Make Believe Melodies For October 10, 2022
No Chilling Out!
MPC GIRL USAGI Featuring YeYe — “Dancing Womer”
Algorithms have ruined a lot about the intersection of online spaces and art, though I do not come here today to go full Luddite. Rather, I want to just gripe about the modern-day bummer of seeing an interesting artist steamrolled into their most boring form. Kyoto singer-songwriter YeYe enjoyed the classic “YouTube recommendation bump” for her 2017 tune “Yurayura.” It’s calm, melodic, tender and a total snooze, unless you are trying to fill out a cafe playlist and ran out of bossa nova Beatles covers to include. Half the appeal is the video, which is cute but stands out too most in the comments because they get to experience an old Japanese theme park for the first time.
YouTube comment for “Yurayura”
I’ve been thinking a lot about how the majority of attention YeYe’s received comes from this one video powered forward by a shadowy sets of 1s and 0s while listening to her latest album Hamidete! which rules because of how allergic to chilling out she sounds on it. It’s a continuation of something she’s been doing since 2013, which is dipping her toes into folksy material before cannonballing into left turns. In 2022, that means sweet numbers give way to collaborations with Ginger Root seeped in humidity, out-of-breath funk numbers about Los Angeles, and songs that genuinely mutate into cosmic boogies midway through, all with sugary sweet hooks intact. It’s everything the “calm Japan” “Yurayura” isn’t — restless, overflowing with nervous creativity and fun.
I’m still trying to personally unravel all my feelings about YeYe’s latest full-length, but I find her recent collaboration with MPC GIRL USAGI — pretty self explanatory artist name — to be a good summary of what makes her best work click. She’s linking up with an artist seemingly out of her usual creative orbit, but fitting in nicely over USAGI’s machine beats and funk guitar splashes courtesy of Kouhei Yamamoto. It’s not normal territory for her…but she still makes it hit, showing a versatlity and curiosity code can’t capture. Listen above.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu — “Isshin Doutai”
The very start imagines Yasutaka Nakata replacing Finneas for at least a song on the next Billie Eilish album, before shuffling back to familiar space for Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, albeit a place she hasn’t circled back to in a bit — icy dance beats built for an abandoned disco. A touch unsettling but mostly goofy fun, punctuated by Kyary actually trying to hit high notes come the chorus. Later on, Nakata gives her pipes a boost with some friendly digi manipulation. Listen above.
HEAVEN — So wet Boys
A Japanese hyperpop supergroup of sorts (aryy, Lil Soft Tennis and RYON4) shares their latest, which veers from using a little more space to make their wonk all the more effective to “more reverb on everything.” It’s one of the stronger statements from the niche to date though, especially in how it balances pop-punk dreams with the digital overkill that makes this stuff so interesting in the first place. Listen above.
NewJeans — “Attention” (K BoW Remix)
God, K BoW is just the best, seek out the Bruno Mars edits he did like five years ago. The Japanese Jersey club creator turns his attention to K-pop’s bringers of a epoch shift, transforming the Y2K vibes of “Attention” into a floor banger that lets the energy flow. Listen above.
rirugiliyangugili Featuring tanta — “9FIFTY”
One of the bigger let downs of 2022 was Four-Loko-made-human rirugiliyangugili trying to clean up a bit on releases that came out this summer, dropping the larynx-thrashing screaming for ho-hum bars. Thank goodness he’s wiping his vocal chords out and creating songs that will scare off 97% of listeners with “9FIFTY!” Dude excels when turning his music into one huge body check. Listen above.
Yukichikasaku/men — “páː”
One of the sweeter moments from the often frantic new-era pop creator, though even when they get a little more vulnerable they work in some sudden tempo changes for good measure. Seeing as we haven’t heard much from them or Hakushi Hasegawa this year, here’s hoping this signals a lot of new art on the horizon. Listen above.
Mimi Chuka — Warau Hikari
Few weeks back, posted about Mimi Chuka’s 2021 album that heavily used MacSpeak and goofy sound effects to create the aural equivalent of downloading every Nico Nico Douga video every uploaded at once. What timing, because they’ve returned with another set of digi-voice curveballs punctuated by surprisingly affecting moments of homebrewed electronic music. Making things even wilder, this is a live album from their recent video appearance at web mag AVYSS’ huge showcase in Shimokitazawa — and this one even arrives alongside an interview with that site, conducted over Discord and simultaneously revealing very little (*silence for five minutes*) and a ton (they want this music to…imagine a better future?). Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of September 26, 2022 To October 02, 2022
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.
