Make Believe Melodies For February 18, 2025
Lots Of Favorites, A J-pop Highlight And Two Viral Cuts (For Very Different Reasons)
Acidclank — In Dissolve
Yota Mori’s Acidclank has a knack for crafting hypnotic music without giving into cliche. Stretching back over a decade, a project ostensibly presenting as shoegaze has always known when to look up and explore other directions. Over the years, Acidclank releases have featured their fair share of fuzz, but also trips into acid house, experimental electronics, dance pop and more. This interest in expanding their sonic field is tied together by a desire to bring listeners into his trance.
Latest album In Dissolve stands as the strongest representation of the Acidclank mission to date, bringing together all of Mori’s sonic interests to create an early 2025 highlight where voices and sounds warp to create an absorbing listen once again avoiding the trappings of any single genre.
More so than any Acidclank release before it, In Dissolve thrives on a sense of looping noises with new elements gradually introduced. That’s clear from opener “Enigma,” based around bell chimes that slowly become surrounded by sound, creating a kind of neo-exotica rush. The same use of repetition appears with vocals (the chant-like flow of “Hide Your Navel,” ) or without (the acid-washed “Radiance”), and also allows for surprises in the form of frantic moments like the ethereal breaks of “Remember Me” or disjointed collage “Grounding.” Amidst all this, Acidclank still gets off some straight-ahead pleasures, albeit ones wrapped in a cyber-Bali glow (“Mantra”) or echoes (highlight “Out Of View”). After years of exploring different paths, Acidclank brings them all together for their finest work to date. Get it here, or listen above.
sysmo — BYE-BYE KARAOKI!
Sometimes focusing on a music’s “vibe” can be an obvious backhanded compliment, dismissing any depth in favor of the surface level sounds. That is not what I want to do with trio sysmo, whose debut EP BYE-BYE KARAOKI! runs on vibes in the sense that the sounds and syllables they deploy set an absorbing mood that words really couldn’t. Seemingly inspired by the emotional-wash of fellow sonic pranksters peterparker69, sysmo first get some lore building out of the way on the opening track (interrupted by like, screams) before moving towards shifty dance-wonk on “First Look” and jittery glitch outs on “(Ding + Dong).” Throughout, they warp their vocals to be more of a sonic compliment than something demanding attention, resulting in music both playful and vulnerable without ever having to outright state it. Listen above.
Smany — “Akegata No Machi, Anata To”
Fragile-pop purveyor Smany returns with a particularly sparse meditation marked by some of her most emotional vocals to date. “Akegata No Machi, Anata To” features nothing but piano, a few bird samples and her voice, sometimes delivered straight ahead and other times echoing in the background. Yet what she does with her instrument turns “Akegata” gripping, going up and down and even at one boy gasping, as if on the verge of tears. For an artist so often creating dreamlike wonder, this is her being raw. Get it here, or listen above.
Utena Kobayashi And Motion Graphics — “Glossolalia”
Japanese electronic artist Utena Kobayashi links up with Brooklyn-based producer Motion Graphics to craft a collaborative EP out from Domino Recording Company in March. “Glossolalia” is the highlight, a glassy bit of slow-motion experimentalism marked by Kobayashi’s cloud of a voice floating over the textural delights below. There’s some tension between the two, but really the two sides work in concert to create something effervescent. Listen above.
doggie — Tame a Hound
A quick dispatch from the heart of the Tokyo youth scene, doggie’s Tame a Hound offers a 15-minute crash course in how the sound of creators coming up in the 2020s has mutated in recent times. There’s splatterings of rap (“Borzoi”) and rock (“Bluz”), but throughout this stroll of an album the two sides blur together to create digi-chaos (“BET”) and double-speed doses of sweetness (“GUMM”). Listen above.
perfect young lady — “gympie gympie”
I did not know until the latest transmission from the oddball bedroom-pop realm of perfect young lady that a gympie gympie is actually a top of plant known for its painful and annoying stinging properties. A fitting metaphor for the artist’s world, where something that sounds deeply silly — try saying! Or just listen to her repeat it — conceals a bite hinting at something far more sinister over the bright melodies and off-kilter rumblings. Listen above.
T.M.P — “Hayabusa”
To say “T.M.P made a more mellow song” is to be not totally true to that word. The duo has excelled at creating digi-damaged rock meant to spur a mosh bit IRL or online, so it doesn’t take much reduction to become the most minimalist song in the T.M.P catalog. “Hayabusa” rattles ahead and still features a layer of electro manipulation over the vocals, but rather than blow up it is more content to skitter on, with the singing always feeling just a touch reserved. I’m sure it still gets bodies moving at the livehouse — but every mosh pit needs its more chilled out moments. Listen above.
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Oricon Trail For The Week Of February 03, 2025 To February 09, 2025
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.
BE:FIRST — “Spacecraft / Sailing” (100,509 Copies Sold)
Generally speaking, I’m down on male pop groups, whatever their background. “Spacecraft” underlines just why.
There’s hints that BMSG’s marquee act is going to settle for the usual flexes that have become beyond boring in J-pop, K-pop and beyond. If you follow these spaces, you know what I’m talking about — everything-but-the-kitchen-sink beats over which members take turns sing-rapping before a lackluster chorus. It’s busy because they have to get so much in without losing the “pop” part of the equation. At first, it feels like BE:FIRST is poking its collective head out of a corner, letting the music build up before a big ol’ drop into the stupid. They’re going to jump out any second now…
…but they don’t. “Spacecraft” instead opts for unsettling minimalism, teasing an explosion but never going for it. The beat rumbles before it turns into a malfunctioning power drill, starting and stopping while members hopscotch over the space. Elements enter as the song progresses, but it never veers away from the steely lurch central to how this “Spacecraft” moves. This is making the most out of a little, offering something catchy that’s also a touch unnerving, one of the best pop songs of 2025 about two months in.
Sometimes I think “hmmmm, am I just getting overly grumpy when it comes to how much male pop music connects with me?” “Spacecraft” offers a reassuring “no, I’m not, most of it really is that bad, but thank goodness things like this reminds there’s different ways forward.” Bonus points for the pleasant disco zip of “Sailing” backing it up. Listen above and below.
News And Views
Japanese experimental rock artist Magical Power Mako died earlier this month at the age of 69, according to news just shared over the past week. A vital listen for anyone interested in the wilder corners of Japanese rock, as Mako melded spoken-word, poetry, traditional sounds, early electronic works and more together to create something dizzying.
Time for the STARTO corner. The biggest news last week came when the agency announced long-running outfit KAT-TUN would disband at the end of March. The announcement caught fans off guard, at least going off of social media reaction.
A few days later, the new eight-member version of timelesz (formerly Sexy Zone) premiered following the project’s Netflix audition show which I’ve failed to watch a minute of wrapped up.
Finally! STARTO’s junior developmental projects got shuffled around to create a bunch of new groups.
I interviewed Nariaki Obukuro for The Japan Times. Zatto is a great album, and its genesis is really interesting!
Atarashii Gakko! and FRUITS ZIPPER to open for ZEDD on the EDM act’s upcoming show in Yokohama. Idol is roaring back baby.
Let’s get to the actual biggest news of the week…a second season of Bocchi The Rock! is coming. We have been blessed.
Universal Music Japan got themselves a majority stake in A-Sketch.
HYBE renamed its Japanese division to YX Labels. This would be a nothing story…kind of still is!…if it weren’t for the detail that they chose it because, quoting Digital Music News here, “the name reflects HYBE’s ambition to establish a new ‘aXis’ in Japan’s music industry, incorporating ‘You’ and ‘Youth,’ as well as delivering entertainment that is ‘eXtreme’ and ‘eXcellent.’” Idiotic, moronic, empty on all levels, it’s insane to think this was once “the underdog K-pop company” and is now the world leader in exporting ick.
