Make Believe Mailer 88: Bandcamp Friday Special September 2023
I've got a backload of feature posts, but staying loyal to this segment
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. Welcome to the September edition!
Snail’s House — Alien Pop IV
It feels wrong to declare anything outside of the pure ramune-scented soundscapes Snail’s House makes as their best work, but despite a lot of detail and complexity hiding under the kawaii exterior defining their most immediate work…I’m a sucker for the electro-pop. The Alien Pop series channels late Aughts Yasutaka Nakata and that unfiltered Hatsune Miku stuff perfectly, with the fourth installment finding a way to make the homage even clearer than digi-voice compression (specifically…check “Milkyway Melancholy” and see if the vocals bring to mind any Perfume hooks from the late 2000s). Yet the best tribute pulsating across this EP is the delirious joy Snail’s House gets out of every electro element, wrapping up synths and cyborg vocals into late-night party delights on “Hypernova Disco” or the glitchy strut of “Club Nebula.” There’s also plenty of reminders of how much space remains for experimentation in this world — “Voyager” jumps out as the highlight thanks to a speedier pace than Snail’s House is used to and letting the vocals flow a little looser (slightly less filter works). This is them at their finest. Get it here.
ex. happyender girl — helvetica_youth EP
Hatsune Miku, born as a 16-year-old digi-girl and forever fated to remain that age, turned 16 in the real world this past week. The avatar of Vocaloid remains as vital today as she did in 2007 as she helped usher in a new online-centric reality for music, and artists all over continue to find novel uses for her voice bank. Miku has been applied to fuzzy and scuzzy indie-rock for years now, but ex. happyender girl provide one of the finest examples of how to deploy synthesized singing to driving numbers. Part of that is in finding a way to fit her digital delivery to something with the rock-reference-heavy push of title track (itself finding ways to put Miku in the same world as Number Girl and Sonic Youth) or the fuzz-burst of the second song. After finding a way to make her feel at home, the project ends with a downtempo electronic number about cats…and she still sounds great within that context. Get it here.
Natsume Kanfu — Tenshi No Brooch
As demonstrated on her masterful collaboration with AOTQ last year, Natsume Kanfu excels at capturing the small moments of modern life over music in no rush to get anywhere…which works wonders when setting a scene. Tenshi No Brooch ratchets the urgency up ever so slightly while still luxuriating in airy electronics. Check the percussion opening up the existential “Dai Mao,” or even the dramatic synth melody underlining the otherwise playful “Doki Doki Computer” (a song offering a great example of how to write a song of longing centered around screens). This all builds to her most frantic creation to date, the aikido-referencing “Gohan Desu Yo Ne,” lighter in tone but speeding ahead. Even with the stakes raised, Kanfu finds ways to zero in on love slipping away, restless nights in front of the computer, or sparring sessions. Get it here.
Metome And Kafuka — Soar
My version of an all-star crossover, Osaka electronic tinkerers Metome and Kafuka team up for a two song offering built around minimalism and small touches. Makes sense, seeing as both creators have long gotten a lot out of a little, and here they use spoken-word samples and blips of syllable sputters to add tension to rumbling, spacious sounds. Get it here.
64controll — “▝▍▙▟▐▔▘”
I’m not much of a gamer, current or retro. You have to make sacrifices as you get older, and video games ended up being given the boot. So hearing sounds nod to 8-bit glory days always trigger something in me, even if it’s just a feeling of “wow, I had NES once!” I love the chip touches found on duo 64controll’s contribution to the shadowy Emoticons. label, which add a touch of dizziness to an otherwise locked-in groove, and making the whole 7-minutes-plus ride feel like an electronic rush. There’s nostalgia lurking in their, but also a fever-dream-like vibe that makes it hard to just get caught up on consoles of yesteryear. Get it here.
Licaxxx — No Matter What EP
The real headline here might actually just be the presence of Licaxxx — long-running producer and DJ, at this point an influence point for many younger creators — on Bandcamp at all. Apologies for “I was talking about…” stuff, but I was talking about how Bandcamp remains a kind of alien concept among many wrapped up in the major label world (Licaxxx definitely floating around in this realm), so it’s encouraging to see someone like her offer up four tracks of kinectic dance cuts via the platform. While rave ups like “Vodka With Vodka” offer perfect weekend fuel, Licaxxx reminds of her versatility with an inclusion like “Want To Hear What I Can’t See,” a pulsating meditation featuring nearly no beat. Get it here.
