Make Believe Melodies For May 20, 2024
Another FLAU Hit
marucoporoporo — Conceive the Sea
The artists appearing on Tokyo-based label FLAU strive to escape from the familiar. Stretching back to its earliest releases, the creators working in their orbit let songs unfold like daydreams, touches of daily life — say, existing in a cramped city like Tokyo — serving as inspiration towards something new. Those places could prove to be unnerving, or be blissful in their fragility. Uniting them all is a feeling of another world, moving at its own pace.
Creator marucoporoporo’s debut album Conceive the Sea fits in comfortably amongst the FLAU discography. The artist first emerged back in 2018 with an EP of dewy-eyed numbers boasting traditional structure but, in the way she used space to emphasize feelings on tracks like “Dear” and a smattering of electronic touches, offered a preview of what was to come.
Coming out of music made for an art exhibition last year, Conceive turns to the aquatic for inspiration, moving at a submerged pace and letting sounds seemingly unfold at half speed. Her guitar and vocals still drift through, but now marcoporoporo presents them as flotsam bobbing amongst ambient waves. Her singing comes out slowly on songs like “From A Distance” and buried beneath electronic rumbles on “Core.” She’s clearest on “Cycle of Love,” but rather than craft a familiar folksy mediation, her voice echoes over itself, surrounded by space and interrupted by samples of dolphins. It’s the closest to “formulaic” she gets — and even then, she imagines it as something happening deep under the sea…another world.
Like Cuushe and Noah before her, marcoporoporo practically buries into her art as refuge, and in the process creates songs inviting and intimate. You can see the faint image of something familiar while enveloped in these songs, but it’s as building blocks for the artist’s own world. Get it here, or listen above.
De De Mouse And Pa’s Lam System — “Summer ever”
I’ll be cryptic and say…this is probably not the only time you’ll hear about one of these artists this week. Back to now…what a combination! The two high-energy artists come together to create a song both melancholy and mosh ready, with the big release at the song’s core being Pa’s Lam System energy in its purest form. Listen above.
HOME — “Plastic Romance”
Thank goodness someone took up the challenge of being Paellas for the 2020s. Earlier singles from Okinawa outfit HOME put them in a more head-down-running-forward rock style, but with “Plastic Romance” they opt for ennui-dipped dance-pop. It’s glumness with rhythm in its step, ideal for times after last train walking around all alone feeling a bit bad about yourself but also wanting to have a little pep as you move. Listen above.
HAKU — Imaginary Friend
It’s great to see every member of Dr. Anon releasing music in 2024 rooted in the social-media-age buzziness the trio explored so well but building on it in their own individual way. HAKU’s Imaginary friend re-imagines SoundCloud ecstasy and young adult woes as a battering ram, with the best songs here dashing ahead behind piston-like beats concealing more complicated emotions (“sentimental,” “OYASUMI”). Listen above.
levi — persona
Let’s stick with early 2020s rabble-rousers. Since signing with a major label, I’ve been a bit more hot and cold on the material STARKIDS have put out in recent months. Revisiting it for this blurb, I still think they are mostly maintaining the mix of Strong-Zero-fueled attitude with a sense of a gang of friends taking on the world, but songs like “BIG HEAD” hint at something approaching exhaustion, and kind of lost between outcast energy and gloating about designer purchases. Or…ya know, maybe it’s getting older. Nobody can hold on to that youthful punch forever.
Member levi’s persona reminds of the playful energy STARKIDS can be so good at, and show a spark absolutely still lurks around. It’s high energy but gleeful at getting weird (check the game-center-on-the-fritz production of “scanned & printed”) and giddy at the prospect of bringing in like-minded outsiders (lilbesh ramko helping tear the place up on “newgame!”). Most importantly — levi has some stupid fun! Closer “TRAILBLAZERS” goes full Dave-Rodgers cheese, and adds Hatsune Miku on top of it for maximum wildness and a clever bridging of generations shaping the modern sound of J-pop. This rules, and reminds of what makes him and STARKIDS at large such a thrilling proposition. Listen above.
pinponpanpon — “dousuru”
“I won’t give up ‘til I’m on Wikipedia.” Geez, now that’s a lyric! Listen above (and watch the nutty video, complete with…narrative???).
