Make Believe Melodies For April 8, 2024
Mom should really be put up in the 2020s pantheon
Mom — Sangyo
Let’s take a second to slow down and appreciate how strange it is that, for a brief moment, an artist like Mom commanded viral attention. A Saitama-born oddball originally releasing through Make Believe Melodies’ favorite Ano(t)raks who jumped up to bigger spaces somehow, someway stumbled on a TikTok hit. Nothing ever lasts long in the attention-empty world of social media, but for a flicker of time, one of the weirdest creators going in the country and a prominent champion of anti-nostalgia demanded attention. A beautiful oddity…and one that didn’t detract from what makes him so special.
Sangyo is a “short album” serving as a follow-up to last year’s Kanashi Dekigoto - The Overkill -. In practice, this resembles the creator’s decision to release an all-acoustic busking album in the wake of their 2019 full-length Detox. Unlike back then, Sangyo strikes me as a huge artistic leap forward compared to what came before. I liked Kanashi Dekigoto, but it felt like Mom being Mom, whereas this EP-by-any-other-name feels like an effort to twist the idea of Mom into something totally new. It is based in familiar acoustic strums, but unlike earlier efforts, it revels in experimentation, disrupting the station-adjacent playing with samples of Mom talking, electronic dapples and string sections (resulting in moments that…sound like The Books?). There’s unease lurking in the corners of an otherwise sweet slice of intimacy like “GABAN,” with vocal samples and sonic details underneath the surface sprouting up like weeds, disrupting boring prettiness with reality.
That starkness comes across most vividly in the lyrics. Mom has always been more sharp-tongued than his genre-skipping experiments might imply — again, one of the only artists railing against nostalgia at a time when that sometimes feel like that’s the only corner to fall into. Yet across Sangyo, he’s spitting venom at capitalists eyeing outer space, side-eyeing grim realities, and above all else trying to reckon with himself and his own failings. That all leads to one of the finest songs of Mom’s career in closer “Moon River Wo Machinagara,” where multi-tracked Moms — some sped up — crash over one another as our narrarator tries to figure out their place in the world, and where to go next. Wherever it is, I think I’ll be onboard for it. Listen above.
BUDDHAHOUSE — “Ephemeral Lovers”
Fruit Parlour boss BUDDHAHOUSE comes through with the floor physicality via their latest release. There’s nothing melancholy about “Ephemeral Lovers,” which opts for gunshot samples and shuffling beats aimed straight at the club set. An absolute blast to bounce around to. Get it here.
HENTAI GANG — “MONSTER FOREVER”
There’s a way to make Yurufuwa Gang more out there? Well, turns out just add more Goa-damaged folks alongside them, and let it rip. Listen above.
Cuffboi — KiCK BACK
“Hyperpop” as a concept is on thin ice at this point, particularly in Japan where I am not sure anyone wants to identify as such outside of major-label stabs at relevancy. Yet the actual artistic energy that made all of that so intriguing carries on and continues to mutate. Here’s a golden example of that, with Cuffboi finding time to sound more like group_inou and to lean more into rap proper, while also including a vaporous highlight like “404 Not Found,” which argues that simply removing elements might be all it takes to make someone sound exhilarating again. Listen above.
Seascapes — “Kawasaki Warehouse District (2024 Rework)”
Sometimes, you just have to give yourself over to the early 2010s vibes. Listen above.
Gliiico — “Amiri Jeans”
Considering how hyped Gliiico has been for a few years now — they popped up in a Phoenix video! — I respect that the first taste of the trio’s debut EP sounds like its peeling. The vocals sound washed, and even the groove sounds like it was rescued from a recycle shop. Yet I’m here for that deteriorating vibe, and hope the whole release finds them melting down, turning grooves into glorious gunk. Listen above.
PSYCHIC FEVER — “Love Fire”
I’ve been fascinated by PSYCHIC FEVER as a sociological entity for a bit. LDH said “go to Thailand, become marketable for a growing market!” and also threw them a JP THE WAVY feature / produced song. As far as the evolution of J-pop goes, they exist as an interesting marketing strategy. Yet with “Love Fire,” they uncork the pop potential at the center of their continent experiment. This is a sleek dance-pop mutation tapping into modern trends without sounding too tied to the moment — I’m mostly reminded pre-crisis NU’EST going full counterfeit Cashmere Cat, and coming up with the best song of their career. It gets to the point, and hits on a pleasure center previously untapped by simply going straight ahead. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of March 25, 2024 To March 31, 2024
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.
Knight A — “EDEN” (50,477 Copies Sold)
This is not a drill: we have anime boys topping the Oricon Singles chart, I repeat, we have anime boys with Skittles-colored hair on top of the physical chart!
Thanks to a classic lag week where none of the CD-pushing heavyweights is nowhere to be found (when accounting things like “streams” into the formula, Creepy Nuts easily take the overall number-one spot), mixed-media collective Knight A have taken the top spot with a surprisingly sparse R&B-tinged pop song. Maybe all the space has something to do with some of the members previously being ASMR influencers, but that’s just speculation. It’s…OK, pretty boilerplate contemporary pop that seems a little unambitious coming from cartoon guys (get animated!!!), though I appreciate it doing well sales wise, just for the change of pace.
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News And Views
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is traveling to the United States for a meeting with President Joe Biden. As tends to be the case with these high-level geopolitical get-togethers, a fancy banquet will be held. And Kishida isn’t holding back in flexing cultural power, with the media reporting YOASOBI will attend, potentially to perform their hit song “Idol.” The article also claims Japanese athletes will show up (Ohtani? Rui Hachimura? That three-point specialist from the University of Nebraska?) along with “other celebrities,” which is nice and vague.
This marks the latest entry in the history of J-pop intersecting with the American Presidency, last observed when Donald Trump and Pikotaro hung out. It also gives me an excuse to share this:Coachella is days away…something I’m well aware of as I have to pack for my trip out to Indio very very soon (are you going???? Let’s meet up!). The whole reason I decided to make this trip was the trio of Japanese artists dotting the lineup, a sign of J-pop ~ breaking through ~ and one of those things that feels like…I should be at? Well, now I get even more reasons to justify this madness, as 88Rising announced its “Futures” stage with…well, some acts who are actually quite veteran, but technicalities schmelacalities! Most notably for this publication’s purposes, Awich and Number_i will appear, the latter giving us the closest a STARTO act will ever come to appearing at the festival (?????) which is very very funny. Awich also hosts a solo show in Los Angeles on April 11th.
Speaking of Coachella acts…Hatsune Miku is touring North America, but the reception to the stage set-up at the Vancouver show wasn’t so hot. Now Vocaloid fans are (rightfully) wondering if this will be the situation the whole jaunt or what.
STARTO to release charity single for Noto Peninsula earthquake victims.
I haven’t seen the NHK Ryuichi Sakamoto documentary yet…but it looks like a must-watch even more so now.
Tatsuro Yamashita prepping a nationwide hall tour.
Netflix has a live-action City Hunter series coming soon, and they have brought back TM NETWORK’s theme for the show (with vinyl release incoming).
Full disclosure, I helped with press for this: Ado wrapped up her first world tour, and held a special surprise event in Los Angeles featuring QR codes leading fans to a tour playlist.
I’ve gotten extremely bad at following Substack newsletters…at the risk of revealing I’m actually a 70-year-old man, I don’t get them in my inbox now since I installed the app on my phone, and I never check the app…but enjoyed this review of the Ado show by Ryo over at This Side Of Japan.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies