Notable Japanese releases from 2020, in brief
While COVID-19 brought Japan’s live music scene to a halt over the past few months, it seems to have accelerated the flow of new music. In addition to conventional releases, many musicians have responded to the shutdown by trying new approaches—for which Bandcamp provides a natural outlet. I’ve found that some of the music that makes the most sense to me at the moment is the stuff that feels transient and incomplete. With so much in flux right now, it doesn’t feel like the time for definitive artistic statements.
Eiko Ishibashi – Impulse of the Ribbon
Bandcamp
Eiko Ishibashi’s song-based material has tended to distract attention from her more experimental work, and this transfixing Bandcamp release shows how much we’ve been missing. It’s a single 36-minute piece, long stretches of which are anchored to a steady generator chug, with a sputtering rhythm that keeps threatening to break into the beat from an early Autechre album. Lively synthesisers nudge the mood from Terry Riley trance-out to outright psychedelic, offset by recordings of cutesy automated voices captured at a zoo in Kofu (Kittychan gets thanked in the credits). Apparently Black Truffle has an Ishibashi solo album in the works, and if this is any indication, it should be rather special.
Yosuke Tokunaga – 13 Monotonousness
AVA
Yosuke Tokunaga’s productions have a way of making the air feel thicker. On 13 Monotonousness—which is released by Belgian label AVA, but would fit comfortably on the Leaving Records roster—he drifts even further from identifiable terrain markers. While there were still skeletal rhythms on last year’s 7 Patterns, these tracks are more abstracted, held together by dub effects and a low-end throb. At a few points, it recalls the desolate spaces of early Ena, or the crumbling sonic memories of The Caretaker. Identifiable sounds occasionally pierce through the fug: voices, rainfall, railroad clatter and piano notes warped like melting shellac.
Isayahh Wuddha – Urban Brew
WotNot
Isayahh Wuddha’s profile lists him as having “roots in Taiwan and Japan,” and this album—originally released on cassette in Japan last year—was recorded in Kyoto. It’s very much in the bedroom pop tradition: one guy vibing hard—switching languages, crooning, half-rapping, and slipping into a soulful falsetto—over a rickety backing of Casio keyboard riffs, guitars and antiquated drum machines. The label name-checks Arthur Russell, Cody Chesnutt and Can, though it’s reminding me more of early Ariel Pink and the mumbled lo-fi R&B of Tokyo’s Wool & The Pants.
Ytamo – Vacant
Someone Good
Since pop experimentalists Urichipangoon went on hiatus in the early 2010s, co-founder Ytamo has been nurturing a sound world that’s as beguiling as it is startlingly intimate. Recorded while she was pregnant with her first child, Vacant is less whimsical than 2016’s Mi Wo, and suggests the way that childhood memories can seep back into our experience of the present. Opening with a spare piano solo, it gets steadily more immersive as it progresses, accruing layers of haze and background noise that slowly enfold you, in a way that reminds me of Grouper. Takako Minekawa joins in on “2 Vacant Houses,” which makes sense: she’s one of the few musicians who speaks Ytamo’s distinctive language.
Tatsuhisa Yamamoto – Mipyokopyoko / Mupyokopyoko
Bandcamp
It’s getting to the point now where improvising drummers who don’t also use electronics are probably in the minority. Over a series of recent Bandcamp releases, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto has shown that he’s no mere dabbler. Shishushushuka combines sonorous drones and Atsuko Hatano’s strings with disruptive edits, as when “Shishu” cuts out just as it seems on the verge of peak ecstasy. This one is a lot more involved, with an unpredictable, free-associating flow that recalls the best group improv. “Mipyokopyoko” combines gongs and scrambled field recordings with ethereal synths and sudden blurts of cybernetic chaos, dipping into free jazz and what could almost pass for gagaku. On the counterpart, Yamamoto melds crepuscular blooms with frog chirps and rainy season showers, to transfixing effect.
