Make Believe Melodies For December 27, 2021
Shawty Callin NASCAR skrr!
e5 — Cassette EP
Plenty of artists…in Japan, and elsewhere…bristle at the term “HyperPop.” I get it, nobody wants to be anchored to a tag like that. Yet there’s something thrilling about hearing e5 fully embrace it on “HyperPopWave,” part mission statement and part about-page for the creator themselves. She’s unabashed in making the term part of who she is, and uses this moment to flex out all of her skills, from turn-on-a-dime melody changes to bragging about how the way she pitches her voice up is “like a whip.” It’d delirious, overwhelming, creative and one of the catchiest songs out of…well, anywhere…this year.
Oh, and it’s also the sound of 2021 in Japan. I’m largely paid to write about and asked to talk about what happened in J-pop over the course of a calendar year, but these last 12 months have been about returning to the indie — like, actual independent, at least for the time being — and spending more time on SoundCloud and Bandcamp. That’s where a new generation of creators are emerging, drawing from dance music and rap and netlabels and like maybe Tetsuya Komuro to create…something dizzying and year-defining.
Cassette, e5’s first “proper” release though I’m not sure in the wilds of online that means much, belongs alongside 4s4ki’s catalog, STARKIDS’ 4D, and rirugiliyangugili’s Negative I Love You as bedrock for however you’d like to name this scene. In just under 16 minutes — a literal second clear! — she warps her voice in all sorts of directions to grapple with heartbreak (“Entanglement”), celebrate her own artistry (“HyperPopWave”), and broadside the “rich & pussy” dweebs with language-destroying lines (“(uwu”). Somehow, she also finds space for a sorta-kinda Christmas song (“HAZARD,” which is like KiWi injected with adrenaline mixed with Strong Zero).
I’ll stop myself here, just because I need material for the eventual year-end blurb I’ll get around to sometime next summer…screenshots of her lyrics, which look insane written down!!! Legit starts looking like Matrix code when she times her syllables out!…but I’ll just say few artists are exciting as e5, and Cassette captures her operating at maximum power, confident enough to let her music stand alone. Listen above.
KiWi — Daydream
Hey, I just mentioned them above! Serendipity.
Few experiences thrill like taking someone who has never heard of KiWi to see them live, and watching as they go from baffled by “The Addams’ Family, but scouted by Mad Decent” to losing it to every Electronic DannyElfman Music drop. The duo of COR!S and AZUpubschool continue exploring the wonky edges of music on Daydream, featuring fluttery cinema-turned-club cuts like the title track to tempo-mutating experiments.1 What really makes them such a strong project, though, is how they always find room to just highlight their straight-ahead banger abilities, here ending the release with a dashing dance-pop number showing them at their most direct. Listen above…or listen to a song they produced for idols Mashirona Canvas that highlights their ho-ho-holiday flair below.
Randomly thought about Metome the other day…one of the best Japanese electronic artists of the decade, and also lowkey one of the most influential, as Enon Kawatani literally brought him on board an indigo la end album during the “Kawatani is super into netlabels and will just drop remix tracks into the middle of his proper albums, why not!?” crisis days, and King Gnu / Millennium Parade mastermind Daiki Tsuneta referencing him as an influence (to me, totally unprompted! I wish I could act J-pop types what INNIT-adjacent creators they mine from all the time!). Anyway, just in time, Metome shared two new releases, one a fragmented exploration of memory and the other a series of three takes on simple but effective melody. Listen above.
The Pats Pats — Music Never Ending
Duo The Pats Pats channel the best parts of Shonen Knife and Japan’s indie-pop history over the course of this heartfelt and heart-beating set of rock songs. While there’s a gleeful innocence present, it’s the nerves underneath all those love-at-first-sights and jittery encounters that come across on these songs. Get it here, or listen above.
Nemlesss — Spicy Shooting Stage
If funkot is one of the key influences to your digital hardcore idol album, I’m going to listen. Recommended for…fans of KOTO, hy4_4yh, and anyone who feels like their grey matter has turned to sludge from using the internet. Get it here, or listen above.
Telematic Visions — “fictitious”
My ideal version of vocals. Listen above.
Sonic Boot Collection — Sonic Boot Collection
A collection of bootleg remixes of Sonic The Hedgehog songs from artists in Tokyo. Nothing else I feel like I need to write to sell that one…though my entry into this one was Boogie Idol’s take on the “special stage” music from the original entry in the series, and their take on the soundtrack is like they zoomed up into the atmosphere to capture all those disorienting geometric shapes spinning around in all their glory, revealing new depth to the scene as the Blue Blur pinballs around them. Get it here, or listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of December 13, 2021 To December 19, 2021
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 the 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.
JO1 — “WANDERING (Bokura No Kissetsu / Prologue)”
Ehhhhhh, JO1, I talked to those guys.
Not my favorite songs from the group — “Born To Be Wild” and “Shine A Light” are tough to beat — but I do think its worth noting the continued anime-zation of everything, as “Prologue” functions as the (twist!) ending theme for a Naruto adjacent series that I’m not going to pretend to know anything about. Anime, though, remains at the center of everything.
News And Views
BiSH is over! In 2023.
The mainstream-focused project from “underground idol” center WACK, which will perform on NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen for the first time later this week, found itself in a minor gossip drama over the last two weeks. Numerous tabloids reported they would be breaking up…their agency denied. Then said agency announced they would have an “emergency live” on YouTube from Nakano heavysick ZERO, a compact spot where they debuted years ago. After that “emergency live” they…went on a nationally broadcast morning show to announce they would dissolve at the end of 2022.
There’s plenty of time to reflect on what BiSH meant for J-pop, idols and the “underground” over the next 12 months, but whatever you make of their legacy, they are an important development in the nation’s pop scene. Start working on your reflections now.
Rumors circulated that Seiko Matsuda would initially go on Kohaku to perform following the death of her daughter Sayaka Kanda, but soon after she declined the invitation. Genuinely one of the more depressing stories of the year, and I hope she takes her time grieving….
Shifting back to the lighthearted…called this, as Fujii Kaze is set to appear at Kohaku. I still believe we can get an Ado debut here, never give up!
I shared my year-in-review feature for The Japan Times late last week, give it a read. Most important thing to know is I got the word “bops” on the front page of the paper proper….
TWICE to perform at Tokyo Dome for two days next spring…a big development / dash of optimism in the face of omicron? considering they were one of the major cancellations from 2020 signalling…just how bad it all got.
Going to try to remain optimistic about Netflix’s Midnight Asia series, which looks at…nightlife in cities across the continent, including Tokyo. But devoting significant time to DJ Grandma, wacky Japan story and not-in-anyway-reflective-of-nightlife performer isn’t reassuring.
Here’s a surprising story I had the chance to do! Tuesday night in Japan, the annual SASUKE program (you might know it as American Ninja Warrior, or whatever they named it in your region seeing as it is one of the strongest soft power exports from Japan) airs, and ahead of it I had the chance to talk to four Johnny & Associates’ performers about how they train for the obstacle course. Grateful to chat with all of them…but my heart is still with Fuwa-chan.
Let’s go back to high-ranking artists from 2021…NTsKi was interviewed by Uncanny Zine.
Though lord…I guess we need to confront the Ryuichi Sakamoto NFT too, huh? It’s a confusing one, underlining the more ridiculous elements of this trend…it’s basically a raffle ticket to win actual sheet music? Yet it’s still an NFT, which raises all kinds of issues…but, as Micha pointed out on Twitter, perhaps can be used for health treatment, which is something I’d applaud. It’s weird! And I truly don’t even know how to deal with this sort of stuff…which I think will be the reality over the next year.
Love this translation from World Wide Wota of an interview with Wasuta member Sakamoto Hazuki.
Finally, wondering how bit “The First Take” has gotten? It is a reference point for Burger King ads (embarrassed to admit…this ad inspired me to buy a Whopper recently, I’m a weak person).
【 #TheFirstTaste 】 ー 「はじめてのワッパー」feat. #古川優香 × #あのちゃん × #料理研究家リュウジ が公開 ー 白い空間に置かれた、一個のワッパー。ここでのルールは、ただ一つ。一発撮りで、はじめて食べるワッパーの味を伝えること。 @FURUKAWAYUKA_ @aNo2mass @ore825 #バーガーキングWritten by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
