Make Believe Mailer 85: Bandcamp Friday Special August 2023
An Experimental Edition
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 a dive into Japanese releases worth your time, attention and money for August. And hey, this is an actual Bandcamp Friday, so go extra nuts!
Toiret Status — wolmhore
Pure goofball genius courtesy of an artist who should be at the vanguard of modern-day experimental music. Toiret Status loves sounds, especially how malleable it can be — look, a synth that can be twisted into a whirligig! Check this out, chimes and vocal samples that can be melted down to sonic goo! You know uami right…well, now imagine multiple versions of her spitting syllables over a lurching beat constantly being disrupted by whatever. Now that’s a good time!
This is experimentalism at its most gleeful, Toiret Status following in the footsteps of fellow Japanese oddball Foodman in openly celebrating a fascination with individual sounds — sped-up purrs, gaudy blasts of distorted guitar, synths that sounds like chrome clowns juggling balls with painted stupid colors — and seeing how ideas can be jammed together in a way to form something weird but ultimately cohesive. At the center of this one is “#93,” perhaps the Toiret Status epic, a seven-minute-plus jam featuring electronic noise intermingling with delicate percussion blurring together to eventually become a musical force Toiret Status loops to oblivion towards the end. It’s a blast, and one that will make your head spin. Get it here.
koeosaeme — Beige
Tokyo’s koeosaeme offers a study in how space can be just as disorienting as noise. Previously seen exploring the same mass-media-powered fever dreams as modern Japanese experimentalist maestros like woopheadclrms and DJWWWW, Beige finds them stripping their songs down to near emptiness, but all that space just makes the disorienting touches unnerve even more. Horn blurts, whispers, horror-movie key stabs, synth vapor and so much more passes by, connecting in much the same way previous maximalist efforts did, but revealing that a minimalist approach can also be threaded together to form something coherent…and kinda creepy (my god how can horns sound so malicious). Get it here.
i-fls — Unselected Works: Lost Tracks V.2
The latest peak into i-fls’ early days reveals traces of the melancholy rush they would stumble on in the early 2010s, but might be most interesting as a document for ideas that never really manifest into anything more. They never leaned too much into ethereal passages like they do on “Lassen,” while “72 (edit)” conceals a sharper, almost malfunctioning edge that never disrupted the suburban daydreams they would conjure up in the years after. Everything is a little rougher, a little more open to the offbeat. A great snapshot of an artist still carving out their sound, showing all the odd ends eventually discarded. Get it here.
NirBorna — Plexus EP
Trekkie Trax fosters new talent in the form of Tokyo creator NirBorna, whose Plexus EP reveals a globe-minded approach to sound borrowing from dancehall, techno and house among so much more. Critically, though, they aren’t just a tourist to the styles, but rather open to finding their own spin on them, often by colliding them into one another create dancehall that’s less euphoric and more unsettling, or techno workouts bordering on the sort of experimental stuff at the top of this post. Finding your sonic voice? Now that’s a strong start from a rookie. Get it here.
iga — Aft
Tempos are going up across the board in electornic music — pop or otherwise — but a swifter speed doesn’t mean experimental tendencies have to be left behind. Enter producer iga, whose Aft revels in rhythms drawing from UK Garage (“landescape”) and mutating breakcore to work in tandem with their fractured vocals (“denial”). iga’s vocals add a surprise element to the songs — you never know when they are just going to sing, and when they are going to warp their own vocals into a new sonic element — and there’s an awareness of pop giving these songs a foundation to play around with (for example…”youth” sounds like Sakanaction on ADHD medication). Get it here.
Lily Fury — Hinemosphere
The second release from Siren For Charlotte pretty much cements them as a label to watch — courtesy of creator Lily Fury, Hinemosphere uses the general idea of shoegaze (guitars, feedback) as a springboard to cram in as many ideas as possible to craft something much more tricky and ultimately slippery than that tag would lead on. The title track teases emo sensibility, while “Stealth-Raider” touches on everything from metal growls to toe’s precision-point rock to the techno-rock energy of Boom Boom Satellites. It’s grace colliding with catharsis, resulting in one of the year’s best rock releases. Get it here.
HAWLIE — JADEITE / SOLTHEM
Experimental beats to let your brain drip out of your skull to during a hot day. Get it here.
Rika Tana — Seiten
A peak behind the curtain — while I should put together this feature gradually over the course of like, two weeks, I tend to cram it all in to the final few days leading up to a Bandcamp Friday. While a large part of this is a mixture of procrastination and general work overwhelming, a little of it is also because so many artists release stuff right before, I want to spend as much time with this work as possible. Here’s a late entry for my personal radar that’s a highlight of this month’s feature — upbeat and optimistic, Rika Tana channels the simple but straight to the heart production touches of an imai from group_inou to craft a dance album built for moments of bliss. Get it here.
Nettaiato — Tapes Of Mutilation
In our vauge experimental edition of this feature, let’s appreciate that embracing scummy sounding dynamics to craft basic rock numbers can be every bit as left field as media-mush meditations on modern life or speedy garage tracks spiked by rippling vocals. This project from the ever-reliable Bojou Tracks shows how a lo-fi approach can add extra charm to familiar indie-pop. Get it here.
Kyogen — Kureyume EP
Perky electronic instrumentals offering a little dash of light — with a hint of ennui via those melodies — to your day. Get it here.
Elitetao — FANTASTIC MI MI MI
I’ll take all the experimental Hatsune Miku meditations you got, especially if they sneak in some electric guitars into the mix to really add to the headrush. Get it here.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
This post hass bizarre bandcamp at the most bizarre bandcamp, I LOVE it.