Mikado Koko – The Japanese Rimbaud
Bandcamp
Mikado Koko has spent the past few years cultivating a discography that’s utterly singular, and seems to have virtually no audience. While January’s Awa no Uta used poetry by early-20th century feminist Ito Noe, her second full-length album turns to Chuya Nakahara (1907-1937), whose work drew comparisons to a certain French literary iconoclast. Koko doesn’t so much recite the poems as inhabit them, deploying vocal mannerisms redolent of Noh theatre for maximum eldritch effect. Rather than slip into the background, the music is just as arresting: a pleasingly unrefined take on ’90s Warp electronica, full of queasy synths and unsteady rhythms.
DJ Krush – Trickster
Es.U.Es Corporation
He commands an impressive level of respect for someone who essentially peaked in 1995, but the fact that you can still hear DJ Krush’s influence in the work of contemporary productions is testament to how innovative those early releases were. While his post-2000 efforts have tended to feel over-egged, Trickster pares things back, ditching the guest artists and cinematic pretensions in favour of sparser productions that give his typically adept drum programming more space to breathe. Although the mood occasionally lifts (“Regeneration” could almost pass for Yosi Horikawa), the album sticks mostly to the shadows. I won’t call it a return to form, but reformed trip-hop fans might feel some grudging appreciation. Available here.
Daisuke Tanabe – Ten
Bandcamp
Daisuke Tanabe’s playful beatmaking isn’t particularly fashionable nowadays, which may explain why his latest album comes as a pay-what-you-want Bandcamp release. These tracks warp and glisten in a way that recalls vintage Plaid, and Tanabe knows better than to crowd the mix with superfluous elements (though he can’t resist dropping an old-school jungle break halfway through “Lyon”). Throughout, he prefers timbres that are light to the point of weightlessness, no more so than when he has a whole lotta fun with what sounds like a kid’s glockenspiel on “Hikemasen.”
Various – Subscription Double Suicide =Zero=
Some artists have struggled to adjust to shutdown life, but for others, performing at home to an online audience that may be purely hypothetical is par for the course. This compilation, put together by CVN, offers a vivid snapshot of Japan’s current crop of independent bedroom producers. During Golden Week, I watched some of the same artists perform inside a virtual environment for an online fundraiser, where the consensus highlight was an extended DJ mix of visual kei. There’s a similar disregard for fashion and genre divisions here, from the sing-song chiptune trap of Valknee + Antic’s “The Best SSS in Life (2020 Mix)” to the deconstructed matsuri music of Seaketa’s “Yoi,” to Tamanaramen’s anthemic “Angelnumber,” on which PC Music’s kawaii futurist pop comes full circle.
Ralph – Black Bandana
Self-released
It only takes 15 minutes for Ralph to confirm himself as my new favourite Japanese rapper. With a gravelly delivery that’s vaguely redolent of Flowdan, and the dexterity to shift into double time at the drop of a gun-cock sample, he cuts a formidable presence throughout this EP. Brooding opener “FACE”—one of three tracks produced by UK bass connoisseurs Double Clapperz—finds him trading bars with Zo Zhit from Dos Monos, before taking a brilliant 2-step detour on “Back Seat.” There’s an audible UK drill influence on the other tracks, but Ralph is already marking out his own territory. As he declares on advance single “Selfish”: Can’t do this in Japan? Sure, not when you keep making excuses. Available here.
Asuna + Tomoyoshi Date + Federico Durand – In The Open
dauw
Some of the most inviting music during Japan’s not-quite-lockdown has been stuff that evokes not just moods, but specific places. The fruit of a very productive day spent roaming Kanagawa, this collaboration between Asuna, Tomoyoshi Date and Argentinian sound artist Federico Durand folds together field recordings and discrete toy keyboard drones that only occasionally coalesce into anything resembling a melody. It’s both a gentle, ephemeral pleasure, and more captivating than most of the ambient music I’ve heard recently.
