Make Believe Mailer 57: Bandcamp Friday Special December 2022

The Last One, Maybe?

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 December 2022 edition…which might be the last one? I don’t know any specifics, but completely possible. Whatever happens, here’s a selection of Japanese music released on Bandcamp over the last month worth your time at any time.

Fellsius — MONOEYE

It’s the little vocal details scattered across MONOEYE that make it for me. The distorted “yeahhhhs” and pursed “yes” mixed into “Hatch,” the pitched-up murmurs beneath the bass waves of “Machine Pop,” the way even the echos of voices gets swept up in “Eddy Current.” It’s like Fellsius commissioned their own set of variety show reaction boxes for their debut album, capturing the oooohs and ahhhhs of listeners with every synth firework display and bass drop.

Really, it’s a reminder throughout MONOEYE of how these tracks weren’t constructed as pure laptop heaters, but as something to fill a club or get a reaction out of someone at home or get some doofy 35-year-old writer running errands to stop in his tracks and take in the entire loud-soft table tennis of opener “Hatch.” There’s a physicality to the songs here, often hard-edged but other times more elastic and sometimes downright loose (the fake-out chillax of “Jom” isn’t just fun, but funny, and makes the eventual horn-assisted lurch all the more effective), and frequently a little of all in a single number. As a production piece, Fellsius showcases all of the skills they’ve been flashing in recent years, showing a varied approach to sound that still connects to create high-energy songs. Yet it’s the human touches that remind of the function of the songs here, and the excitement lurking within. Get it here.

TEMPLIME And Hoshimiya Toto — Escapism

A collaboration responsible for some of the finest tracks out of Japan’s netlabel-ish community in recent years keeps it rolling with a set of songs working best when they let the edges flake and the sounds get warped. The moments where TEMPLIME let their electornic backdrops ripple (“Umino Nioi”), play around with Hoshimiya Toto’s voice (“Candy Heart”) or both (“Lonely Girl” and caffeinated rework “Super Lonely Girl”) stand out the most, showing a group of creators still curious about how to find new elements to their partnership. Get ie here.

Acidclank — SOUNDTRACK

Emerging in the mid 2010s as a shoegazer letting a little electronic dust dapple his work, Acidclank has evolved into a buzzed-about act, appearing at Fuji Rock Festival and getting hype from the likes of Tower Records. SOUNDTRACK shows newfound range within Acidclank’s world, leaning more into digital effects (see the blurred vocals on opener “LSD”) and delivering on half his moniker (“Everything is Changing”). Don’t be scared off though — they return to the dreamy territory they built their reputation on with the final two songs, showing continued refinement. Get it here.

Guchon And Carpainter — Tokyo Funk

Dear god, a dream collaboration. Besides two new tracks a piece from each, Guchon and Carpainter come together for the delirious title cut, full-speed ahead techno with a funky edge that just refuses to take a water break. Absolute wrecker of a song, synthesizing two artists perfectly. Get it here.

Kowloon DL Galett — Repair Center Oshiro

Rap rendered jagged thanks to the production, which can get downright claustrophobic when the synths and bass gurgles overflow on top of one another. Buried in all the jabs, moments of levity, such as on closer “Be ‘O,’” where Galett simply streamrolls through the electronics. Get it here.

XS217FDNSBA0192 — unto 4

When I see “new release from Ukiuki Atama,” I brace myself for something bound to scramble my cerebral cortex. Coming from an artist named XS217FDNSBA0192? Strap in! Yet unto 4 is just…breathtakingly pretty? The tracks range from zero-gravity jungle experiments to twinkling glitch meditations, providing plenty of disruptive moments but never throwing the song as a whole into disarray. See the crackling “TQGDNndT3,” sliced through by bass disruptions but always leaving room for the brightness initially teased to poke through. Get it here.

Macha Potato Salad — Animation Tripping

It remains surprising to me that there hasn’t been a greater curiosity in Shibuya-kei during the 2020s. Well, when major players like Cornelius generate headlines like this and become topics of “cancel culture” chatter, I sorta get it. But on a purely musical level, Shibuya-kei has so much in common with the current era of internet-centric creativity, liberally borrowing and slicing up the sounds of the past to create something new, with the only major change being access (back then, you had to be a rich kid with time to waste at a record store sorting through bossa nova. Today you have…the web).

