Make Believe Melodies For August 21, 2023
Abbreviated Version Because I'm Wiped Out From Summer Sonic
Telematic Visions — prohibitions EP
December looms closer than I’d ever like to admit, which means all those big picture ideas connecting music over the last 12 months start coming into view. Of course, those threads began forming long, long before a single year, so the trick isn’t forcing unifying thought through the pages of a calendar, but rather finding the clues buried further in the proof. That all clicked a little bit after listening to the prohibitions EP — the latest from Telematic Visions, already helping me out having released a top-ten album hinting at directions to come back in 2022 — a collection turning electronic sound into waves of ennui, very “internet” but in a way that isn’t “too online.”
Telematic Visions plays with digital sounds and percussion in a way to wring maximum emotion out of every single one. There’s a wispy quality to tracks across prohibitions as if they are about to evaporate entirely, one most certainly helped by how multiple synths here sound eerily like The X-Files theme (“above” in particular). Their work follows in the lineage of i-fls, who started using Garageband as a way to cultivate their own bedtown-born escapes a decade-plus ago, using pure sound as a way to distill the complications of modern Japanese life. The difference now is in where these electronic escapes play out. For i-fls, they were to be shared online, a digital oasis accessible through Bandcamp links and blog posts. For Telematic Visions, the catharsis is more complex, playing out online sure, but with songs like the pulsating breaks of “machinegun” and eight-minute-glitch-centerpiece "lostdata” offering something just as equip for physical spaces as VR chat rooms. The internet used to be an escape, then it just became like everything else. Telematic Visions…among others…shows how to bridge those two side. Get it here, or listen above.
andrew — Blueprint For The New Paradise EP
Summer bliss courtesy of a foundational Trekkie Trax artist. Blueprint For The New Paradise follows a handful of releases from the label similarly interested exploring a wide array of sounds from all over the globe, with andrew digging into baile funk concepts to find new angles on his sound, while still making room for constant collaborators like Nakamura Minami. Get it here, or listen above.
Milk Talk And Vantage — “Million Miles Away”
Retro-fitted, yeah, but no worry to be caught up on what it all means when it sounds so damn smooth. Kansai-based duo Milk Talk and Tokyo-based artist Vantage link up for a song nodding to the funkier sounds of yesteryear, with some particularly limb-loosening bass strutting through it. When you do it so well and come up with something so catchy, the thinking can wait…just enjoy the sound. Listen above.
NOMELON NOLEMON — “SAYONARA MAYBE”
The chorus is fine, but give me all of those verses you possibly can. A jogging pace gets joined by Supermarket-ready electronic notes that help raise the tension, with a great pre-chorus dip into minimalism feeling like a quick time slip into Shibuya-kei. The second time around only makes it more off-centered, adding a trippiness to an otherwise straightforward dash. Listen above.
BABYMETAL Featuring Tom Morello — “Metari!!”
My big hangup with the last BABYMETAL album was how tired they sounded of their early-career zaniness, but how a shift towards more “metal authenticity” meant them losing that very character that made them the breakout Japanese act on the global stage of the 2010s. Thank god they are having fun on “Metari!!” The “featuring Tom Morello” part had me worried, but that’s just for the SEO — he’s hear adding some guitar flair at the very end, but the real draw here is the once-again-trio returning to one of their earliest tricks, of jamming traditional Japanese sounds into a mosh-ready space. That means…shamisen! Classic folk song lyrical touches turned into shouts! Spoken-word interlude!!! BABYMETAL started taking the “metal” part way too seriously, but have lightened up again and are getting silly on “Metari!!” Which, twist, is how metal sounds best. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of August 7, 2023 To August 13, 2023
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.
Kanjani8 — “Ookami To Suisei” (154,598 Copies Sold)
Oh c’mon. Here I am, wiped out from two days in Chiba running around a convention center and baseball stadium, seemingly gifted the nicest post-coverage gift of all. A Kanjani8 single, on top of Oricon!? Well that must suck! Easy week, make some joke about my ears hurting more than my legs, get to the news section, go to bed early.
Damn it, they made something fun! “Ookami To Suisei” dons retro funk duds lined with great blurts of horn, and comes out sounding like a million bucks. The secret of all Johnny’s groups is they musically work best when being total dweebs — I don’t want to hear a ballad or serious effort a hip-hop-pop mutation from these people, give me monkeyshines! This is just the right amount of silly while still having a good groove going for it, winking but never ironic. Plus…and it really pains me to say this, as someone who has long thrived on good ol’ fashion hatin’ towards these guys…but the video features one of the funniest shots of the year.
News And Views
The last major music festival of the season, Summer Sonic, happened this past weekend concurrently in Tokyo (read: Chiba) and Osaka. Headlines galore from it: NewJeans held their first Japanese show ever at the stadium stage and packed it more than anyone since like, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Downside to this…over 100 people reported experiencing heatstroke on the first day, due to huge crowds, scorching heat and a stadium-imposed rule stating only water and tea could be brought into the main standing area…not sports drink like Pocari Sweat, with bottles of said beverage being confiscated (and nobody willing to go back and lose a primo spot).
What else…it was packed, for one. Jaden Smith was part of the crowd, maybe to support his sister Willow who performed. Elon Musk also came out Friday night to watch / livestream Grimes to his army of Ethereum-brained followers, which annoyed anyone trying to just watch the show. There was a whole bunch of music! I was there (hence the complaining above) so stay tuned for an official write-up at The Japan Times later this week.Music Circus, the Osaka-based fest where South Korean artist DJ Soda was sexually harassed and groped the weekend before last, issued a stronger statement about the incident in conjunction with the performer. It further emphasizes the need to stamp this out, and aims to press legal measures against those seen in the video…and also those spreading slander online about the incident after.
It’s funny how there are Johnny’s scandals that aren’t that scandal, ya know?
Former AKB48 member Nana Okada talked about her eating disorders in a new YouTube video, getting very real in the process.
Look, I should know what I’m getting into with a Koreaboo list…but their “Think K-Pop Group Names Are Bad? Here Are 11 J-Pop Group Names That Are Even More Bewildering” collection features an inclusion that baited me perfectly…
HOLD ME BACK, HOLD ME BACK!
Produce 101 Japan The Girls coming soon…on uhhhh some streaming site no one has ever heard of? Maybe just me? Well, it’s free at least…
I don’t think it’s particularly “cool” to admit when you are a huge dumbass…but when I first read this story, my brain assumed “oh, I guess ano’s McDonald’s song got big in Indonesia, let’s go” because how could you not love a song with a breakdown about McNuggets? But then I engaged in “reading comprehension” and realized…no! They got an Indonesian-Japanese singer to create an original number tied to a…Taste of Japan menu, where the buns look like onigiri, but aren’t!??!?! In the interest of soft-power fairness, they also sell “K-Meals” complete with NewJeans endorsement…but also, watch this video for a song apparently burning up the charts. Amazing that it also nails the sound of modern J-pop?
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Btw, just saying I love your feature, makes it easier to understand the ever-splitting J-Pop world