Toiret Status – Otohime
There’s a certain aesthetic you expect from Orange Milk: a garish gloop that dissolves all genre boundaries, and can leave you feeling like you’ve guzzled a whole bag of Haribo in one sitting. Isamu Yorichika’s first album for the label was a headrush so intense, I’d struggle to get through more than a few tracks in one sitting. This follow-up is less aggressively manic, its tracks often preferring to burble rather than blast you into submission. I’d consider that an improvement. Like compatriot (and Orange Milk alumnus) Foodman, Toiret Status is refining his art by knowing when to temper his scattershot impulses. Just because you can throw everything into the blender at once doesn’t mean you should.
Bonjintan – Dental Kafka
Trost Records
A welcome return for this combo, presumably recorded during their most recent Japan tour in 2018. I caught the group live in Tokyo then, and was initially thrown by how understated they were, at least compared to leader Akira Sakata’s work with Chikamorachi and Arashi, but it makes more sense on record. Though the title track opens with a ferocious fusillade, the spiritual jazz groove it hits later on is more representative of the album as a whole. Keyboardist Giovanni Di Domenico favours insistent riffs and McCoy Tyner-ish chord voicings, while the rhythm section—Jim O’Rourke on double bass and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (him again) on drums—isn’t afraid of repeating itself from time to time. Pretty groovy, all told.
Various – Flowers in Concrete -Side Japan-
Bandcamp
Soup has been putting out some excellent stuff on Bandcamp recently to raise money for the venue. The juiciest so far is a pair of compilations, put together by Scum and Kenny “Like Weeds” Sanderson, featuring international and Japanese noise artists. The latter is a good primer for some of the (relatively) younger names on the scene, including strong contributions from the likes of Kazumoto Endo and P.I.G.S. Blackphone666’s “deaf and dumb” balances industrial sandblaster assaults with bass throbs and wild stereo panning, while Kazuma Kubota’s “Melodie en Sous-sol” is an exercise in controlled ferocity, like a cat toying with a mouse it’s about to eat.
Moment Joon – Passport & Garcon
Grow Up Underground Records
Self-styled immigrant rapper Moment Joon (who I interviewed for The Japan Times recently) details his up-down relationship with Japan on this extraordinarily accomplished debut. Rapping almost entirely in Japanese, he slips between multiple voices as he details micro-aggressions and overt racism, love, depression, reverse culture shock, and the basic need for somewhere to call home. Though he got the Kendrick Lamar worship out of his system with 2014’s “Fight Club (Control Remix),” the album’s layered narrative and internal dialogues are coming from a similar place. Available here.
DJ Trystero – High Speed Wind
The Trilogy Tapes
Even if you thought you never needed to hear another collection of decaying techno in the Chain Reaction mould, this album from Tokyo’s DJ Trystero may manage to seduce you. It’s machine music where all the surfaces are scuffed and corroded, the rhythm hits muffled and sickly. Though “Suigai” might work in a club context, most of the tracks lend themselves more to home listening, the better to appreciate the producer’s way with timbre and uneasy ambience. And while I’d hesitate to describe what Trystero is doing here as particularly original, there are some distinctive touches, like the rhythm that scuttles over the surface of “Grand Prix,” like a Roomba trying to vacuum marbles.
Shohei Takagi Parallela Botanica – Triptych
Kakubarhythm/Sony Music
Cero have evolved into one of the most creatively audacious bands within the Japanese indie-rock firmament, but on his first album under his own name, frontman Shohei Takagi suggests that he’s still pining for the ’50s jukebox feel of early single “Daiteiden no Yoru ni.” His echo-laden guitar takes the lead in a succession of low-key tracks—created mostly with beatmaker Sauce81, bassist Akita Goldman (Soil & “Pimp” Sessions, Saicobab) and regular Cero drummer Wataru Mitsunaga—evocative of off-season beach resorts and haunted bowling alleys. The polyrhythmic “Kirie” and unobtrusively soulful “Oh Well” hew closer to Cero’s current incarnation, while nostalgic crooner “Midnight Rendez-vous” could have popped up on the last DYGL album. Available here.
