International Tapes debuted this over the weekend, but in case you missed it here is a reminder: Moscow Club helped to organize the Ç86 compilation, a collection of indie-pop-leaning artists (I mean, check the name of the comp again) that the group put together in time for the Spring. It’s a pretty great introduction to the country’s contemporary indie-pop scene. The compilation features pretty faithful recreation of 80’s indie-pop courtesy of The Moments, It Happens and Lilacs. The tape also gives some room to the producer-fantasies of Occult You and OMEGABOY, as while as a back half bordering on ambient. It’s not perfect – some of the sparse electronic songs drag, while Slow-Marico’s dentist drill of a song makes a pretty good case against noise – but when stuff like Super VHS’ bouncy “Not Too Late” plays this tape seems vital, a great digital object highlighting some exciting artists.
The best songs, though, come courtesy of Moscow Club themselves. Last year, they jumped between straight-ahead indie-pop goodness (“Daisy Miller,” “Bikinikill”) and electro-tinged compositions (“Pacific 724,” “Echo Beach”). Here, they make a truce between the two, decking their twee songs out in Christmas lights and letting them twinkle away. They lack the emotional ooooomph of a “Daisy Miller,” but still sound like a step forward for Moscow Club sonically.
This month, the Make Believe Mix shuts the curtains and stays under the covers as we feature mostly bedroom artists from all over Japan…and beyond. The ability to make, record and distribute music by yourself has been great for artists who would otherwise never get exposure, and this scene has taken off in Japan in recent years. This month’s mix opens with Occult You (who you might also know as Taquwami) and their lovely “Cassette Girl (Minami),” before heading out west to Kansai to check in on Day Tripper Records mastermind Seiho and his mind-scrambling new song “Evening.” We stay in the region to meet up with Cat Statues, a project made by Benjamin Landau as a means to document his time in Osaka, and listen to the song “Trappers/Palace.” Then we jet to England, because Kero Kero Bonito live there. “But wait, they aren’t Japanese!” Astute, but their track “Ms. World” features Mayu Tanaka on vocals. Rounding things out, producer OMEGABOY and lo-fi pop architects Super VHS.
Below is a list of artists and songs appearing in this month’s mix, in chronological order. Click the links to read more about them and find out how to buy/get their music. All artists featured gave me permission to include their music in this mix.
Reminder to check out One Week, One Band as my stint writing about Perfume draws to a close. Also, a reminder that I am focusing on that project this week and am just gonna blaze through this feature.
Click the above link, and check out the bizarre voting method that site utilizes. Users rated “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” as 54 percent “happy,” 31 percent “happy” and 15 percent “relaxing.” They are sorta right…compared to the usual ballad dregs these three usually drag us down to on a monthly basis, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” really is upbeat, albeit in an annoying way come the chorus (“chu chu chu chu”). It sometimes pushes into goofier territory…the horns might be a little much…but at least this song tries to have fun (how come nobody voted for that?), which is something Ikimono-gakari tend to ignore. I am 78 percent surprised.
三代目 J Soul Brothers “Go My Way”
I really wanted to make a snarky one liner about this song (“Go My Way?” More like go away, am I right?) but J Soul Brothers’ latest isn’t bad enough to warrant such bad jokes. The opening makes it seem like “Go My Way” is going to be overblown, but when the song proper starts it’s actually a surprisingly catchy bit of twinkly pop. J Soul Brothers show their softer side, which is a lot better than the last time we saw them, beating the shit out of everything.
Dream Morning Musume, Special Medley
Smart marketing right here – the super-popular precursor to AKB48, Morning Musume dominated the late 90’s J-Pop scene. Yet all things have to come to an end, and Morning Musume brok…huh, no they didn’t? They are still going? Geez. Like AKB, Musume constantly changes members to the point they might as well be an NFL offensive line. Dream Morning Musume is, as the name hints at, a dream team of former Morning Musume members back together again to perform for whoever wants to see a mish-mash of Musume. It’s a clever idea to get some bucks out of an old idea…new thoughts, who needs them…but not clever enough to get me to listen to any of their music.
Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi “Hitotsu”
Seems like Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi has done a lot of charity work and appearances for the areas affected by last year’s natural disasters…so I am going to take a mulligan on judging the actual song. That said, the harmonica at the end is pretty rad.
Hey! Say! JUMP “Super Delicate”
So how about that “Super Delicate?” It is bad.
Know what isn’t bad? Super VHS’ “Remember The Night,” which also has a really good video that simply uses footage from a cartoon about a penguin. The way Super VHS sequences, though, matches quite well…and makes me think the poor penguin is having an existential crisis.
Here’s a new slice of lo-fi pop (listen to that tape hiss!) from Super VHS. “Remember The Night” inspires me to bust out one of the most dreaded words in music writing recently – nostalgic. The bedroom-recording techniques, the fact the vocals sort of ripple underneath the music and that the whole song reminds me of Ducktails (the musical project, not the money-loaded fowl). Yet this isn’t just retro for retro’s sake – like Ducktails, Super VHS seems in love with an aged sound and creates something deliberately nostalgic…see the title…that almost sounds like you could touch it. It’s also the sort of catchy pop song that, once you get over the 80’s, is hard not to bob along to. Listen below.
Lo-fi project Super VHS sure know how to get a lot out of a little. New song “Goodbye My Old Friend” finds VHS teasing a slightly disorienting dance beat to open up the song, before warm keyboard and typically muffled vocals creep in. What really makes “Goodbye My Old Friend” – and most of Super VHS’ music up to this point – interesting is all the small touches they fit into these economical tunes. Check the distant vocals lurking beneath the already intelligible main singing, or the way new drum sounds just pop up at times in the manic back-half of the track. It closes with a nice guitar bit, a nice low-budget exclamation point for a song done by one of the better bare-bones folks in Japan. Listen below.
Uh oh…introducing a new feature, the (hopefully) monthly Make Believe Mix! Sometimes writing isn’t enough to get people interested in great music…sometimes you just got push a bunch of it towards them and say “just listen to this.” Welp, that’s what we are trying here! With this mix, we hope to share great under-the-radar Japanese music to a greater audience. I’ve never done anything like this before so I’m sure there are some screw ups within the actual mix…please let me know, so I can make future installments sound better.
Below is the list of artists appearing in this mix, in chronological order. Click the links to read more about them and find out how to buy/get their music. All artists featured gave me permission to include their music in this mix.
Kido Yoji “Call A Romance” – From the Call A Romance EP out now on KSR. Buy on iTunes or here.
Last week, chilled-out group Super VHS dropped a new EP for free over at Bandcamp just waiting for you to click the “download” button. Girlfriends features two relatively relaxed tracks, both moving like a lazy Sunday afternoon and with a little fog slightly crowding the scene. The title track moves along slowly, the guitars gently pushing everything ahead except for the times they twang off, the closest “Girlfriends” come to anything “tropical.” The vocals get blanketed in just enough fuzz to make them feel ancient (think Dirty Beaches). Breezy nostalgia. The other song attached here is “I Want You To Find Me,” tagged as a cover though I’m gonna admit I have no idea what song. And Google isn’t coming through, though maybe it’s Japanese! Anywho, “I Want You To Find Me” follows “Girlfriends'” raking-the-leaves pace, letting the guitars and tinkling electronics gives this a laid-back feel. Only the beat really hints at anything approaching immediacy, but doesn’t intrude enough to kill the vibe. Download the EP here.
Super VHS seem to be focusing on the inevitable endings hurled at one throughout life. They recently came to grips with the passing of the best season, and on new song “I’ll Still Love You” they hopelessly croon “I’ll still love you anyway.” Though it might not be the best prescription, they should probably keep probing this emotional cavern because these last few songs keep topping one another in overall quality. “I’ll Still Love You” works so well, I’m gonna give it the biggest backhanded criticism I can…song is way too short.
Whereas Super VHS have hovered around the chill border for awhile now, “I’ll Still Love You” hops to life from the get-go courtesy a jogging beat and sprinting guitar touches. The vocals remain relatively shrouded, moving so quickly they seemingly come close to tripping over themselves, only the aforementioned chorus rising above a muffle. Though that line packs a direct emotional punch, the main heart of “I’ll Still Love You” thumps via a whirring synth rising up and then back down throughout the track’s too-brief run. It captures the hopelessness of the whole titular situation just right – a machine trying to delude itself into thinking it won’t be outdated recyclables some day. The entire jaunt lasts 1:33, though I wish it could go on a whole lot longer. But then again, I think that’s the point. Listen below.
OK, this one might actually fulfill your preconceptions. Super VHS’ latest song goes by the name of “Summer Vacation,” and if that wasn’t enough they went and tagged the track as “Chillwave” on SoundCloud. Not that they needed to, track speaks for itself…the vocals get slightly obscured, a pleasantly chilly keyboard line plays during the entire thing and the whole song carries an atmosphere of bedroom-relaxing. It’s also the young group’s best number to date, an unhurried number that at moments might seem a bit too genre-stereotypical, but Super VHS pull it off well and create an absorbing feeling with some neat touches (that guitar late in the track, for one). Like its title, “Summer Vacation” is a slowly unfolding time that, down the line, carries a lot of good memories. Listen below.
UPDATE: Super VHS posted a video clip to go with “Summer Vacation” about an hour ago. Watch it below!
Yeah, I see you glaring at that band name and song title, assumptions popping up in your head like oh-so-many Whack-A-Moles. Well sorry to stop the groans early but Super VHS’ “Midnight MTV” doesn’t sound much like what one would expect a band called Super VHS with a song called “Midnight MTV” to make. It actually sounds pretty close to lo-fi indie pop, slightly muffled vocals hanging out with easy guitar stumming and some jaunty percussion. It would all just be pleasant if it weren’t for SUPER VHS’ trick of also including an at-time slightly out-of-tune-sounding guitar in the mix as well – it showers “Midnight MTV” in a rush of weirdness that makes the short track very interesting. Listen below.
Also worth taking a listen to is the group’s “Muscle Disco.” It…sounds a bit closer to what you would expect something called Super VHS to sound like, but don’t break out the genre tags yet!
Make Believe Melodies 