Make Believe Melodies For April 4, 2022
"Tight Album" — Good Concept
Sakanaction — Adapt
Adapt is a concept album without a real concept. While Sakanaction have presented this as a “concept album,” the songs here aren’t connected by anything traditionally associated with that term — no story, no recurring characters, no goofy spoken word bits, heck even sonically Adapt is all over the place. Singer/guitarist/main writer Ichiro Yamaguchi plays around with sad-sack reggae-lite on “Caravan” before swiveling to more familiar synth-accented rock a song later. Eventually, he embraces his inner David Byrne on “Shock!” and his grandpa side on dusty ballad “Shandy Gaff.”
As an album, it’s one of the tightest they have ever made, clocking in at just under 34 minutes (whereas their last full-length is three times as long) and offering a compact version of the Sakanaction experience. Here’s the arena-ready rockers! Here’s the experimental electronic passage! Want to see Yamaguchi act like a goofball, well he’s been listening to Talking Heads and going for it! The theatrics never quite reach their peak, but as a condensed version of a band capable of doing whatever they want…it’s pretty great, and easy to revisit.
Really, the “concept” surrounds the band itself, and teeters closer to existential dread…what is Sakanaction in the 2020s, and what is a rock band in the age of COVID-19? Adapt is part of a bigger shift the group has been wrestling with since their last big tour was cancelled due to the pandemic, which is how a project like them delivers music during such weird times. This album is really a result of Sakanaction’s much-ballyhooed online live shows over the last two years, wherein they blurred the line between digital and IRL in a way few anywhere tried, interested in elevating experiences rather than simply replacing them. That’s why all the videos for the songs from this release feature prominent live playing.
If there’s any unifying element to Adapt the album, it’s the mood. Loneliness and longing have always been present in Sakanaction’s music, but everything feels more pronounced here, emerging in directly (“Caravan”) and hidden under wildness (“Shock!”). There’s something more personal present here, regardless of what sounds they embrace — this is Sakanaction trying to connect to listeners based on a shared experience (without ever mentioning said global experience, thank goodness), linking every song here in emotion. Listen above.
Kindan No Tasuketsu — “Goody Goody Gumdrops”
It feels like the “Final Season” of Kindan No Tasuketsu has been going on for years…and I’m totally fine with it, because the project continues to produce some of the best off-kilter pop going. “Goody Goody Gumdrops” offers dance-pop with a melancholy swirl, though that’s more of a vocal trick, because the lyrics are more about celebrating the sweetness of life, both figurative (love, sex) and literal (candy, chocolate bananas though I suppose that could be a metaphor too). It’s one of Kindan’s catchier moments, showing their songwriting credentials while being packaged with a great video showcasing bedroom pop star ambitions (choreographed dancing) and weirdness (latex guy). Listen above.
cero — “Cupola”
A band that always remembers…a groove is great, but sometimes you have to make everything around it interesting too. Listen above.
Cyber Milk — “Meitei Utsu Su.wav DEMO”
The beauty of this corner of Japanese SoundCloud is “demo” being there doesn’t mean much, as I can’t imagine how this Cyber Milk song could sound anymore “finished.” This is pure eyes-down vibing, split between oddly upbeat observations on independence but offset by a more palpable — see those sad keyboard twinkles — sadness, manifest in her hushed delivery, mentions of death and what looks like a sad penguin “( ;ᯅ×” being included in the lyrics. A raw song that doesn’t need any gloss. Listen above.
te’resa — “Red”
A rollicking track pushing easy-breezy guitar strums up against jungle breaks, all while te’resa’s voice burbles via digi manipulation. It’s a nice disruption of a common sound in J-pop, featuring contributions from Seiho and NTsKi. Here’s the twist…te’resa released an even better single right before this one.
te’resa — “Don’t Slow Me Down”
Oh, now this is going for it. No need to subvert when you can just lean into sick repetition and get lost in the beat, here provided by Pharakami Sanders. Better yet…wait until te’resa and co. flip everything around and switch the energy of this single up midway through, turning just-wanna-party energy into lust. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of March 21, 2022 To March 27, 2022
Back in the day, the Oricon Music Charts were the go-to path to music stardom in Japan. Acts of all sorts traversed these lands, trying to sell as many CDs as possible in order to land a good ranking on a chart choosing to only count physical sales, even as the Internet came to be and the number of versions offered for sale got ridiculous. Today, with the country finally in on digital, these roads are more barren and only looked at by the most fanatic of supporters needing something to celebrate. Yet every week, a new song sells enough plastic to take the top spot. So let’s take a trip down…the Oricon Trail.
Nogizaka46 — “Actually…” (463,439 Copies Sold)
Many dismiss idol music…especially the large -48/-46 groups…due to pure volume. Songs in this corner of J-pop rarely worry about sonic subtlety, and when the people behind them see a lot of singers in one place they tend to just go “great, all together now!” Sometimes this works and ups the emotional punch of a song, other times it turns grating.
“Actually…” draws real tension from all these voices. It’s a must to compliment the music, which starts as all nerves and persistent beats, with only some vocal vapor in the back. Nogizaka46 sing together, but stay relatively hushed, slowly picking up the urgency as the verses play out. Then the pay off, with the music swelling behind strings and the rush of vocalists getting louder when the song calls for it. “Actually…” maintains the same dramatic pace throughout, thanks in large part to the production (frantic beat patterns and bass drops…this is the closest the -46 camp has come to accidentally making a Suiyoubi No Campanella track), but also an understanding of how to make the group’s unique delivery work for them. Listen above.
News And Views
I’ve been taking a lot of cold medicine over the last few days to combat some weird flu-like illness that has left me mostly sleeping over the last three days (not COVID though, checked, boom baby!). I had assumed I had swallowed too many pills when I saw the latest The First Take upload being a collab between members of Hinatazaka46 and members of…Seaseme Street. Covering “Ue O Muite Aruko,” nonetheless. But it’s not a hallucination, but real and cute!
Release the Elmo Vocaloid, now!
Fuji Rock Festival, the country’s premier international summer music festival, unveiled its first wave of performers for this year’s effort at a return to normalcy after being disrupted these past two years by the Olympics and the COVID-19 pandemic. The line-up so far is pretty interesting — the two headliners so far are Jack White (expected) and Halsey (a curveball! But an interesting one), while the domestic choices offer a pretty eclectic snapshot of where the musical landscape is at right now, with lots of rap, rock and even a pinch of psych thrown in.
Also of note…while a lot of the info about Fuji Rock 2022 provided by organizer Smash emphasizes “normalcy” and “existing with Coronavirus,” the fest will still require constant temperature checks and for punters to wear masks while on the grounds in Naeba. It probably says more of how untethered to the United States I am than anything else but…seems like this isn’t the norm elsewhere, which is kinda shocking!nuance kinda embrace the opposite.
BAND-MAID…popular enough to warrant two more shows to an already hotly anticipated U.S. tour later this year.
Shimokitazawa, arguably trendy but definitely still a hub for live music, now has its own special beer. Welcome Shimokitazawa Chaos Beer. And chaos it has spawned.
The beer is manufactured by DHC, a conglomerate known for being run by right wingers who are pretty upfront about their views…here’s just one notable case. Besides being another blow to Shimokitazawa’s argument for continued coolness, this has also sparked a pretty big push back against the brew…and DHC…on Twitter.
Three members of Nogizaka46 will host a show about video games called “Tokyo Pasocon Club.” Please make sure to support other Pasocon Clubs, too.
Toby Fox, developer of Undertale, made some music for a Pocari Sweat commercial.
Some of the best book cover art for a title about city pop you could ream of.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies