-a-dolphin cut “Iruka Go De Hello,” yet also more space on numbers such as the minimal “Ghost” and the particularly gloomy “Hanashi Kawarukedo,” though that one pulls a nifty trick by exploding into optimism at the end (translated title: “Changing The Subject”).

It’s tempting to simply elevate inuha’s 2024 output to the top of this list because of the importance of Vocaloid at the halfway point of this decade. If you’re looking for who the most influential pop star in J-pop is today, it’s Hatsune Miku. Yet that’s not it exactly — these releases fall in a larger lineage of art finding clever angles on Vocaloid, and we’re over ten-years past the release of mikgazer vol. 1, a defining document of the intersection of singing-synthesizer and shoegaze. Plus, inuha exists in a notable continuum (and this writer’s personal favorite) of “internet music,” ranging from Niconico composers to netlabels (Siren For Charlotte’s write up nods to the electronics of Bunkai-kei Records as vital inspiration).

It’s not that inuha is reflecting greater trends or even breaking ground, but rather showing just how many more ideas can be found in familiar styles and instruments. It’s invigorating for shoegaze, but also Vocaloid. It’s seamless, while still finding new angles. And then it hits an emotional vein in line with both scenes yet feeling different, euphoric but sad but hopeful. There’s that hard-to-describe sensation coming in, lifting it all to another place.

Throughout 2024, I’ve read so many articles and posts on the seeming stasis of music, and seen much more interest in talking about everything around music than the music itself, to the point where it felt like meditating on Spotify’s auto-play feature sparked greater discourse than actually seeking out unknown-to-you art. These two releases from inuha offer a balm from that (while also including a song, “CD Shop De Anata Ni Peace,” about the joys of hunting down tunes you can’t find on streaming so…you could latch on to that too), reminding that — like most of the works on this list — there remains plenty of new ways to create…and to deliver the emotional punch that makes it all so important. That’s one thing that won’t change. Listen above.

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Bluesky — @mbmelodies.bsky.social
Follow the Best Of 2024 Spotify Playlist here!

1. The only album I’ll make a note about…this is the release I want to spend the most time with in the near future, and if I redid this in the next six months, it could shoot up quite a bit higher. Perhaps a standalone post soon?