Notable new Japanese releases and reissues
By far the most time-consuming thing I wrote this year was a guide for Psyche about listening to music in the age of abundance. It’s a subject that I think about constantly, and I’m still not sure if I have the answers (who does?). Looking through other people’s AOTY lists, I’m amazed not just by how much music the serious heads are managing to listen to, but that they manage to remember it clearly enough to compile a proper ranking. Patrick St. Michel’s exhaustive list for Make Believe Melodies runs to 100 releases, while Ryo Miyaichi has posted a bunch of 2023 round-ups on This Side of Japan, including a great rundown of his 60 best albums that are available on Bandcamp. I was planning to do something similar myself, but it would’ve meant relistening to a bunch of stuff from earlier in the year, and I honestly haven’t found the time. Instead, here’s a bumper wrap of some new releases and reissues from 2023 that I haven’t already written about on here.
Friday Night Plans
Visitors
(Self-released)
Hard to believe that it’s only been a few years since Friday Night Plans was doing Mariya Takeuchi covers and drawing approving comparisons to Hikaru Utada. That was before she discovered Pan Sonic and started working with producer Ena, who’s helped her go deep into the shadow realm. These aren’t so much songs as residues: R&B deconstructed to the point where there’s more noise than signal. Even the dull throbs of rhythm heard on 2021’s Embers have gone, leaving just sparse guitar and heat-warped keyboards to guide the way. I might compare it to Tirzah remixed by William Basinski, but I don’t think that does justice to the music’s singular mood. Available here.
Goat
Joy in Fear
(NAKID)
The two albums that Koshiro Hino’s Goat put out in the mid-2010s were a logical endpoint for a strain of austere rock reductionism that was prevalent at the time (see also: Nisennenmondai, Dawn of Midi, My Disco, etc.). Personnel changes meant that the group’s belated third album was always going to be a different prospect; even Hino would probably admit that original drummer Tetsushi Nishikawa was irreplaceable. Takafumi Okada (of Manisdron/The Noup) proves a worthy successor, but the most notable addition is former Kodo member Rai Tateishi, whose flutes and percussion give a ritualistic feel to tracks like ‘Cold Heat.’ Anyone hoping for more technoid rhythmic workouts won’t be disappointed, though: ‘Modal Flower’ and ‘Spray’ are dizzying exercises in polymeter, delivered with typically airtight precision. Available via Boomkat.
Pan
Color Smells Sweet
(Self-released)
It takes skill to sound this sloppy. Pan are led by Naoki Otani, sometime trumpeter for Maher Shalal Hash Baz, and the other members are mostly veterans of that band and/or Yumbo, which should give some indication of the shambling outsider racket this lot create. Comprising a mix of live and studio recordings, Color Smells Sweet has a spirited amateurishness that’s pretty darn appealing. There are songs here, but they’re constantly tripping over their own feet, Otani’s barely-tuneful voice rising over a ponderous rhythm section and guitars that squirm like a sack full of kittens. The primitivist stomp of ‘Utagatte munakuso warui’ is a highlight, while the 11-minute dirge ‘Houkou wa’ might come in handy for bar owners trying to clear everyone out at closing time.
Yuko Araki
IV
(Room40)
You can often catch Yuko Araki at some of Tokyo’s heaviest noise gigs, whether on stage or in the audience, so she knows what she’s talking about when she describes her latest as “noise music that is free from unnecessary noise.” In practice, that translates into something closer to industrial electro, though without the maximalist production tricks this would usually entail. Forget rusted metal: everything here is well-oiled and precisely calibrated. On a couple of tracks, Araki chops her vocals into gibberish syllables, making herself sound like glitching Vocaloid. She saves the fireworks for the final track, featuring Endon’s Taichi Nagura, which could have gone on for about 10 minutes longer and still held my attention.
Umeko Ando
Upopo Sanke
(Pingipung)
A very welcome follow-up to the reissue of Umeko Ando’s Ihunke. Recorded “at a farm somewhere else in Tokachi, Hokkaido” in summer 2003, just a year before the veteran Ainu singer’s death, it’s a looser affair, performed with a larger group of musicians. Whereas some of the songs on Ihunke had a haunting starkness, this is all rather jolly. The most notable inclusion is Masahiko Todoriki, an accomplished khoomei singer, who also plays the Tuvan doshpuluur and igil, joining the dots between the Ainu and their indigenous counterparts in Siberia.
Kairai-Bunch
Industrealism
(VLZ PRODUKT)
Kairai-Bunch, the solo project of former Chu Ishikawa collaborator Ikuo Shimizu, makes a very literal kind of industrial music using an array of self-built instruments. I haven’t had a chance to see him in action, but just from the pictures it looks pretty wild, like Maywa Denki if they were actually out to kill you. It’s probably worth springing for the CD edition of Industrealism, which comes with a photobook detailing all the contraptions used in its creation, but even without the visuals it’s a bracing listen. Rigging his devices up to a MIDI controller allows Shimizu to use them with a precision that was absent from earlier generations of industrial music – it’s the sound of an automated factory going beserk, or the band that Z-Machines wish they could have been.
