Make Believe Melodies For December 9, 2024
Trying to keep these shorter as the year wraps up and work piles up but...lolz we will see how that goes
maidable — Homeward EP
The Homeward EP offers a chance to see just where Japanese producer maidable has come in nearly a decade. I first encountered his music while he was taking part in something called the Waseda Composing Society, presumably associated with the university of the same name. What started as a potential extracurricular mutated into maidable becoming a fixture in the Tokyo club scene, and opportunities to release works via an array of labels, including Taiwan’s Mettāsonic in 2018. Jump ahead to today, and maidable is even more involved in the greater ecosystem as a co-founder of GROW THE CULTURE, a collective helping to share electronic indie music across the country and beyond. He remains growing as an artist to, on display with this new EP and — what a nice circular moment! — his return to Mettāsonic.
This set of jungle tracks finds maidable balancing the rush of sliced-thin breakbeats with ethereal synth melodies. Some instances are more club oriented than others — the race into the shadows of opener “Squash” is pure floor euphoria — but the best moments of Homeward strike a a tension. The string plucks and electronic burbles of “Sequel” convey an ennui the skitters that follow can’t chase away, while the glow washing over the on-the-nose “Evanescent” adds wonder to it all. The thrill present from his earliest days remains, but now become buoyed by an emotional sense underlining his maturity into this space. Get it here, or listen above.
Peterparker69 And Two Shell — “Magic Power” (But Also “Magic Powers”)
About as appropriate a collaboration as one could find in modern electronic music. As the name lets you know, Peterparker69 love to push boundaries with their antics despite the duo’s music often being nakedly earnest. Britain’s Two Shell, meanwhile, thrives on secrecy and general prankster-ism but are capable of a great dance track when they aren’t too caught up in goofballery. Here they come together for a pulsing track emphasizing the best of both acts — Two Shell offering skittery shape-shifting sounds over which Peterparker69 let their voices mutate while offering quite straight-ahead declarations of longing. Listen above, or get it here, especially if you want plural “Magic Powers.”
Sasuke Haraguchi — “Shinka Shinka Shinka”
Sasuke Haraguchi family, we are thriving recently. The producer has been extremely busy over the last few days, sharing discombobulated Vocaloid songs and wonderfully jarring reworks of rising pop act Yuri’s recent work. I’ll choose to spotlight Haraguchi’s contribution to the Pokemon undertaking Project Voltage because I first think it’s always hilarious when major companies get him to make songs like this that sound like THIS, but also because it shows a different side of how he approaches creation.
“Shinka Shinka Shinka” — which explores evolution, and presents it as something that Pokemon might actually find uneasy to a degree — isn’t nearly as fragmented or punchy as most Haraguchi joints, instead using familiar Game Boy-born melodies as a jumping off point for a particularly pixelated Hatsune Miku vocal and driving piano melodies. There’s a tension lurking within all this — those spoken word segments — but also a more pop-leaning approach that still feels very Haraguchi in how it connects disparate ideas. Listen above.
Onsen Mark — “Nennen Korori Yo”
This is presented as a lullaby (inspired by the creator’s recent inability to sleep) but it’s a much wilder trip than simple bedtime fare. Part new-age meditation and eventually a skittering ASMR-grazed number, it’s a journey into rest rather than simple background sounds. Get it here, or listen above.
okudakun — my song file.2
Hyperpop as sketchbook notes. Artist okudakun’s latest feels more intimate and spacious while still introducing all the sonic elements of the style — lot of rattling beats, distorted vocals and YouTube-centric samples — but presented as something in the midst of being tinkered with. Yet even in what feels like rougher shape, the numbers on my song file.2 offer emotional longing and an eagerness to play around with sound. Listen above.
flip flop fly — “Niritsuzaohan”
The flip flop fly project has been active for a while now, and I can still remember when the artist now known as killwiz shouted it out in SoundCloud rap uploads when she was ponika. Yet it’s great to see them back at it with this new song, which nails the fizzy and fragile rap-sing they’ve dabbled in for a while. Listen above.
Wendy Wander And Billyrrom — “Nightglow Dreamer”
For all the words I and others spend on the global rise of Japanese music in recent years, it’s important to underline how…like K-pop before it…the biggest movements have come across its home region. Here’s a collab between Taiwan’s Wendy Wander and buzzed-about Japanese rock outfit Billyrrom showing how the continent is growing closer. Drawing from the ongoing interest in city pop without being too derivative of it…there’s an after-midnight energy lurking through its sparser frame that reminds me of, like, a happier Paellas or a dour Suchmos (slightly Sad-mos)…it’s a track getting the best from both sides and showing the benefits of keeping things in the area. Listen above.
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Oricon Trail For The Week Of November 25, 2024 To December 01, 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.
SEVENTEEN — “Shohikigen” (418,202 Copies Sold)
In the wasteland of modern male K-pop, SEVENTEEN offer an oasis of sorts. The group isn’t doing anything to really mix up the sound of the industry — still, we salute you for the hyperpop stab — yet do what they do well and with a dash of fun, rather than settling for the dentist-drill dance-pop everyone else has latched on to for half a decade. So I applaud them for remaining a force in Japan, because the other options leave a lot to desire.
All that said, Japanese single “Shohikigen” is pretty lackluster, and telegraphs “just give the Japan market a ballad” pretty clearly. There’s certainly worse slow burners out there — and I appreciate the little lift before the chorus — but this one’s pretty unmemorable.
News And Views
Singer, actor and all around talent Miho Nakayama died last Friday at her residence in Shibuya Ward at the age of 54. Earlier in the day, she had cancelled a Christmas show scheduled for Osaka later that day in the morning due to health reasons.
A very shocking and sad death that caught everyone off guard last week. I’m trying to write something longer about her history and legacy but for now…Nakayama embodied the ideal version of what an “idol” in Japanese entertainment could be, an artist navigating between disciplines while also finding her place in the ebbs and flows of where pop culture moved. You could tell the story of Japanese pop music in the 1980s through her discography alone, as she went from familiar upbeat idol to city pop singer to, by the end of the decade, someone singing over arrays of synthesized sounds. An essential Japanese artist.
Year-end season has arrived, with Billboard Japan sharing its findings for 2024 and Spotify also offering some insights. No surprises, the people love Mrs. GREEN APPLE.
The artist responsible for Billboard Japan’s top album, Snow Man, announced plans to hold a special YouTube livestream on New Year’s Eve. That comes after no STARTO talent were announced for NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen show, and the agency revealed it had no plans to offer online counter-programming like it did last year.
Speaking of year-end content, I’m getting into the spirit. Over at scrmbl, I offered a crash course on the viral online songs of the year.
Not music related, but I offered a wrap-up of Japanese (and Japan-adjacent) TV for The Japan Times. More fitting for this newsletter…I went to Kanye West’s favorite restaurant in Tokyo and reviewed it / wrote about the phenomenon of Ye sightings for the paper.
Ryo is on the year-end beat too, with a lot of great lists, including this one about Japanese releases on Bandcamp.
Ado has been in the United States since November trying to learn English but it isn’t as easy as you’d think. Seemingly worse still…she got a new white hoodie all dirty with ice cream.
You don’t know how hard I tried to get a press invite to the VTuber pirate ladies live show in Yokohama. Well, at least I can enjoy a bit of it via YouTube.
Leading Japanese underground music website AVYSS is launching a label.
Hikaru Utada shares video for song “Electricity” (full disclosure: I work on the PR side of their efforts)
Here’s Ethel Cain talking about yaoi (among other topics).
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Bluesky — @mbmelodies.bsky.social
Follow the Best Of 2024 Spotify Playlist here!
Ado needs to get a part time job at some random coffee shop while in New York. In the meantime, I suggest that she binge watch FRIENDS on HBO MAX. That’s how my friend from Mie Prefecture retained her English proficiency after studying English in Australia.