Make Believe Melodies For August 19, 2024
Summer Sounds For A Fading Season
Noah — “Kaze To Mermaid”
Hokkaido-born artist Noah has been tip-toeing out of her private world for a little bit now. Her earliest releases existed in small spaces — between minimal beats or between Tumblr-inspired ephemera. It was on 2015’s Sivutie she built her own world, inviting listeners in but constructing something intimate and all hers. Since though, she has become more outgoing, with Thirty using pop structures — albeit ones that sounded coated by a layer of dust and statics — to explore Tokyo. She returned to skeletal compositions post pandemic, yet with her latest song Noah declares a new approach to her sound, one where she’s putting herself right in the spotlight.
“Kaze To Mermaid” draws inspiration from the summer, and over a clatter of drum machine and synth Noah pushes her voice to the center of it all. Her bedroom background still comes through, with her vocals still coming through a touch muted…but whereas before she used her singing as texture, here she’s making them the key piece (down to including some very unexpected…but breezy!…vocal fills between verses, and one melody that sounds kinda like “Ue Wo Muite Arukou”). It’s pop playing with multiple tensions — between the sheen of ‘80s styles and the synthetics of modern self production, between Noah’s introverted beginning and her outward shift — hinting towards an exciting future for the creator. Get it here, or listen above.
Submerse — Fifteen Blocks
Allow me a little summer nostalgia this August — as much as I like to imagine my school breaks were dominated by tropical locales and sunshine-soaked fun, I spent the majority of this time playing video games inside an air-conditioned living room. The only difference between me and Tokyo-based producer Submerse is that he clearly grew up with the Playstation as opposed to my hours spent with an N64. That’s where the title of latest release Fifteen Blocks comes from — the total amount of space on that console’s memory cards — and it help shapes a drum ‘n’ bass set that’s quite fitting for the warmest part of the year. It arrives at a time when “Jungle in Gaming” compilations have enjoyed newfound attention amidst a broader Y2K resurgence, yet Submerse shows how those familiar game-born sounds can be made fresh for modern times, being both chill (the title track) and urgent (“Get In The Robot”). Get it here, or listen above.
CHS Featuring Mei Ehara — “One Summer Day”
The entirety of South Korean group CHS’ new EP SWELTERING NIGHT should soundtrack the humid days ahead, but given this blog’s focus, let’s zoom in on the one song within it to feature vocals, courtesy of favorite Mei Ehara. She blends in just right with the band’s arrangements, moving at the same half-speed pace required of a song reflecting the lazy nature of the summer. It’s not far off from her own hypnotic highlights, just a little sweatier. Listen above.
Wai Wai Music Resort — “Kotori No Niwa”
Duo Wai Wai Music Resort turn to the holiday getaway of Okinawa for inspiration on “Kotori No Niwa.” Yet rather than try to capture the vibe of sandy beaches and Pacific-adjacent hotels, the pair draw from the history of Ryukyu sounds, which define the region’s culture and continue to thrive today. Using sanshin as a base, they craft a meditative piece playing with concepts of exoticism (how Hosono!) but feeling more reverent in the final piece. Get it here, or listen above.
Half Mile Beach Club — Days of the Ocean Waves
Zushi’s finest have laid out on the experimentation that made them one of my favorite 2010s groups, with the end-of-decade collection Be Built, Then Lost offering a last hurrah to the alien shorelines and mutant Balearic they mastered for a brief time (“Yankee” is a perfect song). They’ve moved into a breezier, more instrumental mode on latest album Days of the Ocean Waves, which marks a shift towards being a beachside party band than being experimental oddballs on the edge of Shonan…but while it doesn’t reach the highs of previous works, it’s still pretty fun! Half the equation even during weirder SoundCloud days was their tightness as players, and across these songs they get to flex that side of their sound, adding a little more drama to songs such as “Drifted” and “All Sunlight Must Fade,” while letting loose on the breezy “Turquoise Route.”
Yet don’t let the sand and surf fool you…lurking within are touches that remind me of the Half Mile Beach Club that first grabbed my attention, now more subtle but still throwing off the tropical vibes just right. See the warped vocal samples of “Drifted,” the electronic dapples of “Tide Loop” and the moments where they fuck around with time on “Vibrant Sun.” Listen above.
towa.. — “Nega”
A song that feels like it is melting on top of itself. Samples of radio voices and record scratches fuse with looped melodies…which then get consumed by weirder audio bubbles and the artist’s own layered vocals, glooping over everything around it with just enough of the sunny energy sneaking out to keep “Nega” bopping ahead. Listen above.
pinponpanpon — “Rodeo”
Nothing says “summer 2024” like a sudden shift into country music. Post Malone is no longer “White Iverson,” but a guy palling around with Brad Paisley! Look, Marshmello found a new demographic! Even NMIXX is threatening to go this way. I don’t know…call me a grump, but this sort pivot feels so soulless, based more on Billboard articles about how Nashville is back and analytics breaking down Morgan Wallen’s career. I just don’t find any of it fun, because everything feels overly calculated instead of fun…which country music actually often is! NMIXX, take notes, don’t end up here.
Thank god for pinponpanpon, a project proudly embracing the stupidity of youth and just going for it. It’s impossible for an idol outfit like them to have a “crossover attempt,” which is maybe why the country-fried antics of “Rodeo” work so well. This is done in the style of a pinponpanpon song — so frantic hyperpop mixed with idol theatrics and, most wonderfully, GROUP LORE — but marked around young Japanese women’s interpretation of what American “cowboy culture” must be like. Which is…horses, cows, sheep, guns, pool-loads of booze, Auto-tuned “yeehaws!” and barfights among other points. It’s goofy but delivered as urgently as anything else they’ve ever done, and not worried what anyone thinks about it (which absolutely can not be said for most other naked embraces of market trends). Also they pour Strong Zero into a field in the video, perfect work. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of August 5 2024 To August 11, 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.
&TEAM — “Aoarashi” (338,887 Copies Sold)
I went to the Summer Sonic music festival in Tokyo (really Chiba but ehhh who cares) this past weekend, and saw a decent amount of K-pop. Specifically, I tried to get a glimpse of the industry’s future. Summer Sonic has become a platform for buzzy acts to make a splash in the Japanese market. This year’s lineup went heavy on this sort of young group, and as market presence this year’s fest reminded there will always be a place for new sets of young folks singing and doing synchronized dances for the Japanese masses, with some of these shows drawing huge audiences.
Yet the part of me more interested in the artistic and performance-minded nature of K-pop came away feeling pretty bleak about the near future if this is what’s to come. BabyMonster will be fine in terms of support, but hearing already tired BLACKPINK -sounding poundings run through one of those Snow filters that makes you look like a toddler felt depressing. Despite having a few solid releases to this point, watching RIIZE live was a startling reminder of how we’ve entered the era of K-pop specialization — whereas fellow Summer Sonic performers NCT Dream and ATEEZ do everything well, this younger outfit just focused on dancing, not even trying to lipsynch with the audio. ZEROBASEONE worked the other way, focusing mostly on their vocals with a tacked-on “we can dance too” bit at the end that I noted as “Johnny’s coded” for its…rough edges. The songs themselves left little impression of anything.
I get a similar vibe listening to “Aoarashi,” a stompy mid-tempo pop effort from Japan-centered project &TEAM. It’s a summer song ignoring anything fun in favor of ~ feelings ~ except said emotions amount to “friends and dreams are good.” Which maybe could work if the music offered anything to boost it up, but this just sounds so tired, staying inside under the air conditioner rather than actually frolicking about in the sun. I guess the electronic touches are meant to be dreamy? Man, just buy NewJeans and ILLIT stock, hoping they don’t mutually destroy one another.
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News And Views
As mentioned, Summer Sonic happened over the weekend concurrently in Tokyo and Osaka. I’ll have a report about everything that happened from the Chiba leg of the gathering later this week in The Japan Times. For now…I’ve spent a lot of time this year focusing on the future of the music festival in Japan, and this year’s Summer Sonic really underlined a lot of these issues (again…no reason for this to not be held in the fall, even if Creativeman took the right steps in preventing any mass heatstroke incidents like in 2023). Yet the biggest positive I think that can be taken from this? For Summer Sonic and other urban festivals, the headliner isn’t going to be make or break…because Bring Me The Horizon had the smallest crowd1 I’ve ever seen in ZOZO Marine Stadium for the final spot in the decade-plus covering this event. AND YET the weekend was sold out and completely felt that way, crowded all over.
While nothing particularly scandalous happened during the festival itself, it was reported after Summer Sonic that 31 staff members had to be rushed to the hospital with symptoms resembling food poisoning after eating bento provided by Creativeman.
Sticking with festival news…the unlikely alliance between Creativeman and Rock In On produced the lazily named rockin’on sonic, which brings a new concept gathering to Makuhari Messe in Chiba in early January. The organizers shared the first wave of artists and…it’s all foreign names, headlined by Pulp and Weezer. While not totally stepping into Fuji Rock’s territory, I do kind of think the two companies working together coupled with a huge rock focus is an effort to inflict further damage to an event that’s coming off a year that saw a big dip in attendance. Stay tuned!
Kenshi Yonezu announces a world tour in 2025, with stops in Asia, North America and Europe.
Artist ASOBOiSM landed one of the dream collaborations of 2024…a song about how cute Chiikawa is ahead of the character’s Happy Meal debut.
Related to the last essay I posted around these parts, I also wrote about Girls Band Cry and the next evolution of mixed-media groups for The Japan Times.
Speaking of virtual bands…FIRE BOMBER from the anime Macross 7 will release its first new single in 12 years this October.
Omunibasu has a great look at a film starring AKB members that I had zero idea existed.
Babymetal…who were guests at multiple stages of this year’s Summer Sonic…are linking up with the WWE again.
The single coolest story of the year in Japanese domestic music is the genuinely unlikely success of Hokkaido high schoolers TV Tairiku Ondo. Three teens making music in the vein of Zazen Boys or P-Model found unlikely TikTok fame…and this week made the rounds on news programs to talk about what must be a bizarre year for them and perform. The latter part has been amazing to watch. You can see them go wild on morning show Day Day here — the lead singer started bleeding after!? — or see them get nervy on news program 7 Days, which is like if 60 Minutes suddenly let a no-wave band on to wild out.
I always want to end with media, but TBS won’t allow embeds of the above performance. So instead…how about “Runner” on THE FIRST TAKE?
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodiesFollow the Best Of 2024 Spotify Playlist here!
I will say…even if it was lackluster in terms of numbers, I do think every single person there was 100% a diehard for this band, making it one of the most energized crowds I saw all weekend.