Make Believe Mailer 41: Bandcamp Friday Special May 2022
Drinking A Watermelon Margarita While I Write This, All Errors On That
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 the May 2022 edition…I’m on vacation, but listening to new music beats the other deadlines I’ve put off!
Hoshimiya Toto And TEMPLIME — skycave
Escapism sits at the center of almost everything Hoshimiya Toto and production duo TEMPLIME have created. “Tell me what t’was all about / take me out of this world” goes one of the more cutting lines from their 2019 2-step hair-raiser “Take Me Out,” though that’s perhaps their boldest bid at retreat. For the trio, getting away can be as simple as a night out or a day in the sun, backed by a beat emphasizing the nerves underlining everything.
New album skycave pairs this desire for a simple step outside with music pushing TEMPLIME beyond the one they’ve built a reputation on. The familiar rush of 2-step powers the title track, helping add extra urgency to the sweetest vocal Toto has ever provided to this project, but then comes more mid-tempo offerings like “yawncat” which reveals TEMPLIME’s knach for catchiness at slower speeds. The come the wildcards. “tired” is…reverb-heavy rock sounding ragged enough to play out of Shibuya Echo a decade ago, topped off by angsty lyrics aimed at a cruel modern world and a celebration of just heading out into the night for respite. Better still is the acid-tinged experiment “roly poly,” which features a free-flow of words (“plastic bag / new apartment”) with music that quickly collapses in on itself. Get it here.
Masayoshi Iimori And viwiv — The Two Ravers
Speaking of collabs…the power surging through this one! Tokyo’s Masayoshi Iimori and Fukuoka’s viwiv link up for strobing pair of tracks lined with spikes. Rave-ready sprints get fractured by bass drops, only to reform and find their angelic form once again before racing off. Get it here.
Takesu — Tales Of King Spider EP
The music on Tales Of King Spider glide forward, revealing vast new landscapes the further they move. The first offering from Chiba-based artist Takesu uses space to accentuate the percussion skitters and synth waves flowing over these tracks, somewhere between the tipsy revelry of Soshi Takeda and the new-age flights of fancy conjured by Soshi Takeda. Vocal samples — of armies clanging and people speaking — add a dash of humanity to it, and help make the moments when songs explode into acid house or disjointed funk all the more euphoric. Get it here.
Snail’s House — “Biscuit Funk”
No better Snail’s House than when they tap into their inner Yasutaka Nakata and let the maximalism takeover. Critical to the upbeat blast of “Biscuit Funk” — those distorted vocals, unintelligible to these ears and thank goodness for that. Just let the energy push you ahead. Get it here.
Shine Of Ugly Jewel — Tsumitoga No Mayu
Have you looked back at the tracklisting for DARK JINJA Compilation I anytime recently? Just a beautiful snapshot of Japanese electronic experimentation, featuring the likes of Le Makeup and Yullippe at their peak. Shine Of Ugly Jewel was one of the participants who put out some solid stuff in that comp’s wake, but then drifted from my radar at least. They are back though in 2022, with this marriage of electronic constriction and metal pulsing. Part punishing, part deeply unsettling (at least come that second, more fragile track). Get it here.
sea-no — Kaiteiyoku
Soft, piano-guided songs to sink into. Sounds great while sort of drifting off and browsing the internet…then the voice comes in and pulls you away from Twitter. Get it here.
tomodati — “P.U.N.K”
Wherein an artist long flirting with genre crossovers and playful subversions of familiar forms tip-toes into HyperPop signifiers, but doesn’t really commit because they’ve been on their own wavelength for so long, why change? Get it here.
Les Rallizes Dénudés — The OZ Tapes
I wrote something about this album! Coming soon…maybe today, hit “follow” on my Twitter to find out. Regardless of the publication status of my article…get this, both for the music and the really wonderful and wonderfully contextual liner notes that come with it. Get it here.
Charles A.D — We Still Don’t Know
Lithe house tunes from one of the more prolific online names operating out of the country today. At its best when approaching pure breeze and unafraid of the potentially cheesy (“Nature teache,” loaded with bird chirps that nudge it towards a clean state of mind). Get it here.
Various Artists — AR30 compilation vol.11
“Underrated” is one of those dangerous adjectives to throw around, because really…what does it mean, especially when talking about independent electronic music in Japan? That said and risk accepted…AR30’s comps, definitely underrated. Few sets of songs out of the country capture such a wide range of grooveable sounds, from the synthetic funk of rigly chang to the barely-there climb of Kawakami Kohei. Get it here.
CRZKNY — STONE
Heavy, hard-hitting techno for a good cause! Let’s not even concern ourselves with the charitable aspect of this one for now (it’s great, go help people impacted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine!), and instead spend a bit of time soaking in how this is CRZKNY at his best and brashest, pushing the BPM over 150 and just pummeling away. Get it here.
Strange Contents — Predator
How much can you get from a little? Oshirijima’s latest release argues…a whole lot, as long as you know how to build all that small stuff into something catchy and eventually cathartic. Get it here.
Coastlines — Coastlines 2
Why chain ourselves to the nostalgia of ‘80s Japan when we can use the sounds and technology of now to construct our own resort fantasies? Producer Masanori Ikeda (not this one) and cro-magnon keyboardist Takumi Kaneko get together to create a seaside musical mirage as Coastlines, merging island-flavor percussion with jazz touches and synth shimmers to create relaxing and at times titillating (I see you “Night Cruise,” settle down “Waves And Rayes”). The tricky part of any release like this is how much of it is an exercise in “remember city pop???” and how much of it is an honest effort to just create. I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt and saying it is largely the latter, offering sun-soaked numbers for beach dreaming. Get it here.
H. Takahashi — Paleozoic
A minimalist electronic album inspired by prehistoric times. Haven’t dug — get it — deep into this one yet (see subhead), but with a hook like that gotta include it. Get it here.
Bubble-B Featuring Enjo-G — Kimi Ni Kikasetai Techno Ga Arunda
I’m sure if you look in the right nooks and crannies, you can still find joy online. But believe me — the internet used to be fun. The world at large played a pretty big role in turning everything internet into a drag. Back in the day…not so long ago…you could find pure happiness watching a guy name off a bunch of car models over a rinky-dink Eurobeat, uh, beat.
Ten years in the making, Bubble-B…featuring Enjo-G…has shared a new album of high-energy electronic music topped off by a guy going over a list of things, whether they be designer brands or varieties of over-the-counter medicines. I’m not going to pretend there’s anything too deep about this…that would probably betray what Bubble-B is even up to here…but I will say there’s something sweet reading about how the history of this project, how it came together, and how the pandemic nudged him to make something new to boost moods.
Like that new Jackass movie, though, all the emotional stuffing is just a bonus on top of what we’ve already loved. Here’s a gleeful set of songs happy to goof around. They cover Eito’s “Kosui” and it’s as chaotic as you’d expect. They riff on SDGs and Ekiden. There’s a ballad about driving a mini-van around at night. Bubble-B takes traditional Okinawan music and…quite literally…puts a donk on it. They’re never mean spirited or edgy, just goofballin.’ And it’s a blast the whole way through. Get it here.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies