Make Believe Mailer 79: Five 2023 First Half Faves

The Theme Is — Where Do You Belong?

Why is this year going so fast??? That’s some real old-dude-thought sure, but I don’t know…2023 seems to be just zooming by, like I’m stunned it’s already mid June. With this realization also comes best-of-mid-year lists which…I’m not doing, seeing as the 2022 list is still coming together in the drafts. Sit tight!

Instead, I’m using the calendar halfway point to zoom in on five releases I haven’t had a chance to write about yet for various reasons, all of which (happy accident) have struck a chord personally because of how they wrestle with what sound (and perhaps artist identity) they should be embracing. It’s a great snapshot of where Japanese music has been in 2023 — the best works of the year so far refuse to settle into one lane, and instead push forward to see what is possible.

Note: Potentially the best example of this and an absolute must-talk-about release is cero’s latest album, but I’m saving that one for an individual post or maybe I’ll pitch something on it to a proper site? But yeah, it’s not here but looms large.

Kikuo — Kikuo Miku 7

Vocaloid is an instrument, but that description occasionally drains its artistic merit. Apologies for bringing up modern dilemmas, but that feels especially true in an age of tech-phobia, where new developments spark structural dread and Daft Punk refuse to be robots anymore. Vocaloid has been roped into these discussions at times, and it is often a valid comparison — it’s a singing synthesizer after all, a CD you install. Yet it’s so much more, and nearly two decades of artists have shown how mind-expanding it actually is.

Long-running producer Kikuo exemplifies this well, and latest album Kikuo Miku 7 shows how the technology can help craft a fantasyland where the digi-voice of Hatsune Miku and friends serve as building blocks to the surreal. The synthesized voice is, ultimately, only one part of Kikuo’s sonic map. Touches of traditional Japanese music collide with layers of bells and natural samples and festival-ready percussion to create an out-of-time blur. You start thinking with all the Kyoto-tour vibes and nods to mythology this is an experiment in Kikuo’s home nation’s past. Then you run into a cover of bo en’s “My Time” from the Omori soundtrack, somehow both every bit as energetic as the original while also being significantly more unnerving, with voices and synths sounding like they are melting.

Whether creating enchanting sounds or turning them unnerving or adding shadows to the glittery stuff, Vocaloid singing zips above and through it all. Kikuo utilizes Hatsune Miku and Chinese voicebank Qixuan, using them seperataly and in symphony with one another, sometimes as guiding vocal and other times playing with them as additional detail to the music. There’s nothing rigid about them on 7, but rather Kikuo reveals the expressive possibilities embedded in the technology, and how it offers the same flights of creative fancy as a keyboard, a drum kit or field recordings of water. Vocaloid is software, but it’s also sound, and that can be transformed into whatever you want. Kikuo is more than happy to see what’s possible, and remain hard to pin down. Get it here, or listen above.

Pasocom Music Club — FINE LINE

First, full disclosure: I was hired to write Pasocom Music Club’s English-language bio ahead of this album. That said, I’ve been writing about them on the blog since they were just sharing sketches on SoundCloud so…I hope it’s clear where I’m coming from.

Ahhh, the age old question — how do you balance art and commerce? It’s not the dominant theme of FINE LINE, but a tension running throughout Pasocom Music Club’s latest full-length album. It’s also a dilemma very familiar to the world they come from. The Kansai duo originate from the netlabel community, a space that has had to wrestle with greater attention over the last decade, and which I feel pretty confident in saying has been a challenge in figuring out how to balance the digi-freedom of its roots with newfound commercial demands.

Pasocom’s answer is to…just do everything at once, and show they can exist in both worlds. Built around a conceptual thread about aliens (which feels like a metaphor for them landing on Planet Greater Expectations), FINE LINE tightropes between giddy radio-eyeing dance-pop featuring guest hooks from chelmico (“PUMP”) and Aozora Hayashi (“KICK&GO”), and more freewheeling fair ranging from woof-centric rushes doubling as career callbacks (“Dog Fight”) to basement party crackers featuring a guest rap from fellow Kansai creator The Hair Kid (“UFO-mie,” featuring an absolute wild shout out to Yonkers). Throughout, the duo also keep true to their instrumental-focused roots, dabbling in peaceful electronic sketches and sample-cut-up mayhem.

FINE LINE’s best, though, finds a balance between both sides, capped off by closer “Day-After-Day” featuring LAUSBUB’s Mei Takahashi. Here’s Pasocom’s familiar brainy approach to dance construction revealing that it pairs perfectly with a locked-in vocal. Maybe there’s nothing to worry about with these two. Listen above.

TORIENA — BLOOD DEBUG

This one clicked after seeing TORIENA perform chunks of it live this past May. In person, TORIENA transforms into a one-woman rave, both in playing a high-octane assortment of sounds bridging older generations and Tokyo kids geared towards rap-pop mutations and in bringing a physicality to her presence that makes her get swept up in the sound too. Part of the thrill is watching her — an artist once strongly linked to chiptune and nothing but — smash through all hypothetical fences to create her ideal party-of-one.

BLOOD DEBUG captures this freeform approach wonderfully, building on last year’s RAW while flexing a little more sonic variety. TORIENA moves from icy to energized to euphoric — sometimes on a single track, illustrated by a title track pounding down hard until she lets some piano uplift the whole track to pure joy. She splatters guitar chugs throughout, and even teases elements of her 8-bit origins at times (I swear I hear Pac-Man gobbling ketamine on “Red cell”), while ending it all with breakcore bliss on “404 not found.” Listen above.

SERINA — 1%

We’re currently going through hyperpop exhaustion, and that was always to be expected — whether talking about the sonic movements young creators all over the world dabbled in naturally or the Spotify-powered version that wormed its way into coverage (hey, probably put me in there), this buzz was bound to eventually grow too big and be sucked up by major forces in a way that would make it off-putting. Feel like Frost Children discourse this spring marked the true pivot, and now a lot of music falling under this term feels like its going under heavier scrutiny than before. Which, nothing wrong with that, as the musical ideas have been adopted by a lot of creators who feel like they are just playing with costumes rather than exploring what’s possible with the ideas central to it.

Still, I think there’s plenty of great and interesting stuff in this corner, especially in Japan, where the commercial prospects of it never really materialized, leaving it to the greater “underground” to fiddle with. Here’s a good example. SERINA frequently utilizes Auto-tune and blown-out electronics in her work, often smashing them against rock signifiers…yet I don’t think she’s imitating like, 100 gecs, but is kind of trying to figure out how to be a traditional rocker, but with her own bend. Her 1% EP features some great mish-mash of sound, but there’s also straight up ballads and pop-punk on here. The key is a youthful ambition bleeding over into some of the sillier moments here like on “Bad bye,” where adolescent lyrics (I mean, look at the title) pair well with a straightforward rock-rap bounce. No sinister commercial navigating here — just youth expressing itself, which was always this world’s strength. Listen above.

Kalen Anzai — ANTI HEROINE

J-pop in the 2020s excels thanks to the far-flung sounds the industry embraces. Rolling Stone Japan just did a deep dive into Spotify’s new “Gacha Pop” playlist, which identifies the country’s off-trend tendencies to actually be a strength globally. Anything can connect, and anyone can be part of it.

But not mentioned is that there is a border you can’t cross. Once you enter this bizarro region, you suddenly are lost even at a time when anything can be absorbed in efforts both domestic and international to present a new era of J-pop.

Kalen Anzai jumped deep into that no-man’s land a longtime ago.

Debuting in a decade where Japanese music companies tried to find a way to replicate the Aughts-era female soloist for a new generation, Anzai today finds herself facing the harsh reality that — cover your eyes for the next three seconds, Nante Japan comment section and assorted people who wish it was 2005 forever — nobody wanted that. Maybe that’s slowly changing as we get more 2000s Heisei nostalgia creeping up into contemporary life — see, this McDonald’s commercial — but Anzai emerged at the worst time, swathed in throwback sounds and literally pretending to be Ayumi Hamasaki in a drama to underline her whole deal. Now, nobody called her up to hold a shrimp burger in an ad aligning with her aesthetic.

Nobody appears to know what Anzai should be in 2023, with latest album ANTI HEROINE being a testament to how baffled everyone is about what she should do. Here’s 51 minutes of her team saying “ahhh, fuck it, try everything!” Take multiple Danny L. Harle tracks, and just try to conjure up the plastic perfection of 2016 PC Music! Try to be a traditional upbeat J-pop singer! Oh, or maybe tap into the vibe Dream Ami was going for in 2015? Give hardcore rock a go. Wait, also…try to do like fuzzy “indie-rock,” we can label it a “demo” for extra cred. Hey, cover an Anpanman song made for toddlers, but in the style of “dark pop.” Shit, why not!?

There’s no coherence to ANTI HEROINE…and thank goodness for that, because this is a 2023 J-pop highlight, even if nobody noticed. Thanks to the sheer waht-the-hell-do-with-her-ness of Anzai’s career at this point, she’s given a lot of room to experiment and try out different styles. They don’t all hit — the closer to peppy Nishino-Kana-energy she gets, the worse this album becomes — but there’s so much going on here, and a lot of it so out of step even with out-of-step J-pop as to be compelling.

Those Harle songs sound pretty good, and she fits in well over his synthesized dance-pop. There’s something approaching hyperpop (above), but much more imaginative and unpredictable (koto strums pop up???). Sure, it’s just Avex taking advantage of their roster, but there’s just a Have A Nice Day! song on here, that happens to be sung by Anzai (“Mirai No Oto”). Vocaloid has proven itself to be the most influential sound in Japan of the 21st century, but when Anzai duets with Hatsune Miku on “18 No Tokyo,” she finds her own angle on it that doesn’t fit in with current trends…but helps her stand out (with a nod to the past). Heck, that Anpanman cover? Pretty darn good, and more subversive than most J-pop artists are willing to go.

ANTI HEROINE is a triumph because it blows up the idea of Kalen Anzai. She emerged already defined — hey, remember Ayumi Hamasaki? Well, here’s the reboot — but failed to stick. So, why not just try everything? That ability to just go for it and dabble results in some of her best songs to date, and one of the year’s finest pop albums halfway through, all while accidentally nailing the vibe of the country’s sound in the process. Who needs a playlist…here’s “gacha pop” the album. Listen above.

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

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