Make Believe Melodies For July 22, 2024
You'll Know I've Reached My Final Form When I Trumpet "The Newsletter With The Most ... Uses Yet!"
Shugo Tokumaru — Song Symbiosis
Shugo Tokumaru revels in the act of playing with sounds. The Brian-Wilson-like pop fireworks were just a happy byproduct of someone obsessed with seeing what one could imagine. This is an artist who released a bonus CD featuring 99 songs, each one highlighting one of 99 instruments he used on the main release.
At first brush, newest album (and first in eight years) Song Symbiosis comes off as a creative escalation. It was the description that first made me double take — Tokumaru uses more instruments than ever before this time around. Like…how high are we talking here? This must be a headrush of an album, with a creator who could craft pop wonder out of single-digit numbers of tools.
At times it certainly is…but Song Symbiosis is a celebration of creation from all angles, with Tokumaru the tinkerer on full display. Some moments, like “Counting Dog” or “Sakiyo No Furiko,” remind of his playroom pop wizardry, turning guitar melodies and bell chimes and toy touches into songs equal parts wide-eyed and wistful. Yet elsewhere, we get sketches lasting a minute or less, of Tokumaru trying to recreate bird songs on a xylophone or embracing Indian instrumentation…sitar at hand. He’s exploring a greater world of sound, from beyond border to the familiar sounds of Japan itself.
While still highlighting the theme-park-ride wonder he caught attention with, Song Symbiosis is the rare chance to see Tokumaru working through his process across an album. Beyond the sketch-book tracks showing his mos radical departures, the album features Tokumaru trying out more sounds than ever before, getting sparse (“Kotohanose”) and getting folksy (“Resham Firiri” which is a Nepalese tune) and getting a little bit country (“Mazume” has some twang). Through all the year’s, his fascination with how music can click together remains strong, and he’s happy to share a glance into how it happens. Listen above.
Natsudaidai — “Dusky Dolphin”
A summer song eschewing the chill in favor of the nervy. Duo Natsudaidai let synths squiggle away and beach-ready flute melodies flutter over a disco-house beat, never settling down to soak up the sun but rather keeping the energy uptempo. The sonic texture is interesting enough to rise above a seasonal speciality…while still nailing the warmer-times vibe. Listen above.
De De Mouse And Hitomitoi — “Matenro Starlight”
One of 2023’s best songs came from a pair turning the sounds of internet-age nostalgia into something only functioning in the now. Producer De De Mouse linked up with city pop staple Hitomitoi for “Love Groovin’,” a mutation on the memory-mining sounds of future funk (while actually being closer to French touch…which is what that Tumblr-born style is, except with Google Translate open in another window) that flipped it into a goose-bumped bit of nervous dance energy. De De’s jittery beat and Hitomitoi’s subtle urgency (“don’t let me down….”) turn it heart racing, the sort of feeling that never feels as real in retrospect as when it’s playing out in front of you.
Here’s the sequel! The duo zero in on the same elements that made “Love Groovin’” go — an ‘80s glow over a Parisian house structure, a sweetness and longing in the lyrics, general lightness — to create a worthy follow up. The one key shift is via Hitomitoi’s singing. A year ago, the music put her in the spotlight, but this time around she’s blurring with the synthesizers around here, becoming part of the glow come the chorus. This one’s a little more about the vibes, but that’s all good when they do it so well. Listen above.
eμlate — eμlate’s garden
Maltine Records loves to foster new units between artists working within their digital world. The latest to emerge out of the netlabel is eμlate, the pairing of a member of Imudenpa.wav and Mizuki Wada…better known (at least around these parts) as the electronic artist Miii. Honestly, listening to this three song set I’m mostly thrilled to hear the latter’s fragmented dubstep barrages more than anything else. The voice fits in well — especially when it turns sneering alongside the skittering beat on “Carnivorous Plant” — but the most thrilling moments come when that human grace gets blown to smithereens in front of Wada’s swirling twister of sounds. Get it here, or listen above.
Triple Fire — “Aisekiya Ni Ikitai”
A goofy bit of tropical pop (that flute!) to serve as a shot before we dive back into the more aggressive.
Various Artists — MohoΩ
While I follow Lost Frog Productions, this one truly caught my attention for work reasons. Full disclosure — I work in part as part of an international team promoting the virtual artist KAF. So when I saw the face of my client (!?) on this compilation, I had to listen…and was even more jazzed to hear it. Here’s a fast-paced and at times manic set of remixes of KAF songs, transforming her dance-pop poetry into claustrophobic electronica and dizzying experimental compositions (plus something approaching atmospheric IDM). A wonderful mutation on an already interesting 2020s artists. Get it here, or listen above.
PICNIC YOU — Yuai
Partially this week’s reminder…if you want even more dispatches from the Japanese music / pop culture landscape, sign up for Make Believe Bonus! Last week focused on seeing rap duo PICNIC YOU celebrate the release of their first full-length album Yuai from HMV Records in Shibuya. It has been on repeat since though — the pair strike a balance between experimental flair in the style of Dos Monos (with a heavy emphasis on warping their voices) with a more classic grounding in hip-hop, wherein the two simply flex their rhymes. At times celebratory and melancholy, Yuai shows two creators really hitting a creative spurt while improving their fundamentals. Special shout-out to standout “lovely day,” a hazy cut that finds one of the most creative ways to utilize Make Believe Melodies’ favorite Perfect Young Lady (while also revealing a whole new dimension to her voice). Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of July 8 2024 To July 14, 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.
SixTONES — “GONG / Koko Ni Kaettekite” (426,087 Copies Sold)
As someone completely burned out on the rap-with-attitude! approach so many male groups globally continue to wring dry1, a song like “GONG” is exactly what I need to register any excitement for this corner of pop music. Rock ‘n’ roll, baby! The pure embrace of ONE OK ROCK-ish energy excuses the try-hard posturing (including the group actually singing “rock ‘n’ roll” at one point), because I’ll take this drive over more leftover EDM tracks any day. Also helps purge the cheesiness of the ballad on the other side.
Funny enough, even better forms of Japanese rock get representation further down this week’s physical chart…via anime girl bands that are technically rivals within the universe of the show they come from. Stay tuned, my essay on Girls Band Cry coming…sometime this summer!
News And Views
Coolest happening of the week by a huge mile is Hakushi Hasegawa…whose new album is out this week and is one of the year’s best…appearing on THE FIRST TAKE for what has to be one of the neatest entries in that YouTube channel’s history.
Also offered up some Fuji Rock suggestions, though if you subscribe here you could probably guess them.
Nice story in The Guardian about an artist keeping the style of goze alive.
So this one is a weird story from Billboard Japan. The headline focuses on BMSG’s focus on “sustainability” by…packaging CDs in paper? I mean a nice move coupled with the decision to remove retailer-specific goodies (which tends to boost overall physical sales), which did have tangible impact, so no hate towards that. The framing, though, is weird because…so many other artists don’t even put out physical singles anymore, which seems like the much more “sustainable” move, but that doesn’t get mentioned. There’s definitely a whiff of advertorial lurking here, though I don’t see it presented as such.
HOWEVER this article becomes much more interesting when you view it as the latest referendum on the 2010s “bulk buying” days, while also being a discussion about what charts should be in the 2020s. Now this results in the article turning into a bit of a self-jerk about how great Billboard is, but it does explore issues long present in Japan in a smart way. I mean, people covering charts in the States should read this and try to think about where the industry is at too…
Yuki Chiba popping up on Megan Thee Stallion’s current tour.
While all attention will be on Fuji Rock Festival this week, a truly out of nowhere alliance has emerged for the New Year’s music fest slate. Meet rockin’ on sonic, a collaborative gathering between Rockin’ On and Creativeman (Summer Sonic) to be held January 4 and 5 at Makuhari Messe, with the intention of combining established Western names with younger Japanese groups. It’s a compact enough festival where the promoters say no overlaps will occur, meaning a punter could see everything. I’m less interested in the content of the festival…which could be cool!…and more in this partnership. Why are they coming together? What does Smash (Fuji Rock) think of it all? Is the era of live-music mergers upon us, or is this truly just a special case?
YouTube music critic Mino Music shared his 70 greatest Japanese guitar riffs of all time…by shredding away himself.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
That said…I actually appreciate the new Stray Kids song for being so overly stupid and leaning into its Deadpool tie-up that it gives me a glimmer of hope that the reality where “Jopping” became the biggest pop hit of the 21st century could still happen. Men, be dumber, that’s how you make jams!