Ryuki Miyamoto — Play It Loud Again
You know who has been using Bandcamp for a long time to release straight heat? Trekkie Trax, and they aren’t slowing down with the latest from Ryuki Miyamoto. Get it here.
Chouchou — Dialogue / Daydreaming
Long-running duo Chouchou continues to turn piano fragility and downtempo electronic waves into an enveloping, often ennui-dipped listen. Following up a slightly poppier offering from the spring, the pair lean into the off-kilter here, using vinyl crackle, distorted audio and their own hushed voices to create something closed from the outside world. Get it here.
Smany — “Sounds”
You can copy a lot of the above to solo act Smany, still out here crafting delicate electronic songs aimed at absorbing the listener. Get it here.
Shijo Kikoku — Madowasu Denpato
God, I love just how much fun a new era of labels and creators are having with sounds in Japan. That’s been in the air for a while now — Foodman, Wasabi Tapes, DJWWW, a whole bunch of other bedtown-based brainiacs pushing — but it seems to have really overflown in 2023, maybe inspired by current flag-bearer Hakushi Hasegawa taking a step forward. There’s traces of them on Shijo Kikoku’s whirlwind release, especially on the jazzy spring of the finale, but there’s also plenty of totally fresh directions revealed here. Electro-pop gone greyscale, broken jazz pop, Game Boy drum ‘n’ bass echoes and so much more, all defined by a glee in seeing what they can get away with sonically. Get it here.
kmmg — kmmg
Though let’s not get it twisted — acting goofy through music is a time-honored tradition in Japan, and I’m sure a handful of court musicians were writing zany songs about the world about them centuries ago too. Here’s a set of synth-pop numbers nodding to the jittery sounds of the early ‘80s, with lyrics centered around naming types of bread and the world of adult video. Get it here.
Lily chilly blue stars — Hand Cream
Formed out of a library music conference by three musicians based out in the Tokyo suburbs, Lily chilly blue stars nod to the sweetness of indie-pop while adding a touch of the refined to the songs featured on this four-song release. The strings on opener “Sonosheet” elevate the vocals and make a song about the imaginative possibilities of music ring all the more true, while they become melancholic on the cloudier “theme for Lilly chilly blue stars,” a self-intro breaking out of its daze by guitar strums. Get it here.
i-fls — Unselected Works: Lost Tracks V.3
The dig into i-fls’ archives continues, and it’s starting to feel like cleaning out a basement and more like discovering an entire new era for the artist. Get it here.
Texas 3000 — Taishu Shokudo Milk
Messy in the best way, Texas 3000 stumble about a bit on Taishu Shokudo Milk but that tipsy pace all works out as the band keep the staggering guitars and vocals together into something whole. Get it here.
CRZKNY — GROOOOOOOOOVEONE
First off, continued praise towards Hiroshima’s CRZKNY for the Atomic Bomb Compilation series, with another great installment out now that I should give a little more shine in the near future. Second, the CHI-JUKE release is fun, even if I missed the free download window. Third, his latest solo offering finds the often pummeling producer embracing a speedier and lighter approach, at least by their standards. The pounding remains, but here the percussion lays off the force a bit and everything just zooms. Get it here.
mori_de_kurasu — Inner Spectrum
Here’s an absolutely wild thing for a music writer to admit — I have, much to my disappointment, not had a chance to listen to a lot of new music in the past like, three weeks. One of the reasons this blog / newsletter / whatever this mutates into next is unlikely to ever go away is because it forces me to not get lazy — this post alone has been a spiritual lifesaver — even when work forces me out of my home office, where I listen to and seek out new music. That has been my situation for most of August, and honestly, it feels kind of overwhelming to catch up.
This is all slight excuse making to say…I’m just now listening to mori_de_kurasu’s latest full-length album as I wrap up this newsletter, nothing intelligent to say about it beyond “Local Visions, never a doubt!” and wanting to say how well the faster pace of “Yurete” and the acid-ish bass of “Looking-glass Self” sound after midnight, or how comforting the chillier air of “Autumn” (can you tell I’m mentally livestreaming this one?) is. A lovely album I’m excited to spend more time with…some time in the future. Get it here.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Solid collection of fun, weird indie music. Also funny the first two write-ups both ended up being about Hatsune Miku lol.