Animation Tripping is the rare contemporary album to connect all these dots. Created by Macha Potato Salad — who writes on Bandcamp that this full-length was completed during his high school years (!!) — it declares in the summary that it aims to offer “the present of post-Heisei culture” and “Shibuya-kei of the 2000s.” It’s both reverent to those days (faded samples dusted off and transformed into something totally new, with an emphasis on mashing old sound sources with dance beats, a la Pizzicato Five or Yoshinori Sunahara) and most certainly of the moment (it has an extremely online energy to it along with flashes of “hyperpop” and Mom-core courtesy the decision to just go with it via singing…think of this as a YouTube-era Take Off And Landing). Both oddball and achingly personal, Animation Tripping is the sound of the social media age trying to turn the past into a foundation to build something all its own. Get it here.

Hiroshi Ebina — In science and the human heart

Hiroshi Ebina wants you to know everything is going to be OK. “You’ll be alright. “Forgive yourself.” “It’s ok to be stressed” (buddy, do I know it!). I’m not browsing Bandcamp for life affirmations, but Ebina at least provides electronic wisps apt for easy listening to match all the mantras. Enveloping and sweet, like the lightest of hugs. I don’t even need the motivation, just give me that feeling. Get it here.

SPRAYBOX — SPRAYDEPOT Vol. 2

What does help drive out the ol’ negativity? Some upbeat floor-fillers, which dance label SPRAYBOX always has in stock. Get it here.

Acid Pyun Pyun Maru — The Machine and The Machine Vol. 2

A celebration of and exercise in showing just what this trackmaker’s machines can do. Get them here.

Anyuu Rizumu — “Yoru No Koe”

Written for an independent picture book series, this slow-burning folk number takes its time unfolding, letting the central vocals rise up and create a sweet escape. Get it here.

SARI — Milky Way

Why more artists haven’t linked up with T5UMUT5UMU to help produce hair-raising electronic backdrops for them…I don’t know. Shout out this former member of Necronomidol, who enlists the electronic artist to help craft an often-chilly sound incorporating touches of traditional Japanese sound over which she can bob, talk and rap. Get it here.

Juke Gakubou — META GIRL

AI comes for footwork, or…I don’t know what the fuck it is. “JUKE GAKUBOU is a fictional girl generated by digital processing,” I feel this mostly applies to the project’s visual side, which ends up resembling a lot of AI-generated art nerds go ga-ga for (it looks hideous). The music, though, is at least a curio, competent and potentially human after all. Let’s file this one in the “keep an eye on it, even if you keep an eyebrow arched” area. Get it here.

TOMOYU — Artificial Flower #2

Get it here.

OZIGIRI — “At The Secret Base”

This sounds like if YOASOBI came together around Atari Teenage Riot instead of Hatsune Miku. At least until the screams come in and open up the pit. Get it here.

Oyubi — Redai EP

Wouldn’t be a Bandcamp round-up without an Oyubi appearance. This time, it comes courtesy of 85acid and finds the producer playing around with a more eclectic sonic palette, from what sounds like a duck rebooting on “Ah FX” to traditional Japanese instruments on “Shamisen.” That he can turn them into straight-up grooves just reminds of his skill. Get it here.

Peaky Beats, Lewo Chyba, cva beatz, DubGuy, Hizuo, and SHIKEMOKU — ARK008 With Peaky Beats

One of Kyoto’s most exciting dance upstarts teams up with Peaky Beats for a special set. Get it here.

AprilBlue — “Kotonoha No Kuni”

While you wait for the new For Tracy Hyde, don’t miss the latest from Azusa Suga’s other melancholy rock outfit. Get it here.

boris — fade

Not “Boris,” but “boris,” a small but vital difference if you dig into this. Though no worries if you got confused listening to these slow-swelling guitar cloud formations come together, because this is what they’ve always done well, uppercase or otherwise. Get it here.

WAN — SUSUKINO JUNGLIST

Obake Mask continues to shine a light on electronic acts hailing from the north, with the latest offering coming from Sapporo jungle aficionado WAN. Here, they offer up a joyful four pack of tracks, blessed with a brisk and upbeat energy on standouts “Life is creation” and “Space highway.” Get it here.

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies

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