Make Believe Melodies For March 6, 2023
Literally Forgot To Include The Top Batter Here In Bandcamp Friday...But They Deserve The Attention!
The Vegetablets — The Vegetablets 5
Nagoya duo The Vegetablets have always been the intimate sort. This indie-pop project has long played around with kitchen-sink percussion, guitar strums, whistles and a general aw-shucks attitude to approaching life. They post live videos of them playing in their living room, for goodness sake, you can’t get more quaint than that.
The Vegetablets 5 trumpets the pair’s use of classical guitars across its eight original songs, but I think that’s less important than the cozy atmosphere The Vegetablets continue to build in their discography. Stripped-down numbers such as “the world is wonderful” and “dance in my room” celebrate small triumphs of the everyday over strums and light beat, getting the most out of the least (see also closer “grass,” which focuses on the thrills of…grass). Despite the sparse musical setup, the group add enough clever touches to their songs to add depth, whether it be keyboard tension on the existential spookiness of “the emptiness of the dark” or the sweet double-upped vocals adding to the honey-rich energy of “come to see the starry sky.” Through them all is a simple but catchy approach to melody The Vegetablets have long excelled at — you don’t need that much to write a gooey hook, especially when the emotions at the center come through so clearly as if they are sitting in the chair across from you. Get it here, or listen above.
Haijima Ginka — “Ct”
Tokio Shaman has emerged as the most important Japanese party of the last five years. Presented by shaka bose, the event has offered a snapshot of the country’s musical youth movement, and names appearing at this event — Tohji, STARKIDS, Peterparker69, (sic)boy just to name a few — have grown in status lately, hitting their stride as the greater music industry takes note. Electronic artist uku kasai delivers a sound a bit different than the aforementioned acts, but they have also appeared at Tokio Shaman, offering a snapshot of how dance music has mutated in the hands of a new generation. They’ve been brought up to the bigger leagues — specifically, to write a song for an anime character named Hajima Ginka from the Bandai-Namco “multi-media series” Den-On-Bu (good overview from This Side Of Japan here). Part of what makes this an important development is how intact uku kasai’s original sound is here — it’s jittery, vaporous and eventually speedy without losing the dreamlike quality they create via synthesizer. It’s the sound of underground experimentalism bubbling up into something more mainstream, and being presented as it has been from Tokyo’s parties over the last few years. Listen above.
Gimgigam And Showmore — Wonderland
In a just world, Gimgigam would be called into every fledgling J-pop act’s studio sessions to punch up their music, because I can’t think of a young producer with so much to offer. This collaborative EP with the duo Showmore — a group I’ve always been pretty lukewarm on, a little too “urban fusion” for my taste — showcases his ability to turn songs sweltering, dappling synthesizer over otherwise sparse songs like “Hold on” to give them woozy effect, or an ability to turn beach-adjacent sounds into something urgent on “Eraser.” At his best, Gimgigam flips a slice of paradise like “Just a moment” around by being unafraid of poking at the tempo and letting it splatter into a sunscreen-soaked interpretation of Jersey club. Listen above.
Pharakami Sanders — Pieces Of A Dream EP
Not everything has to break a sweat to be a groove. Kool Switch Works founder Pharakami Sanders can go fast, but on his latest EP he works best when slowing down his footwork sound. “Lava Land” teases liftoff but settles into a herky-jerky mid-tempo that allows the beat to be a bit wonkier…and makes the moment it does speed up all the better. “Cosmosquare” covers its shuffling beat with spaced-out electronics and spoken-word interludes, while the title track is pure dissected vocal sample vibe. Sanders can get fast…but knows how to make something in less of a hurry hit, too. Get it here, or listen above.
Itaq — “Lapis’ Cockpit”
Japanese music across the board seems to be speeding up in 2023, and here’s a rap example that really makes the most of the swifter tempo. Despite moving much more quickly, Itaq packs in the details over this shifty beat, detailing Sapporo live shows and other hijinks with nary a breather. Listen above.
PAS TASTA Featuring Soushi Sakiyama — “river relief”
Contemporary Japanese electronic supergroup PAS TASTA links up with a singer boasting the sort of voice that lands you on THE FIRST TAKE…and they muck it up wonderfully. There’s something joyous about hearing this collective blow out the bass around Sakiyama’s voice and surround it with clattering details, assorted samples and a general sense of instability that makes every second feel like a potential sonic Warp Pipe. Listen above.