Okada Takuro + duenn – Urban Planning
Newhere Music
This collection of ambient miniatures seemed throwaway the first time I heard it, but shows an attention to sonic detail that rewards repeat listens. In a reversal of their usual roles, sound designer duenn came up with the melodies, while Okada—who’s better known as a songwriter—handled production. The fact that duenn was using GarageBand may explain why the end results land close to the work of H.Takahashi, all crystalline tones and pearlescent surfaces. There’s also a clear link back to the 1980s environmental music movement, and the concise runtimes—with many tracks clocking in at under 90 seconds—are of a piece with the functional fantasias of Yasuaki Shimizu’s Music for Commercials. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the pair reportedly spent two years working on this, but sometimes keeping it simple takes the most time.
Okinawa Electric Girl Saya – Neo Saya
Bandcamp
Like Tentenko before her, Okinawa Electric Girl Saya straddles the worlds of noise and idol pop without ever quite finding a convincing middle ground between the two. Her latest album—created for an Asian tour that ended up not happening—foregrounds her pop side, though it’s a vision of pop whose reference points don’t extend much past the early ’90s. Mixing Okinawan melodies with retro synthpop, it occasionally recalls Miharu Koshi, Susumu Hirasawa and Saya’s most obvious influence, Jun Togawa. The standouts are a pair of collaborations with Uami, whose iPhone-only productions bring a future shock that’s absent from the rest of the album.
Yasha – Summations
Bandcamp
I’d honestly been feeling OK about not going to clubs for the past few months, but this EP from Tokyo-based producer Yasha has me itching to get sweaty on the floor. Whether operating at 160BPM on “LEAVE U BEHIND” or at slightly slower tempos, he combines the liquid rhythms of footwork with a scuzzy warehouse rave palette, and vocal samples that loop with a persistence Steve Reich might admire. All proceeds go to the National Bail Fund Network’s emergency response fund, though this would be worth grabbing regardless.
Eiichi Ohtaki – Happy Ending
Sony
The late Eiichi Ohtaki kept going for decades after his final solo LP, 1984’s Each Time. This posthumous “original album” (ahem) cobbles together unreleased recordings, mostly of songs that have already been heard as singles, TV drama themes and commercial jingles. It’s all comfortingly familiar, with little to suggest that Ohtaki’s songwriting developed past his ’80s milestones; the music is still rooted in Burt Bacharach, Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and the lush orchestrations of Hollywood’s golden age. The more interesting tracks include a harpsichord-led cover of Marina Watanabe’s “Dance ga Owaru mae ni” and an eery take on 2003 single “Koi Suru Futari” that strips out the rhythm section, leaving just Ohtaki’s vocal and the strings.
Wata Igarashi – WIP02
WIP
After a run of floor-focused EPs for The Bunker, Wata Igarashi has taken a more contemplative turn this year. The second release on his own WIP label was conceived during the current club shutdown, and sounds like he’s auditioning to do a morning set at Labyrinth. The first two tracks are a gentle ebb and flow of wispy synthesisers and distant wind chimes, but things get properly kosmische during the second half. “Unfold” is a Klaus Schulze-style epic of arpeggiating synths, building to an ecstatic climax around the 10-minute mark before slowly receding, while “Flow II” does trippy things with the most minimal of resources.
Mei Ehara – Ampersands
Kakubarhythm
If the lite-reggae opener doesn’t scare you off, there’s plenty to enjoy on Mei Ehara’s second album. The singer-songwriter’s clean, vibrato-less vocals hark back to 1970s pioneers like Taeko Ohnuki and Sachiko Kanenobu, and that’s not the only thing that Ampersands has in common with what used to be called “new music.” Handling production duties herself, Ehara leads a versatile session band through a set of songs that touch on bossa nova, jazz, folk, lo-fi, and the shallow waters of dub. It’s familiar territory, to be sure, but executed with real class, and a few surprises. Triplefire’s Masamichi Torii contributes some impressive fretwork, including a splendidly odd, Eric Chenaux-style solo on “Yasashiku.”
