Make Believe Melodies For March 29, 2021
Checking In With Some Familiar Names
mitsume — VI
There’s a type of album that proves most rewarding when left to hypnotize. Like Mei Ehara’s Ampersands from last year, early returns on Tokyo band mitsume’s VI for me were “oh, this is nice” and then transforming into a constant go-to for play, it’s guitar melodies and vocal breeze revealing new depth every time I thought it would help me concentrate on work. This group prides itself on refusing to stay still — and, approaching their 10th anniversary together from an indie-rock community where half of that can be a rarity, it appears to be working — and following the lively 2019 full-length Ghosts, they’ve slowed down ever so slightly to let subtle mutations come through. Songs on VI serve as rock still-lifes, featuring repeated phrases that set a general scene (a room, at a table) before letting more abstract thoughts loose (the prior becomes a place to stare into space and imagine escape on “Fiction,” the latter allows for a snapshot of a frayed relationship to appear on “Tonic Love”), with the music guiding everything along until it swells up or lets an odd sonic detail creep in. They can do straight-ahead well too — check the uptempo “System,” the one moment snapping out of grooves in favor of a rush — but VI shows mitsume’s attention to small changes remains unparalleled. Listen above.
iri — “doyo”
The bulk of J-pop artist iri’s Hajimari No Hi EP highlights her voice, with plenty of space to show off her singing and rapping. It’s a great showcase from a future force (specifically highlighting her own songwriting chops), but still I’ll take the one moment of pure fun coming at the very end. Featuring production assistance from electronic artist TAAR, “doyo” guides iri out of lonely Tokyo streets into a particularly elastic club setting, letting her bounce over 2-step skitters. It’s a good time, but it also does what everything else on this release aims to do with a little more oomph to it — she does a lot with her delivery over the course of this, showing you can make yourself heard even in a party. Listen above.
nate, hirihiri, BENXNI — “GAME OVER”
Surely a J-pop act is going to try to get in on the hyperpop boom sometime soon and ruin it for everyone, so let’s enjoy three artists who were playing around with all the sonic elements that make up that genre before Spotify deemed it into existence coming together and blowing things out (“they said game over / but I don’t want to stay sober” is a hell of a way to start!). Listen above.
Haru Nemuri — “Inori Dake Ga Aru”
The build up!
handsms — Holi/Day
Among the more surprising pre-pandemic regrets I have…somehow, I’ve never gotten out to Fukuoka despite everything about the Western Japanese city checking off every box in the “stuff I want in a place to visit” list. Part of the desire to go is to see the area’s underground electronic scene, in my mind guided by label Yesterday Once More. Their boss Shigge constitutes one half of new project handsms, with local techno creator DJ AtoNN being the other player. Their debut together strikes a kinetic balance between Shigge’s more melodic dance creations and drum ‘n’ bass madness. Making me look at Peach Airlines, aren’t you guys. Get it here, or listen above.
YUKI — “My lovely ghost”
This is probably the closest J-pop is ever going to get to hauntology.
The b-side to YUKI’s big return to mainstream music after a few years away goes half a line before mentioning “city pop” then shimmying into a dance-pop number that can’t decide if nostalgia is a cool diversion or the cause of crushing loneliness. I can’t tell if “My lovely ghost” is directly referencing other songs or if it is just a happy coincidence, but whatever way YUKI is going here, she’s created a deceptively upbeat jam about obsessing with yesteryear…from one’s bedroom, topped off by a hook leading off with a cry that translates to “everyone lonely lonely lonely lonely.” Given the obsession with older Japanese music going on both domestically and internationally, it’s a little surprising to hear YUKI go discokomori to underline the sour aspects of all this reminiscing (without losing any of the fun). Is it healthy to seek escape from the world by constantly revisiting the warped images of the past? Probably not, but YUKI at least makes that misery sound good. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of March 15, 2021 To March 21, 2021
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 the 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 drip down…the Oricon Trail.
DA PUMP — “Dream On The Street” (21,638 Copies Sold)
God damn, now this is what I live for with Oricon! When Johnny’s groups, K-pop acts and top-level idols take the week off, the Oricon Singles Chart gets wacky, allowing the beautiful souls of DA PUMP — squeezing every droplet out of the massive so-bad-it’s-good-wait-it’s-actually-amazing? success of “U.S.A.” — to go up to the top spot with total sales of 21, 638, the sort of number that forces the execs at Avex to consider turning their recording studios into Airbnbs. And they are living! “Dream On The Street” is a celebration of…street dancing, complete with shout out to Westside Story and some janky Saxobeat.
Always oversell yourself
Who cares that only one original member of DA PUMP remains, making the “starting point of the group” bit kind of irrelevant. This is probably the most fun single to appear in this weekly segment in…geez, when was the last time a kid’s TV theme topped this? If Oricon is going to continue to exist, I hope wackadoodle moments like this can remain, glitches thanks to an outdated approach that still produce some fun.
News And Views
Following up on the fallout from last week’s Olympic controversy — MIKIKO issued her own statement last Friday, boiling down to “I was excited to take part in this, COVID-19 threw everything off and the situation changed, yeah I don’t want to take part in this now.” I expanded on an idea I introduced here about how this isn’t an isolated issue, but an example of greater failing, for OTAQUEST.
Iwahashi Genki of Johnny’s group King& Prince is leaving the outfit and the agency.
Great mysteries of Yung Lean now solved…with surprising answers!
wow!! Yung Lean used my samples!! I didn't know until now lol5. Ginseng Strip 2002 Yung Lean's Ginseng Strip 2002 has been a staple for the Cloud Rap genre being a pioneer with this track. The biggest case to be solved is where did the sample come from? Till today this track has been one of the most wanted samples of all time. https://t.co/jtrLmPEfc5
Psycho The Thread Lad (Like Limit) @LadPsychoFest season confirmed (for now)! Fuji Rock Festival, one of the biggest summer music gatherings in Japan, will happen this year in late August, after last year’s edition was “postponed” (really, cancelled but I feel the PR folks pain). The big change, though, is that it will be an entirely domestic slate of artists, which…actually opens up a lot of fascinating possibilities. It also makes me wonder if fellow fest heavyweight Summer Sonic, which relies way more on the idea of it being the “international one,” can happen without non-Japanese acts available.
This week in “Gendai ran a big article about music in Japanese” — city pop, why is it popular??? This one uses the recent success of “Mayonaka No Door / Stay With Me” as a jumping off point for a variety of interviews with people including Night Tempo and Rainych. Another comprehensive one worth breaking out the dictionary (or you can read my interview with the songwriter behind “Stay With Me” for The Japan Times — or wait for my next feature for the paper which is with someone mentioned in this paragraph!).
Whoopsie of the week — the Tower Records Kawasaki store’s Twitter account accidentally posted a saucy message from someone looking for some uhhhh after work fun (complete with internet slang galore).
Last, in an example of all kinds of culture getting mixed together…”Uighur lofi hip hop chill music”
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies