Make Believe Melodies For March 11, 2024
Give Stones Taro some even bigger J-pop cracks
Kaoruko And Stones Taro — Y
Stones Taro doesn’t immediately seem like the sort of producer to be a fit for poppier sounds. The Kyoto co-founder of NC4K is an all-around ace at translating the bleary feeling of a late night out and a floor-focused scientist finding ways to make the retro feel urgent. That doesn’t always translate to spaces outside of the party. Yet 2024 has been building the case that he’s just a great creator in any context…and that the delirious sounds he works up work well in many settings. First he popped up supporting rapper MFS on the rumbling “Combo,” and now a collaboration that started as a seeming one-off on a tokyovitamin album has produced a dizzying set of songs inviting anyone to get caught up in its blur.
For Y, Stones Taro continues collaborating with the artist Kaoruko, whose effects-dappled voice ripples over the producer’s dance backdrops. She mixes in just right with sounds coming off with a little sleep on the corner of their eyes, to the point where she’s more dreamy texture being unfolded over these tracks. She fits in just right amidst synth swirls on the spacey “Utakata,” a song featuring bird chirps and a general sense of disconnecting playing out. She zig-zags through the more urgent pulse of “Monstera,” and adds depth via more stretched out delivery on the otherwise sparse title track. Stones Taro’s music isn’t bending to new realities, but rather finding an apt partner that can reveal new angles to it, without losing the original essence. Listen below.
Trekkie Trax Crew — “Crystal”
Music released via Trekkie Trax online always sounds like it would be a good fit in a live space, while every Trekkie Trax show features songs that would probably also wow from the comfort of home. “Crystal,” via Never Worry Records, just sounds like a Trekkie Trax show from start to finish, wherever it’s playing. This is the main crew behind the Tokyo label embracing pure euphoria on piano rush and bop-along beats. Up there with the imprint’s own “Make Me Feel” or Crew member Carpainter’s “Double Rainbow” when it comes to pure bliss. Listen above.
TORIENA — “Sekai No Owari”
“Slow” by TORIENA standards means anything needing like, 30 seconds to burst open. “Sekai No Owari” is a dang ballad by her standards, opening with only her electrified voice over slight instrumentation. Even when horror-movie synths enter around the edges, they still take a bit to truly go off. Here’s an artist often embracing pure physical pummeling via her sound creating tension…without pulling any of the punches once she hits the sweet spot. Listen above.
Airi Suzuki Featuring Sorane And Taku Takahashi — “Koi ni Ochitara”
I’m pretty fascinated where long-running electronic producer Taku Takahashi’s head is at in the 2020s. A song like the above is nodding to his past, specifically in m-flo — it unfolds at the same gallop, ping-ponging between sung portions and rapped passages, building up to a string section making you ask “come again?” Yet it also comes at a time when all things Y2K (or at least all things perceived as such) are on trend, something Takahashi is aware of…and which mixes in just right with his own love of all things Jersey Club (seriously, I’ve seen this guy DJ in the past year…he’s on it). A great throwback song with a lot of contemporary connections. Listen above.
Guiba — “Tochigi”
Quite possibly the most loving song and video about Tochigi Prefecture ever recorded.
Tokyo indie-rock “supergroup” Guiba get the vibes just right on the windows-down “Tochigi,” an ode to road trips and living in the moment. This is basically the mode all of the members’ main gigs also capture very well — though, I haven’t listened to the new South Penguin yet, one that fell through the cracks and I’m seeing people say is a big leap forward, stay tuned — but here they focus and really nail the easy-going (but somewhat melancholic) energy. Listen above.
Summer Eye — “39 (Thank You)”
That Summer Eye album from last year? Yep, still worthy of my personal top ten for the year, a warmer-climes diary from an indie-rocker lifer who discovered the sweetness of dance music. Here’s a nice addendum to that release, offering a little bit of his Siamese Cats-era percussion to an otherwise sun-burnt bit of dance-pop. Get it here, or listen above.
Various Artists — HYPERSONIC TEXTURE
Alright, enough of this pleasant stuff, let Creston Club wash away the feel-good with noise. One of Japan’s most interesting experimental labels brings together Indonesian chaos-meister NASU with domestic power electronics project P.O.V. for some welcome intensity. Get it here.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of February 26, 2024 To March 3, 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.
SKE48 — “Ai No Hologram” (271,122 Copies Sold)
Whoa, an actual close contest for the physical-sales top spot! Vets SKE48 just edged out K-pop group ATEEZ’ Japan single “NOT OKAY” this week in a race only separated by a few hundred sales. Fans, I take it all back…buying way too many copies of the same CD is actually maybe needed at times.
There’s no greater cultural takeaways from this, so let’s instead get selfish and explore personal taste. Which is…thank god SKE48 won this, because that ATEEZ song is everything wrong with modern male K-pop, delivered in the laziest package possible. I’ve never been big on them — I see them as an era of groups best summed up as “I hope you wrote BTS a thank you letter or something” — but “NOT OKAY” is particularly empty, all flashy club filler leading to an EDM core that would have been empty in 2016, let alone 2024. Oh, don’t forget the tacked-on rap! Is K-pop a genre? That’s a tricky one…but songs like this make an argument that 2020s male K-pop absolutely is, following a boring template that is only getting thinner with every imitation.
Which…SKE48 isn’t a ton better on that front, but I’ll take the over-the-top piano arrangement and string swells pushing a song about the hologram-like nature of modern life in Tokyo everyday. It’s not about posing — here’s a group where that period ended quite a bit ago — but rather just about emotional propulsion. Listen above.
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News And Views
Doja Cat thrilling a whole bunch of people by revealing her interest in Tommy heavenly6.
Fujii Kaze announces a U.S. tour for later this year…OK, well, “tour” is pushing it, as he is only visiting Los Angeles and New York (The Apollo!?! Who does he think he is, Wonder Girls?), this is still a significant moment for the new era of J-pop abroad, as now all three of the power players (Ado, YOASOBI and Kaze) will visit America this year.
Attached to this…Kaze will also appear on something called “tiny desk concert JAPAN” which is…NHK getting the rights for a Japanese version of the NPR series???
Ado interviewed by brand-backed VTuber.
Ryuichi Sakamoto made the Oscars “In Memoriam” segment. Should note here this year’s Academy Awards were pretty massive for Japanese pop culture at large, though music didn’t really factor into it…but hey, you should know!
Atarashii Gakko! getting that Ghostbusters call up. I respect the goofiness of this (“A B C D E F Ghost”).
I don’t keep tight tabs on ZOC…but they are, once again, going through some things.
Creepy Nuts appeared on THE FIRST TAKE to deliver some Jersey Club.
Only loosely connected to the focus of this newsletter but…a great example of “cool, Japan!” theory in action via Young Miko appearing in a “WcDonald’s” commercial.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies