Every month, scrmbl highlights some of the most noteworthy releases from Japanese artists available on Bandcamp. For this installment, the column coincides with the platform’s Bandcamp Friday initiative, wherein all profits from purchase of music made over a 24-hour period go directly to the creators themselves. It’s always a good time to support musicians by buying their music directly…but today, it’s even better!
Yawning Mondo Qube — YMQEP
There comes a moment midway through Yawning Mondo Qube’s new release for nostalgia-subverting label Local Visions where the digital and IRL blur into a beautiful swirl. Up until fourth number “Pansies Ni Shomei,” the YMQEP has balanced fusion-influenced pop with digital touches, the two sides given enough space between one another where they work in tandem. Yet on “Pansies” the vocals, previously untouched, become electrified, and the whole song chirps and fizzes in a way like something is almost on the fritz, but holding together to create a catchy highlight. This is the playful exploration of well-worn sounds and modern internet touches Local Visions has long explored, and on an already strong set of songs exploring this space, the project delivers one of the best songs in its catalog. Get it here.
Hiromi — Out There
Hiromi Uehara starts her latest jazz whirlwind in a reflective mood. She opens Out There with “XYZ,” the first song on her 2003 debut album Another Mind, here revisited over 20 years later with her band Sonicwonder in tow. Yet there’s nothing saccharine about this look back, but rather Uehara offers a new perspective on the madcap energy that made her a Japanese jazz dynamo in the early 2000s…and carries on to her latest. From there, she’s incorporating touches of traditional Japanese sound on the tipsy dance of “Yes! Ramen!!” and adding a synth touch to up the ante during a multi-song suite. Get it here.
Satomimagae — Taba
The latest from singer-songwriter Satomimagae is a set of acoustic-guitar guided songs exploring the seemingly mundane, but with the artist finding the emotionally resonant in daily observations. Sometimes delivering hushed numbers and in other cases becoming more lively with elements of field recordings worked in, it’s an album finding richness in the familiar. Get it here.
Shota Hara — Umi Wo Nonda Machi
Even the digitally manipulated can carry serious melancholy within. Shota Hara’s three-song offering via KAOMOZI plays out over sparse electronic backdrops while their voice is coated in a fuzz, with moments sometimes malfunctioning like a computer rebooting. Yet despite this mood, Hara sings of longing, loss and memory, the human heart beating through clearly. Get it here.
Fetus — Fish, Fished, Fishing EP
The newest EP from rising electronic producer Fetus allows an artist already named a “producer of the year” by Mixmag to show their versatility. In just over 15 minutes, Fetus offers up breakbeat-powered club ecstasy, Baile-Funk-dappled steeliness, experimental bangers and tropical-tinged jungle rushes. The constant is, whatever direction they go, Fetus’ tracks always keep the kinetic energy high for those looking to move. Get it here.
Cycling In Marmalade — Kimi Ga Owara Seta Eien
One of the constants of Japanese music one can always count on is a heavy presence of indie-pop sweetness somewhere in the nation’s musical ecosystem. Save maybe for shoegaze, fewer sub-genres enjoy a timeless embrace quite like the jangly-and-melancholy sound. Tokyo’s Cycling In Marmalade — ahhhhhh, a perfectly twee name, bless them so! — offer a great example of how this UK-born sound carries on via third album Kimi Ga Owara Seta Eien. Built on a foundation of acoustic strums and adolescent longing, the group deliver sweet melodies accented by touches of melodica, bells and xylophones to underline the ache at its core. Get it here.
KUUNATIC — Wheels of Ömon
Psychedelic storytellers KUUNATIC have set all of its releases to date in a fantasy world of the member’s own creation. This approach allows them to give a grander feeling to the songs they make, and that carries true on the heavier and at-times near cataclysmic Wheels of Ömon, the trio’s second album. Alongside a guitar-powered surge pushing these epics forward with more energy, KUUNATIC work in a wide array of traditional Japanese instruments to both give the songs here a touch of the familiar…but also something fantastical, as they re-imagine new ways of using these tools to create unheard soundscapes. Get it here.
Arabesque Choche — haru
A set of gentle piano-anchored instrumentals built to welcome the warmer weather spring brings. The latest soul-soothing album from Arabesque Choche isn’t purely the sonic equivalents of sun beams gently coming down over a field of sunflowers. There’s a pang of sadness lurking in the piano melodies here, a reminder of time passing. It’s always nice to have a touch of emotional pain in your otherwise calming tunes. Get it here.
inaharu — inaTrance
Producer inaharu offers a very different but still quite apt way to welcome the new season in with the exactly-what-you-think inaTrance collection. It’s a blissed-out set of dancefloor release, even welding J-pop-ready vocals with the rave palette on the chipper “Prism.” Get it here.
YUKIYANAGI — Lunastris EP
You know what, let’s keep the energy up to close out this month’s edition of the column. YUKIYANAGI has been one of Japan’s most consistently strong dance producers over the last decade, capturing hardcore energy alongside a soul-affirming emotional energy radiating out of the vocals surging through tracks like “Can You Hear It Now?” The tracks here are built for the floor…or a listen at home when one needs some relief. Get it here.