YOASOBI offering the opening theme to an anime called Witch Watch, which I’m not sure I’ll watch.
PSYCHIC FEVER from EXILE TRIBE wrapped up a tour of North America — friend of the blog The Idol Cast caught them in Washington D.C., go read her report — and then signed a deal with Warner Music Group. LDH can be an easy punching bag in the 2020s, but here’s one of their biggest success stories yet, wisely building a base in Asia before growing outward from there.
OK we are ending this week by checking in on two viral songs — albeit for very different reasons. The first might be the biggest online hit of the young year so far, powered by familiar friend TikTok and an unsettling YouTube project. “Kiyouikubangumi No Theme” is the theme song to an imagined educational kids TV show in the style of NHK morning offerings. It sounds chirpy and bright enough — and on TikTok, it’s used primarily as a backdrop for dancing — but the lyrics are among the darkest I’ve heard even from the era of gloomy J-pop, about the challenges of making it through modern life. Though really, all you need is to watch the video for it to get that vibe.
Here’s your first huge viral Japanese song of the year, and one continuing the dominant theme of music this decade — a subversive examination of life in Japan in the 21st century, and the incredible emotional toll it takes on folks (I’ve seen a few people complaining about how “dark” this is but not too many). That it is outpacing a gaggle of boy bands and other acts that normally lock down the viral charts is quite telling.
Meanwhile, the other song getting a bunch of attention lately technically no longer officially exists on YouTube or elsewhere at time of writing. Vocaloid producer Hiiragi Magnetite shared new song “Zako” earlier in February, featuring the synthesized avatar Kaai Yuki singing over a fizzy dance-pop backdrop giving way to more maximalist disco. It’s a good song, and it came with a video designed by the person who did “Mesmerizer” among others. You can watch it below…it might not officially exist there anymore, but plenty of people saved it and re-uploaded afterwards.
So what’s the issue with it? Vocaloid fans on X and TikTok — primarily those from outside of Japan — became angry at the song because of the perceived sexual tone of the lyrics, which are being delivered by a Vocaloid that had its soundbank created from the voice of an actual elementary school student. To the point — people think it’s gross Magnetite used a synthesized voice made from a kids’ voice to sing sexually suggestive lines.
This all gets thorny fast — to the first point, I have a hard time hearing anything sexual about this in the traditional sense of, like, involving sex, and some of the reaction I’ve seen certainly feels very online puritanical bordering on delusional. Yet I do hear something suggestive which is complicated by the use of this character, which owing to its eternal characteristics does force you to imagine it as coming from an elementary school student1.
Honestly, I’m not particularly interested in any of this2, as much as I am how “Zako” illustrates the unique creative challenges so much Vocaloid faces. This is all a problem because of the specific instrument used —no band is getting cancelled because the keyboard they use isn’t legally an adult under law. Yet Vocaloid software comes personified as characters, and those creations boast actual biographical details that end up playing a major part in the art created by users. I think Magnetite wanted a lighter, youthful sounding voice to compliment a dance-pop number about teasing a love interest. The problem is you don’t just press the “child-like” preset on a Casio to do that, but have to choose an avatar that could potentially end up turning the proposition into something loaded.
It’s a unique element and dilemma of Vocaloid, and something many push back against — see tofubeats’ avoiding pre-existing characters on last year’s synthesized-vocal party NOBODY or KAOMOZI’s recent experiment in experimental Vocaloid fare. In this case, it’s hard not to come down to the verdict of…this could have easily been avoided by using any other character. Magnetite apologized and says they’ll re-record it. Maybe that means by spotlighting a new voice, or maybe changing the existing lyrics. Either way, it’s an interesting case of creative limitations.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Check out the Best Of 2025 Spotify Playlist here!
The real obvious question to this…why would anyone make a Vocaloid character using an actual kid in the first place???
Less so in the “woke Westerners are ruining Japanese culture!” takes, which are blinders-on thoughts from the slummiest of Blue Check Marks hoping to make an extra $60 a month from X.