Dadada! — THE BEST HIT 1 MINUTES
There’s a knee-jerk reaction to shorter songs today amounting to “does anyone have an attention span left?” Go talk to a doctor about how TikTok fries our …I’ll be over here, on Twitter, clearly boosting my brainpower and not plunging closer to an emotional breakdown…but I think this fear of everything getting shorter to adjust to our goldfish-ed reality is kind of overblown. Like…what if shorter songs do work better than your traditional three-minute pop jaunt, at least in certain circumstances? What if…gasp…it’s an artistic choice opening up new possibilities?
The Dadada! project concerns itself entirely with this proposition, and as their debut album title makes clear, they waste no more than a minute and a few seconds per song. The project of former Charisma.com member Itsuka, Dadada! plays out like an experiment in how pack pop pleasure and experimentalism into a Letterpack-sized shape. A lot of these tracks would absolutely burn themselves out if they went on any longer — the opening number, for one, would be annoying at two minutes, but at a brisk 60-ish seconds, it’s just fun. The uptempo numbers feel like Jello-shot-sized bursts of serotonin, but also still aim to get bodies moving organically, avoiding the trappings of #challenge industry dumps. Slower songs (“Routine”) offer diary entries set over fragile beats. There’s a lot of trying out sounds — guitars, vocal manipulation, high-pitched voice samples — and little worry about getting it just right because…even if it misses, it isn’t long until the next track. Dadada! knows what they want to get across, and do it quickly without feeling like they’re rushing. That’s not a point of concern — that’s a sign of artistic confidence. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of February 20, 2023 To February 26, 2023
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.
King & Prince — “Life goes on / We are young” (1,032,487 Copies Sold)
lolz incredible timing on this one, with that BBC documentary on Johnny Kitagawa coming out, like, in a day.
One of the last singles to feature the original King & Prince lineup before a bunch of members step away from the group, this dual offering has managed dizzying physical sales at a time when that’s rare, surpassing a million units moved in its first week. That underlines a reality that I’m not sure a ton of people are really ready to accept — for all the deserved scrutiny the agency receives, the ethos that Kitagawa cultivated has proven to be a long-lasting success. These are completely loathsome songs — one being a schoolyard “everything will be OK!” chant, the other being a standard-issue ballad (bad) — providing an aural friend hug. Yet they are secondary to the experiences of the people in the group, and the huge first week sales reflect a commitment to the idea of King & Prince over anything related to the music. It’s single as souvenir, which is nothing new for Johnny’s…but in 2023, it feels as powerful as ever, with the idea of focusing on the personal connection (or idea of) over the artistic so strong as to feel suffocating1.
News And Views
Not a flashy story, but a very important one — Crunchyroll, the America-based anime streaming service, is placing a greater emphasis on J-pop content, starting with a deep catalog of music-related content from Sony Music Japan. This comes at around the time they’ve “powered” a forthcoming North American tour by the band RADWIMPS — which has proven to be a massive success, to the point of numerous shows on the jaunt being upgraded to larger venues or leading to extra shows. I’ve written a lot about the intersection of anime and music, but here is one of the most powerful examples of it yet…and one that will only become more central in the years ahead.
Akiko Yano links with a former astronaut for new album, which is probably better art than anything that will come out of Yusaku Maezawa’s space trip.
XG becomes the first Japanese girl group to enter U.S. pop radio’s top 40, with “Left Right.” There’s a lot to unpack with this…and it’s starting to feel like with this group and the one in the next bullet point, we are seeing a new divide in how Japanese music markets itself that’s going to become more stark in the months ahead…but for now let’s just appreciate…Avex might actually pull off a proper crossover hit. Maybe they can buy their building back…
SG5, the Sailor-Moon-themed pop group, debuted with the song “Firetruck” this week, which has already moved over 3.5 million plays on YouTube. I’ve already written about how smart the idea behind the group is in theory…anime truly is the wave that lifts J-pop’s boats up at the moment…but I also think the first number from this project has more in common with XG, as discussed last week, and also…doesn’t seem to lean that much into the Sailor Moon thing. Though it might really be closer to TNGHT given Hudson Mohawke’s involvement in it. I’ll have more on this in the future, but I do think this is a significant development in how J-pop markets itself abroad.
Study with Miku
I have this vague inkling that J-pop is getting a little too overeager about overseas expansion, and this story kind of underlines it (or maybe…niche-ization is a viable method forward, which would be great!).
ano on THE FIRST TAKE with the best Chainsaw Man song.
ExWHYZ with a new digital release on the way featuring Shinichi Osawa and (uhhh) Seiho…will probably sound good, though the latter is still in a weird “what happened with the sexual harassment story from last year” way.
Watch a staff member of a Hard Off store cover X JAPAN’s “Say Anything” all on his own…in store.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Follow the Best of 2023 Spotify Playlist Here!
Not just in Japan, though…this is the global standard, but that’s for another time.