Make Believe Melodies For February 21, 2022
Play our new game, "where in the email does Patrick say the 2021 top ten list will come out this week?"
Tomggg — counterpoint + Wetlands Of Grey And Blue
I went out sometime recently and heard a song playing inside some store. It was full of bells and chimes and a generally cuddly atmosphere. “Is this Tomggg?” No, it was not, but the confusion was warranted. Few Japanese producers have been more influential over the past decade than Tatsuya Fujishiro, emerging right when “kawaii” became an audio adjective instead of just one tied to fashion and Hello Kitty. Serving as a netlabel-level version of what Yasutaka Nakata was doing with Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Tomggg melded the sort of textures you could conjure up in a junior high school music room alongside dizzying synth touches, all with a certain sweetness dolloped on top. Since, entire generations of SoundCloud-based acts owe a debt to Tomggg, as do plenty of other Harajuku-dreaming creators.
Tomggg’s two newest releases — coming about a month apart — offer a dissection of what makes him special, even at a time when playroom touches are far more common in pop and ad music. His album counterpoint is the big step forward, and especially intriguing due to the global set of guests Tomggg works with. He helps Raychel Jay navigate her sunny-afternoon hop-scotch on “Away With Me,” picks up the pace on the jaunty “Rollercoaster” with Ryahn, and dabbles in string swells with Taiwanese singer Wen Hsu of GoodBand. Domestic contributors run from the fitting — kiki vivi lily excels on easy-breezy fare like “License To Love,” above, and this is pair that probably should have worked together sooner — to unexpected — LIL SOFT TENNIS, but on the best number here “Rent A Car,” wherein everything slows down and turns into a blur. Here’s Tomggg’s global pop sensibilities pushed, and he’s up for the challenge without losing his sonic spirit.
Wetlands Of Grey And Blue, meanwhile, compiles songs that appeared in a game called Deemo II, which looks very pretty. For this soundtrack, listeners witness Tomggg’s arranging skills in a new light. The sugar coating has melted off to reveal an intricate center. We get piano plonks, orchestra swells, woodwind mirth and some of the most dramatic vocal contributions to ever appear in Tomggg’s catalog. What’s surprising is how that same spirit pulsing through counterpoint’s globe hopping comes through in Wetland’s more serene structures. Melodies remain playful, zipping along and bouncing off of other elements to create something ultimately nimble and charming. It sounds nothing like what came before…but still captures his essence. Listen above.
Anna Takeuchi — “Te No Hira Kasanereba”
Can you feel it? Can you feel the gloom hanging over J-pop slowly starting to break up a bit, like fog clearing away from the coast to reveal a sunny day? It’s happening, and while Anna Takeuchi’s latest might not be the blockbuster tune to propel Japan’s musical vibe shift1, it certainly points to where the mood is heading (that Fujii Kaze album…that’s gonna be a big deal). Big, organ-supported clap-a-long brightness with a groove YUKI would love, all supported by a liquid vocal performance from Takeuchi herself. Listen above.
Milk Talk — “Plastic New York”
One of the best songs of 2016 transforms into one of the best early songs of 2022. Milk Talk beef up the groove of “Plastic New York” with synthesizer, adding a glow to a song that sounded apt for a dark room. Get it here, or listen above.
Happypills — Porthole
Muffled indie-pop with a jogging pace. There’s no bombast to the songs on Porthole, with Happypills sticking to a bedroom creator atmosphere where the guitars feature plenty of fuzz around the edges and their own vocals never quite rise above them, sounding in a constant state of sighing, even when conveying happiness. Those melodies make everything work just right, and the moments when the singing does rise above (“Flower”) all the stronger. Get it here, or listen above.
Bunmei Featuring aeoxve — “Pepsinex”
Refreshing, quenching and just a little off…a perfect ode to a diet cola. I don’t know what Bunmei’s deal is, but this bubbly beat balances space and nonsense just right. Credit to aeoxve for bringing the offbeat rapping to this oddball affair, and adding the human touch. See also: aeoxve’s ecolog Mixtape from earlier this year, below.
Telepodial — “Takokan Lobster”
A jaunty synth jam concealing a lot of sneaky details within. Maybe the most welcome element is how jubilant it sounds…or maybe I’m just letting the English title “Euphoria Lobster” sway my mind. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of February 7, 2022 To February 13, 2022
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.
OCTPATH — “IT’S A BOP” (62,586 Copies Sold)
So…is it???
Months of anticipation…speculation running rampant (in my head at least)…images of bops dancing in my head. The day has come to reveal if OCTPATH’s Ruthian calling their bop was warranted…
I’d say 65% bop, 45% flop, which is solid. A little too much going on…like did the gun shot sample really need to be weaved in…but great percussive punch and the group sounds good. Unfortunately for them, it’s also not the best bop-centric pop song released recently.
A 90 % on Bop-pler Radar
News And Views
In The Japan Times, I interviewed SKY-HI about BMSG, his music label and talent agency aiming at shaking up how the Japanese music industry works. What he’s doing at BMSG is pretty interesting — I mean, I wanted to write a story about it, so of course it is for me — as he aims to give artists more creative freedom while also avoiding the pitfalls of traditional Japanese music power structures.
One detail he mentioned that I wrote about in passing but does deserve a little more spotlight…if he could fix J-pop with the snap of his fingers, one of his biggest changes would be by correcting the country’s chart system. He’s the first person I’ve heard say this, and it makes sense — Oricon flushed away all its credibility years ago, and nothing has really stepped in to replace it, with most just looking at a constellation of charts and trends instead. I personally love it in a “let chaos reign” kind of way, but it makes sense to want something more sturdy from an industry perspective.Ryo Miyauchi interviewed Kyary Pamyu Pamyu for Tone Glow, which is one of the best sentences you could hope to see in 2022.
The creator of Tone Glow Joshua Minsoo Kim offered up a wonderful review of Hikaru Utada’s Bad Mode for Pitchfork…a day after the site also reviewed Eiko Ishibashi’s soundtrack to Drive My Car.
Oh and then Jude Noel gave some shine to 4s4ki later in the week. So…Japanese music has been really well represented in English music media so far this year, and even better, is receiving strong writing behind it as well.
Summer fest season comes into view…and it looks like the live industry is going to try to pivot back to pre-pandemic lineups. Creativeman announced the first set of artists for this year’s Summer Sonic, and for the moment they are all international. That’s a huge development seeing as Fuji Rock was all domestic in 2021 and Supersonic, the once-postponed Summer Sonic stand in due to the also once-postponed Olympics, allowed a few foreign acts in, but largely leaned towards Japanese performers. Now, we get The 1975 and Post Malone headlining (bold in its own right) along with…a pretty great lineup arriving right as the Japanese government loosens up on border measures. Expect Fuji Rock to roll out a similar global set of names very soon.
Urawa Reds become the first pro sports team in Japan to become an official Apple Music curator. Skip the player recs, go for the club offering, which features Scooter, the mark of any good playlist.
Nippon.com has an English translation of a Shiba Tomonori column that offers a nice overview of how pop in the Reiwa Era has changed (it’s all about online).
YOASOBI talked with Nylon, in something that should probably be above but I didn’t see it until several bullet points later, whoops.
New Ebi-Chu album will feature production from…TORIENA? Blessed timeline.
Real Sound offers up an essay on who 4s4ki is, and why she is so important in modern Japanese music. Also…top ten of 2021, coming this Friday!?
Rakuten NFT
Not related to music but…gotta get this Supreme Japan drop, please assist.
Man breaks into school to steal desks because he wanted to experience Love, Live!
And let us end with…BTS Shrine.
Located in the southern part of Shizuoka Prefecture, not far from Izu, the BTS Shrine is actually part of a larger area called By The Sea, which might explain the origins of this. But as the picture above shows…they have very savvily adjusted to trying to get BTS fans out to visit and potentially pay over $50 USD for a special ceremony. The discovery of this caused a bit of a kerfluffle online, from Korean netizens aghast that they would do this without permission from the group’s company, while Japanese ones were more like “this seems kind of disrespectful to Shintoism.” There’s also a smaller group angry that they are treating BTS, who are alive, like gods…though, I mean, have they checked in on ARMY at any point in the last five years…
Anyway, this is the sort of idiotic pop development I love, and if you are an editor who wants to send me, someone stupid enough to spend the two hours by train to get to this seaside spot, PLEASE reach out. Or hey! Let’s embrace independent media and turn this into newsletter content. Support me and my efforts to see a gimmick shrine below!
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
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