Make Believe Melodies For August 29, 2022
After Hours
Noah — Noire
I always end up writing this weekly post late at night. Not the best move, but it’s sometimes the perfect time to really get lost in the songs I’m trying to put in here. But it can get a bit trippy, with fights against my brain to shut down causing me to just…drift off sometimes, sounds and ideas looping until something snaps me out of it.
That’s a feeling long present in Ayuko Kurasaki’s music as Noah. She’s mostly a master of space, whether crafting alternate worlds to float through or gliding into fading memories. She adds and removes pieces, her voice muffled underneath and parts turning delirious. Newest album Noire goes even sparser, like a kid trying not to wake their parents down the hall after midnight. Piano notes loop into dizzying melodies, accompanied by strings (“Odette”) and sudden bursts of orchestra (“Shadow”). It’s gentle, and probably the most intimate thing Noah’s ever created, shrinking the space between her and the listener more than ever before.
Though it echoes her earliest days — Noire and it’s insomnia scapes sounds a lot like the tracks she made for the 2013 split EP she did with the producer SELA. That was Kurasaki in a more beat-first direction — the entire release is “lo-fi beats to help you stay awake until 4 a.m., much to your regret” — but one where she finds a way to turn familiar sounds disorienting while still threading prettiness through. The change now, is her voice is stronger than before, both in how she deploys, layers and shines with it (there’s nothing like “Cheshire” on that beat tape). It adds a needed human heart to Noire, and makes it a nocturnal companion for the sleepless. Get it here, or listen above.
Tutorial — Tips Music
On the other side of staying up too late…here’s what it sounds like to go bonkers because you opened up Substack instead of went to bed. Hiroki Yamasaki pushes the HD-quality sample collage experimentation of Wasabit Tapes and Ukiuki Atama to comedic extremes, speeding up the tempo and letting goofball samples of phones ringing and cartoon sproings! crash into one another like bumper cars. It can…kinda slow down…but when Yamasaki does that (“Tips 4”) everything turns into psychological horror, the feeling something horrifying is just around the corner. Thank goodness an escape into glorious wonk is always waiting. Get it here, or listen above.
Uiro — “Yoru No Uta Again”
Local Visions’ contributor Uiro staying busy on SoundCloud, with a lovely bit of melancholy pop once again making the loose night theme emerging this week click. “Yoru No Uta Again” strolls a bit more determined forward thanks to the beat and busy synth burbles, but the edges are still blurred, and the vocals get lost in them, not unlike what Noah gets up to on her latest, albeit with more digital smudges. Listen above.
phai — peppermint life
Holder of the worst cover art of the year — zoom in — until you get to the malfunctioning pop-punk of “runner,” and you start thinking maybe it’s the best given how well it matches up. Producer phai finds the perfect set of collaborators for this set, starting off with one of the more creative ways of using Nakamura Minami’s voice — coat it in electronics and make her mostly sing, squeezing all the ennui out of it — before doing two of the better punk-ish mutations you’ll hear this year with illiomote and Aoto. Listen above.
milet — “Into The Mirror”
The first song from this highly touted J-pop act of the future to really leave an impression on me, mainly because it avoids easy bombast in favor of something much more slippery. That it sounds like a slightly more polished ermhoi probably goes a long way to explaining it. Listen above.
in the blue shirt — Park With A Pond
Wrote the bio / PR for in the blue shirt ahead of this one, so some conflict of interest here — but I’ve loved Ryo Arimura’s seratonin-burst songs for a decade now, so I don’t think it’s a shock to sing this one’s praises. Warm, lively and featuring a touch of live instrumentation alongside the usual rush of sliced-and-looped samples. His ability to find new angles on the same sources — see the big-screen thrills of “Fidgety” — remains impeccable. Get it here, or listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of August 15, 2022 To August 21, 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.
Kis-My-Ft2 — “Two as One” (246,114 Copies Sold)
The first few seconds of this one faked me out. “Is a Johnny’s group…taking cues from one of these new-fangled K-pop projects?” This sounds like it’s preparing to take off a la JO1’s “Shine A Light,” with percussion skitters and glistening vocal samples help round out the melody. Perhaps it is marking a shift in how groups in the male J-pop world approach sound, with a harder shift to contemporary trends. But “Two as One” never actually elevates, instead finding it’s own tempo and taxiing around. Ultimately, it does find it’s own space, but one only teasing propulsion.
News And Views
KCON Japan’s lineup looks…really good? As someone who has largely been K-Pessimistic in recent years, the announced acts so far do a great job of highlighting new sounds and sights that are helping to invigorate the music. Just have to survive certain album rollouts and good days might be ahead…
The other big K-Pop news comes from our good friends at MNET, who have seemingly rebranded MAMA as the MAMA Awards, and plan to bring them to Osaka’s Kyocera Dome for two nights later this fall.
One last intersection of K-pop and Japan to report this week…Kep1er appeared on The First Take.
I wrote about Summer Sonic’s good vibes and the controversies surrounding it that played out on Twitter for The Japan Times.
Gucci Prince, formerly of Normcore Boyz and a rising solo name in Japanese rap, died. He was 22.
Junko Yagami inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall Of Fame.
This image should go in a museum.
Please…let “global group auditions” go away for a while…let this be a sign.
The band ACME talks with JRock News about recent tours abroad.
VTuber agency Nijisanji currentlly occupies like 75% of YouTube’s trending tab thanks to a big ol’ musical event they held over the weekend. More on this soon, but the age of the VTuber draws near….
Or will I! Because Music Business Worldwide got to the angle I was eyeing earlier this week as they report on Sony’s drive to build a massive virtual talent roster. Maybe the story of the future for Japanese entertainment? I’ll probably still write it, because I love drawing out things other sites get to the heart of in a well-done news piece. That’s why you love this, right?
Nigerian and Japanese music industries intersecting, it looks like.
Chuck Klosterman desu.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
I should not have been drinking water when that Pikotaro image came...