556km — “Utopia”
Let’s clam down after that HyperPop-ish barrage with a softer reflection courtesy of 556km. This bedroom pop artist released a sweet, very intimate (in the sense that you feel like you are sitting on a couch across from her as she records it) album called A Sense Of Inferiority earlier this year, and “Utopia” offers a little more heft to her indie-pop without losing the homemade quality. It glows a little more and feels a little more lively, but at its core is still a sweet, agoraphobic vocal. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of May 6, 2024 To May 12, 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.
Hinatazaka46 — “Kimi Wa Honeydew” (448, 824 Copies Sold)
Fans of songs using food metaphors to explain love…we are eating good lately.
Solid, upbeat and just weird enough (the part where they just list fruits; the little whistle sound after it; the post-chorus bit that sounds like they sped up the underground music from Mario) to make for a -46-in-2024 highlight. It’s top level idol music in all its goofy glory, using the titular melon to represent love, and then just letting the music convey the feeling that spark brings. Listen above.
It’s also a reminder that while a lot changes, the power of a huge girl group in the J-pop landscape remains the same. Hinatazaka46 beat out HYBE’s effort at a male group &TEAM and its debut single, while also outpacing THE RAMPAGE’s really solid stab at dance-pop futurism “CyberHelix.” A great sonic switch-up from that group…but not strong enough to pass one of the strongest bets in mainstream music.
Oh, and rounding out this week’s Oricon physical-only chart? Another snack-tastic song I raved about last week.
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Last week…visiting a place where viral hits are born.
News And Views
Composer Taro Kida died at age 93. Known for composing over 5000 songs, dude was truly prolific, having written songs for a variety of artists (from Kenji Kitahara to Takoyaki Rainbow) and also creating themes for TV shows, baseball teams and entire cities. He also penned a bunch of well known commercial songs (some below), particularly for chains in his home of Kansai. A fascinating figure, and one whose love of the Kinki region came through in almost everything he did.
Jun Matsumoto announces he will leave STARTO…but remain part of Arashi…at the end of this month.
Kuu, the vocalist for the rock band NEE — and a rising pop songwriter too — has died at the age of 25.
Lamp world tour…and already sold out!
TOBE aims to be a paradigm shift of sorts in the J-pop space unlike founder Hideaki Takizawa’s former home of STARTO…but as new group DeePals indicates, they carry on that agency’s legacy of wacky-ass names.
“What if a real singer appeared from behind the nerd?” All you need for the following “prank” video.
Jurina Matsui back on the idol beat…as manager for the soon-to-debut KLP48 in Malaysia.
Perfume updates: Nocchi went to Square Enix, Kashiyuka will be on a TV show where she has to hike.
Luminate looks at Asian groups…particularly Atarashii Gakko!…getting boosts after Coachella.
Bedroom-pop-legend-in-the-making Perfect Young Lady releases a best-of album capturing just a few of her highlights from the last three years this week.
Number_i appeared on the Zach Sang Show post-Coachella, which you can watch here. Very savvy marketing from TOBE for sure, though this also includes a (how convenient, clipped) bit wherein the host asks the group to explain what J-pop is to him. Now, he’s clearly trying to get an explanation of what it sounds like, which Number_i attempts to answer…but the overthinking part of me is just like “the ‘J’ stands for ‘Japan’ which basically answers your question.” People tend to overthink this a lot!
I already detailed the “Best 100 Fusion” list from Record Collectors Magazine, and a name popping up a lot on that ranking was Sadao Watanabe. This week, Nikkei Asia has an in-depth look at his career…which is still going, dude is over 90 and still performing.
I’m on a bit of a podcast run as of late? I returned to The Idol Cast to talk about the current state of J-pop…which is also kind of what I did with the Krewe Of Japan podcast, which went up a bit after. The latter includes ~ rare ~ Patrick lore…of how I spent a Spring Break in college helping to clean up Louisiana post Hurricane Katrina (which amounted to moving a bunch of tree branches around).
Dos Monos have a new album out next week…and it’s a concept album about the sun and nuclear energy (!!!).
POP YOURS went down this weekend, and Kim Kahan wrote a nice preview of it for The Japan Times.
Speaking of…plenty happened at said event, but I don’t think a sillier image exists than this one, of YOASOBI’s Lilas Ikuta meeting Peanuts-kun. C’mon collab…we need Peanuts-kun to be globally massive…
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
