Or: a not-top-10 of the releases I’ve enjoyed most this year
Back by popular demand, here’s a rundown of the Japanese music that’s been keeping me entertained during 2018. As with last year’s list (which you can read here), I’ve chosen to focus on artists who are actually based in Japan, which is why Jim O’Rourke and Joe Talia are in there but notable releases such as Kuniko’s Reich: Drumming aren’t. I’ve included links to Bandcamp where available. There’s also a list of some non-Japanese music at the end, which I imagine you care about even less than I do, and some memorable gigs. Without further ado...
Dooomboys – Alpha & Omega
Black Mob Addict
An album that opens with a sample extolling the virtues of DMT isn’t fucking around, and Killer Bong’s duo with drummer Murochin is a potent brand of psych-hop. But it’s the involvement of producer Fumitake Tamura – to my mind, the reigning champion of Japan’s beat scene – that elevates this from good to great. After channeling Crooklyn Dub Consortium vibes on the first disc, Tamura gets free rein on the second, and creates a synaesthetic remix version that surpasses the original.
An album that opens with a sample extolling the virtues of DMT isn’t fucking around, and Killer Bong’s duo with drummer Murochin is a potent brand of psych-hop. But it’s the involvement of producer Fumitake Tamura – to my mind, the reigning champion of Japan’s beat scene – that elevates this from good to great. After channeling Crooklyn Dub Consortium vibes on the first disc, Tamura gets free rein on the second, and creates a synaesthetic remix version that surpasses the original.
Eiko Ishibashi – The Dreams My Bones Dream
Felicity
It took me a while to appreciate the majesty of this album, Ishibashi’s richest and most fully realised work to date. Inspired by her father and grandfather’s life in Manchukuo – a fact that honestly got overplayed in international media coverage – The Dreams My Bones Dream turns into a broader exploration of memory and the legacies of the past. It also sounds fantastic, with gossamer electronic collages, chugging dual-drummer rhythms and some quietly heartbreaking melodies.
It took me a while to appreciate the majesty of this album, Ishibashi’s richest and most fully realised work to date. Inspired by her father and grandfather’s life in Manchukuo – a fact that honestly got overplayed in international media coverage – The Dreams My Bones Dream turns into a broader exploration of memory and the legacies of the past. It also sounds fantastic, with gossamer electronic collages, chugging dual-drummer rhythms and some quietly heartbreaking melodies.
Thrill Jockey
It still pains me that I missed seeing this lot in Tokyo last year so I could interview Quruli (lovely guys, but still). The opening stretch of American Dollar Bill captures Haino at his most splenetic, and Sumac’s churning post-metal discord makes them an ideal foil, though the album also explores eerier territory in its second half. While collectors wait for the mooted reissue of Fushitsusha II, this proved Haino hasn’t lost any of his fire.
Akira Sakata/Chikamorachi/Masahiko Satoh – Proton Pump
Family Vineyard
On the subject of gigs I regret missing, this first-ever meeting between two of Japan’s free-jazz greats a few years ago ranks pretty high on the list – so hats off to Family Vineyard for giving it a proper release. Sakata still blows with the ferocity he brought to the Yamashita Trio in the 1970s, and Satoh is on equally combustible form here, spurred on by the unimpeachable rhythm section of Chikamorachi’s Darin Gray and Chris Corsano. Proton Pump? Protean, more like.
Newhere Music
O’Rourke’s first “proper” release since Simple Songs plays like the big-screen version of his ongoing Streamroom series. It’s the kind of deceptively innocuous music that reveals something new each time you go back to it (meta-ambient, anyone?). At one point fading into near-silence, Sleep Like It’s Winter is also teeming with detail, which became even clearer when O’Rourke repurposed the material for a sublime, surprisingly intense multi-channel performance at Tokyo’s Wall&Wall in November.
The Noup – Flaming Psychic Heads
Noup
The long-delayed debut album from this Okayama-based trio (whose drummer-vocalist Takafumi Okada also plays in Goat) makes a strong argument for the virtues of brevity. Though short enough to pass for an EP, its five songs cover a lot of ground, steadily ratcheting up the intensity as they build from new wave-y opener “Noup Parade” to the relentless repetition of “Monochrome Dead.” Every time I get to the end I find myself hitting play and listening to the whole damn thing again.
Cero – Poly Life Multi Soul
Kakubarhythm
After the success of “Summer Soul,” Cero could easily have turned out a whole album’s worth of gently groovy pop in the Suchmos mould. Instead, they released their most ambitious, shamelessly muso record to date. More surprising is how good it is: full of vibrant, polyrhythmic arrangements rooted in tropicalia, Afrobeat, ’70s electric jazz and contemporary beat music. After a dozen listens, I’m convinced more nominally pop music should sound like this.
After the success of “Summer Soul,” Cero could easily have turned out a whole album’s worth of gently groovy pop in the Suchmos mould. Instead, they released their most ambitious, shamelessly muso record to date. More surprising is how good it is: full of vibrant, polyrhythmic arrangements rooted in tropicalia, Afrobeat, ’70s electric jazz and contemporary beat music. After a dozen listens, I’m convinced more nominally pop music should sound like this.
Foodman – Aru Otoko No Densetsu
Sun Ark
Foodman’s first full-length since breakout album EZ Minzoku is an altogether less jarring prospect, inspired by matsuri rhythms and the producer’s newfound penchant for saunas. But a Foodman new age album is still a mighty peculiar place to be: stick this on while doing yoga and you’ll bend yourself into a tetrahedron. If there’s any trace of footwork left in his productions nowadays, it’s in the way he twists samples and then leaves them hanging in negative space. Pretty moreish, truth told.
Joe Talia – Tint
Black Truffle
This is the kind of album that music bores might insist sounds better on vinyl. Talia crafts two side-long pieces of heavy concrète, full of viscous modular synths and unplaceable, abstracted sounds. At times, it’s like listening to someone stack crockery while Eliane Radigue plays in the background, which is actually kind of great. It would be reductive to compare Tint to Talia’s regular collaborator, Jim O’Rourke, but it’s fair to say that if you like the latter’s Steamroom stuff, you’ll dig this.
AWDR/LR2
This quintet were still at uni when they released their debut back in January, and Luby Sparks captures the fleeting joys of being young enough not to know better. Sure, it’s derivative of acts who were never original to start with (not least Yuck, whose Max Bloom co-produces), but the monster guitar hooks and wistful, slightly cringey English lyrics make for an appealing mix. You’re only young once, which was underscored when vocalist Emily quit the band shortly afterwards so she could start job hunting. Ouch.
First Terrace Records
When The Quietus gurgled that “Sofheso has the makings of Japan’s own Aphex Twin,” it wasn’t quite as hyperbolical a statement as you might think. On this evidence, at least, the producer is a formidable talent. Spanning two cassettes and over two hours of music, Archive stays consistently engrossing, at times sounding like a more scuffed-up take on late-’90s IDM, at others recalling Andy Stott, and even the warped stylings of compatriot Foodman.
Evening Chants
I was tempted to leave this out after it got featured in one of Pitchfork’s year-end lists, but that would just be pointlessly spiteful. Kwaidan is a wonderful album that – for want of a better reference point – reminds me of some of Susumu Yokota’s ambient work. It’s also a rare example of a Japanese producer drawing on traditional culture and not creating something depressingly formulaic. Out with the pad synths, in with the warped field recordings, eh?
7FO – Ryu no Nukegara
EM Records
Pretty much everything EM Records has put out this year has been great – Synth Sisters’ Euphoria, Takao’s Stealth, the Japanese folklore releases curated by Riyo Mountains – but this is the one I’ve come back to the most. Constructed from pentatonic synth melodies, steel pan and burbling percussion, 7FO’s cosmic dub marks him out as the heir to Yann Tomita. On the glorious 19-minute title track, Ryu no Nukegara finally achieves lift-off and drifts, dreaming, into infinite space.
AWDR/LR2
It was hard to imagine noise-hardcore supremos Struggle For Pride topping the sonic fuck-you of 2006’s You Bark We Bite, but We Struggle... did it in the most unexpected way. More mixtape than album, it features a few tracks that distill the ferocity of the band’s live shows, alongside hip-hop instrumentals and implausible collaborations, as when Rui Sugimura and Ohayo Mountain Band pop up for a rocksteady cover of “Nothing Takes the Place of You.”
White Paddy Mountain
While most of us spend our daily commutes playing Puzzle & Dragons or swiping mindlessly through Instagram, H. Takahashi is apparently crafting weightless new age meditations on his iPhone. The architect and sound designer taps directly into the spirit of Japan’s ’80s ambient pioneers, and the simplicity of the music on Low Power is essential to its charm. I’d normally be predisposed to hate something quite this dainty and diaphanous, but... ach, it’s irresistible.
With 2016 album Psionics only ever getting released as a dubplate, this was Goth-Trad’s first widely available full-length since 2012’s New Epoch, and it’s a very different beast. Working with vocalist Diesuck and noise artist Masayuki Imanishi, Eartaker fulfils the promise of the producer’s hook-ups with Boris, unleashing his subsonic arsenal on music that’s closer to black metal than dubstep. This hellish miasma would make a perfect soundtrack for a mud party in Mordor. Or 2019, I imagine.
...and 20 other non-Japanese releases, new and archival, that I’ve liked
Eric Chenaux – Slowly Paradise (Constellation Records)
JPEGMAFIA – Veteran (Deathbomb Arc)
Setabuhan – Tabuh Langit Tanduk Jawara (Yes No Wave Music)
Tim Hecker – Konoyo (Kranky)
Massimo Toniutti – Il Museo Selvatico (Black Truffle)
Lea Bertucci – Metal Aether (NNA Tapes)
Sons of Kemet – Your Queen Is a Reptile (Impulse! Records)
JPEGMAFIA – Veteran (Deathbomb Arc)
Setabuhan – Tabuh Langit Tanduk Jawara (Yes No Wave Music)
Tim Hecker – Konoyo (Kranky)
Massimo Toniutti – Il Museo Selvatico (Black Truffle)
Lea Bertucci – Metal Aether (NNA Tapes)
Sons of Kemet – Your Queen Is a Reptile (Impulse! Records)
Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar – Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani/Raga Yaman (Ideologic Organ)
Sleep – The Sciences (Third Man Records)
Sleep – The Sciences (Third Man Records)
Aïsha Devi – DNA Feelings (Houndstooth)
P. Adrix – Álbum Desconhecido (Príncipe)
Gabor Lazar – Unfold (The Death of Rave)
Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton – Music and Poetry of the Kesh (Freedom to Spend)
Gazelle Twin – Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray)
Gazelle Twin – Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray)
Miss Red – K.O. (Pressure)
Mkwaju Ensemble – KI-Motion (Nippon Columbia)
Shygirl – Cruel Practice (NUXXE)
The Necks – Body (Northern Spy Records)
Various – Two Niles to Sing a Melody: The Violins & Synths of Sudan (Ostinato Records)
Roland Kayn – A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound (Frozen Reeds)*
* OK, this came out in late 2017, but it’s going to take me at least another year to digest it all
Great gigs (in chronological order)
Sleep at Liquidroom; DYGL at Basement Bar; Colin Stetson at SuperDeluxe; Koshiro Hino’s Geist at Black Chamber, Osaka; Alvin Lucier & Ever Present Orchestra at SuperDeluxe; Green Milk from the Planet Orange at Motion; Keiji Haino duetting with Heather Leigh at SuperDeluxe; Struggle for Pride at Earthdom; Mark Giuliana Jazz Quartet at Cotton Club; Black Opera at Goethe Institut; Shirley Collins (and Morris dancer) at Supersonic Festival, Birmingham, UK; Phew at Rural; Caterina Barbieri at Rural; Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals at Fuji Rock; Rebel One Excalibur at Bush Bash; absolutely nothing at Sonicmania; Isao Suzuki at Sumida Street Jazz Festival; Peter Evans/Ko Ishikawa/Kohsetsu Imanishi at Jazz Art Sengawa; Saicobab at Jazz Art Sengawa; Keith Fullerton Whitman at Labyrinth; Drew McDowall at Labyrinth; Eiko Ishibashi at Unit; Tim Hecker & Konoyo Ensemble at WWW X; Kenta Maeno at Asagiri Jam; William Parker at SuperDeluxe; Errorsmith at WWW X; This is Not This Heat at Unit; Tetsuo Furudate’s Karkowski tribute at Soup; Colleen at Mutek.JP; Jim O’Rourke doing Sleep Like It’s Winter (kind of) at Wall&Wall; Matana Roberts at SuperDeluxe; Keiji Haino/Jim O’Rourke/Oren Ambarchi at SuperDeluxe; Antibodies Collective and various other acts at Mazeum, Kyoto. Thanks to everyone involved.
Mkwaju Ensemble – KI-Motion (Nippon Columbia)
Shygirl – Cruel Practice (NUXXE)
The Necks – Body (Northern Spy Records)
Various – Two Niles to Sing a Melody: The Violins & Synths of Sudan (Ostinato Records)
Roland Kayn – A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound (Frozen Reeds)*
* OK, this came out in late 2017, but it’s going to take me at least another year to digest it all
Great gigs (in chronological order)
Sleep at Liquidroom; DYGL at Basement Bar; Colin Stetson at SuperDeluxe; Koshiro Hino’s Geist at Black Chamber, Osaka; Alvin Lucier & Ever Present Orchestra at SuperDeluxe; Green Milk from the Planet Orange at Motion; Keiji Haino duetting with Heather Leigh at SuperDeluxe; Struggle for Pride at Earthdom; Mark Giuliana Jazz Quartet at Cotton Club; Black Opera at Goethe Institut; Shirley Collins (and Morris dancer) at Supersonic Festival, Birmingham, UK; Phew at Rural; Caterina Barbieri at Rural; Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals at Fuji Rock; Rebel One Excalibur at Bush Bash; absolutely nothing at Sonicmania; Isao Suzuki at Sumida Street Jazz Festival; Peter Evans/Ko Ishikawa/Kohsetsu Imanishi at Jazz Art Sengawa; Saicobab at Jazz Art Sengawa; Keith Fullerton Whitman at Labyrinth; Drew McDowall at Labyrinth; Eiko Ishibashi at Unit; Tim Hecker & Konoyo Ensemble at WWW X; Kenta Maeno at Asagiri Jam; William Parker at SuperDeluxe; Errorsmith at WWW X; This is Not This Heat at Unit; Tetsuo Furudate’s Karkowski tribute at Soup; Colleen at Mutek.JP; Jim O’Rourke doing Sleep Like It’s Winter (kind of) at Wall&Wall; Matana Roberts at SuperDeluxe; Keiji Haino/Jim O’Rourke/Oren Ambarchi at SuperDeluxe; Antibodies Collective and various other acts at Mazeum, Kyoto. Thanks to everyone involved.