=Love — “Be Selfish” (143,938 Copies Sold)
Let’s soak in this top three, shall we?
At the top, you have a popular idol group that still doesn’t feel like a top-level popular idol group, via a single teasing K-pop flourishes (the “heys!” reverberating off int he distance, the post-chorus breakdown) but adding plenty of J-pop dramatics to avoid being cookie cutter (sing-speak instead of flaunting skills) with…EDM interlude. That’s followed by a multi-media group from the Love Live! series going even further into the bass drops with “Vroom Vroom.” They finish just ahead of LOONA, who offer both a surprise (that’s a lot of physical copies sold all things considered!) and a disappointment (wait, I thought this was one of the most popular K-pop groups, based on Twitter and memes and #stanloona, you’re telling me…they are kind of mid-card at best?) before you even hear the song. A weird week, but one highlighting three types of acts which excel in the physical-only chart space (only =LOVE registers in the combined chart, with like four Ado songs and Natori ahead of the pack).
News And Views
Avant-garde composer and pianist Toshi Ichiyanagi died. An important figure in Japan’s experimental art scene, he was 89.
Wrote about Yumi Matsutoya to celebrate her 50th anniversary over at The Japan Times. Maybe more to come around these parts? Shouldn’t make promises…
I’m not an F1 fanatic at all, but I am aware a race was held in my old stomping grounds of Mie this past weekend, at Suzuka Circuit. Ahead of this event, F1 asked Superorganism1 to make a playlist which has…a couple Japanese touches (CHAI mostly).
I think “Doughnut” is the only good song on this list, should have shout-out '“Mr. Taxi.”
GMO Sonic has arrived. An electronic-heavy festival by Creativeman boasting a terrible name but some interesting wrinkles…like LE SERRAFIM.
Cheering and signing from crowds has been a no-no at concerts during the pandemic, but the situation appears to be changing. Pretty much nobody followed these guidelines at the major summer festivals this year, but now artists, organizers and the local government are giving the OK, with more “voice OK!” events popping up. The best example would be Perfume’s upcoming arena show in Miyagi Prefecture, though that one is also at only 32 percent capacity, so…not a total return to normal, but steps in a direction leading to it.
It’s that time of the year again…time to get angry at Sheena Ringo. In conjunction with a new remix album (which, to be clear, has great cover art and a solid set of artists contributing), fans can get special merch to mark the occasion, all riffing off of the time she dressed as a nurse. One item, a card case, resembles the “help mark” used in Japan, and you can guess how many online reacted to this.
A great example of needing to take an extra 15 minutes to be like “is this really a good idea, or more trouble than it’s worth?” because I don’t think it is hard to see the latter being true here! Though gotta say, netizens earnestly bringing up how this is in violation of the Geneva Convention…articles focused ON WAR…you gotta calm down a bit, Ringo isn’t Putin.
Kohaku season arrives, with the announcement of hosts. Start making your predictions now.
Dos Monos heading to England later this year, including for a solo show.
Homicidols has a great overview of PLANCK STARS, an idol group up to all kinds of shenanigans who recently attracted the attention of English-language-Japan Twitter for a contest where the member who sells the most tickets wins a bike, the loser has to do pornography. Pretty clearly a gimmick, but don’t tell the scolds that! This list of the group’s top ten pranks not only underlines this, but also shows…they clearly have agency, and are having a blast! Also…they are going to perform abroad!? Good for them.
Move over Metaverse idols of all types…the Nintendo characters are DJing live.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
People talk a lot about how Pitchfork has reoriented its perspective and tastes in recent times, with that ‘90s list being a particular flash point. Yet personally, them totally ignoring the new Superorganism album…a group they helped make big…is way more of an interesting “where are they at” right now weather check (and I think it’s fine they didn’t cover it, just telling…plus, no critical attention for Hoshino Gen, keep trying my man).
So much interesting music this week, but Sapporo, the Toshi Ichiyanagi song, stole the show for me. Wow! RIP to someone who could compose something so amazing. Do you have any recommendations for other works of his?