Toiret Status
He
(Orange Milk Records)
I hadn’t expected to get two full-lengths from Toiret Status this year, or that the second would be practically a pop album. That’s not to say that wolmhore (released in July) was a difficult listen, but the tracks on He are a bit easier to wrap your head around on first exposure, with chipmunk vocal hooks and discernible grooves. It can sound at times like Foodman’s Yasuragi Land with a bigger special effects budget and the saturation cranked way up, while the spirit of Rustie wafts through closing track ‘#149.5’, a bona fide banger featuring CVN.
Carl Stone
Electronic Music from 1972 – 2022
(Unseen Worlds)
I’ve spent hours – maybe days – getting lost in this expansive compilation. Complementing the two previous volumes released on Unseen Worlds, it’s described as “an archive of archiving” rather than a comprehensive survey, presenting a series of discreet chapters from Stone’s 50-year career. These are neatly divided between six sides of vinyl in the LP edition, which is probably the best way to enjoy this (rather than in a single sitting, which is what I did the first time I heard it). Starting with a pair of tape compositions from when Stone was still a teenager, it leaps forward to his mid-80s work with Macintosh and sampler then on to some early uses of MAX/MSP, before finishing more-or-less in the present. Technologies may change, but Stone’s curiosity and talent for transmuting sound remain a constant. Time seems to slow down, liquify and run backwards and forwards at the same time. Listened to blind, I might have mistaken 1987’s Beach Boys-hijacking ‘Vim’ for something by The Books. On 2007’s ‘L’Os à Moelle,’ a 60s garage-rock sample putrefies for 23 minutes while the vapours curl into different melodic shapes. Pure wonder.
BBBBBBB
POSITIVE VIOLENCE
(Deathbomb Arc)
I don’t know which was the most revealing tidbit in Patrick St. Michel’s interview with BBBBBBB for The Japan Times: that the group’s Ryuseigun Saionji previously tried to pursue a career as a comedian, or that he cites Independence Day as a formative influence. POSITIVE VIOLENCE (the caps are definitely justified) is noxious, hilarious and highly likely to piss off your neighbours. The group’s music – most of which is apparently produced on the GarageBand app – is an ear-scouring blast of distortion, gabba beats, screamed vocals and the occasional classic rock sample, like a soundclash between Pop Tatari-era Boredoms and Atari Teenage Riot refracted through the anything-goes sensibility of today’s club underground.
NHK
What You Know
(Diagonal Records)
Kohei Matsunaga cleared out the contents of his hard drive for his recent Climb Downhill albums on Hypercolour and Bruk, both of which offer stacks of acid fun though are hardly essential. This one for Diagonal is rather more distinctive: promising “pure optimism only,” it finds Matsunaga using his synths to euphoric ends, creating prismatic structures that fizz with energy even when he isn’t pairing them to (relatively) understated breakbeats. Think a twitchier Caterina Barbieri and you won’t be far off.
Salsa
Angle
(Aquatic)
Gotta love bands who name themselves after a totally unrelated genre, though perhaps Salsa were thinking of the sauce rather than the dance style. The three-piece describe themselves as “the latest in aufbehen rock’n’roll,” and do a melodic take on the kind of unfashionable herky-jerk post-punk I’d associate with scene veterans such as Bossston Cruizing Mania or Worst Taste. Opener ‘Surfer’ sounds like Shintaro Sakamoto fronting Triplefire (a reference that will make sense to approximately three people reading this, but never mind), and sets an arch tone that the band maintain across the rest of the album. Aside from the obligatory boring midpoint slow track, it’s pretty fun. Also available here.
The Act We Act
Flicker
(Kyusu Records)
If Salsa aren’t quite spicy enough for your tastes, I’d suggest giving this Nagoya combo a whirl. The Act We Act first caught my ears over a decade ago, with a more chaotic hardcore sound that was distinguished by the incongruous presence of a soprano sax player. On their first album in eight years, the sax is gone and they’ve learned how to have more fun with the studio (notably in the dubbed-out sound collages of ‘Gait’) without getting too fancy about it. Flicker doesn’t skimp on stiff-limbed rhythms and ranting vocals – ‘Belt Conveyor’ and ‘Slow Death’ deliver short bursts of the old magic/mayhem, while the longer ‘Coming Out’ packs a few songs’ worth of hooks into its five-minute running time.
Hiroshi Yoshimura
Surround
(Temporal Drift)
Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green was one of the albums that got me through the early days of the pandemic, but for some reason I never made it as far as his widely acknowledged masterpiece. Surround is the Platonic ideal of kankyō ongaku: it was commissioned to provide an unobtrusive soundtrack for prefab houses, and perfumes the air with the most delicate of touches. Just listen to sublime opener ‘Time after time’ – 11 minutes of marimba, reverb and synthesisers so light they’re practically transparent – and see how it shifts your mood. I don’t have much to say about this that Joshua Minsoo Kim didn’t say far better in his Pitchfork review, which notes that attentive listening was at the core of Yoshimura’s work – something that many of today’s ambient practitioners might take to heart.
Texas 3000
tx3k
(Self-released)
There are plenty of bands in Japan who reference the sounds of 90s US indie-rock and emo, but few are doing it quite as convincingly as Texas 3000. That probably has a lot to do with the group’s frontman, California native Jojo Dulay Brandel, who effortlessly channels the spirit of early Sub Pop and Polyvinyl. I don’t have the right reference points for an album like this, and I’m probably way off base when I say I can hear traces of Archers of Loaf, Superchunk and early Quruli. The album’s second half loses me a bit, but the opening clutch of songs (especially ‘Connector Fuck Man’ and ‘Bones For Doug’) pack a real punch. Nerd note: Looking at the credits, they must have been one of the last bands to cut tracks at Kichijoji’s Gok Sound before the famed analogue recording studio closed in November 2022. Also available here.
Yaryu
Bongaku
(Zouen Keikaku)
I really wasn’t expecting to like this, though the fact that it’s released on Taika’s Zouen Keikaku label should have primed me to expect something more than your average ambient draff. Yaryu’s website describes them as a “session community” with a fluid lineup (and, it seems, an open-door policy for anyone interested in taking part). On Bongaku, Laraaji-style autoharp features prominently in meandering improvisations that treat New Age as a realm of possibilities rather than platitudes. At various points, you can also hear rippling keyboards and early electronics-style synth squiggles like someone waving a laser pen at a starlit sky. Just psychedelic enough.
Yo
Worldwatch
(Zouen Keikaku)
Here’s another worthwhile offering from Zouen Keikaku, which provided the soundtrack while I was putting this article together. Tokyo’s Yo offers a fascinating list of influences for his debut full-length: Geinoh Yamashirogumi, the Evergrace and Garage video game soundtracks, Goth-Trad, 54-71. The first thing that came to mind for me was early Forest Swords: Worldwatch has that same feel of dub(step) that’s fallen apart and been stuck together again with sellotape and bits of chewing gum. All wobble bass and jittery percussion, ‘Old Mutant’ could pass for a long-lost Skull Disco release.
NTsKi
Calla
(EM Records)
This is an interesting change of direction for NTsKi, whose debut album was a little too beholden to its 80s synth pop influences. She’s still on an obvious Hosono tip here, but finds some agreeably peculiar combinations of plastic and organic in her productions. At least some of the tracks sound like they’re being played by live musicians, but defamiliarised in a way that makes me think of the last two Low albums as much as anything from the Yen Records stable. ‘Michi’, which rides a nauseous rhythm that’s constantly speeding up and slowing down, and the overdriven synths of ‘Calla Lily’ – the sound of a bruised bird taking flight – are standouts.
Archeus
Kusōzu : Nine Death Stages
(An'archives)
Strong stuff from this trio of vocalist Keiko Higuchi, bassist Shizuo Uchida and hurdy gurdy virtuoso Tomo, likely to appeal to fans of Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ label. More tightly focused than their 2021 debut, these intensely focused improvisations mostly clock in at under four minutes, and range from brooding (‘chō sō’) to nightmarish (‘shō o sō’) before concluding on an almost blissful note. The title comes from a form of Buddhist depicting the stages of decomposition to convey the idea of impermanence, which feels very appropriate for this time of year.
Jigen
IRKTSK NO GONG CRIMSON
(Self-released)
Fans of last year’s Jigen reissues may not know that their creator, Taro Nijikama, has a huge stash of music on Bandcamp. The caveat is that he only offers a minute-long snippet of each for potential buyers, meaning it’s a bit of a lucky dip. Whereas the Jigen albums were jungle by way of musique concrète, this is more akin to a late-night pirate radio broadcast, where the only listeners are people waiting for their drugs to wear off. The atmosphere is so thick you could chew it, and when rhythms do emerge, they’re slurred and punch-drunk.
Foodman
Uchigawa Tankentai
(Hyperdub)
When Foodman performed with Ramza at Mutek Japan earlier this month, visual artist Kezzardrix cooked up a deliciously weird accompaniment informed by sauna culture, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels and – I suspect – lots of psychedelics. That’s the vibe I’m getting from this pithy EP, an “inner journey” which feels like a return to the uncanniness of his work circa Ez Minzoku. The secret weapon here is Takahide Higuchi’s vocals, delivered in a quavering old-man voice that’s mildly irritating on first listen, but surprisingly addictive. “I want to eat delicious potatoes,” indeed! Also available here.
Shizka Ueda
A Small Sun
(Accretions)
There’s been some interesting cross-fertilisation lately between Japan’s indie rock and free improv scenes, though artists from the former camp tend to rein in their experimental impulses when they hit the studio. Not so Shizka Ueda, a Tochigi-based songwriter and professional clinical psychologist, who decamped to the States to record her debut with some accomplished weirdos. Some of the songs (‘Hidamari’, ‘Yudachi’) have the poise of Lætitia Sadler, while others (such as ‘Cucumbers’ Theme’) are closer to the folk-inflected indie of the 7 e.p. label, but they’re consistently enlivened by the oblique strategies of Ueda and her collaborators. The album is punctuated by four sprawling improvisations, in the mode of early-2000s freak folk or Sun City Girls at their shaggiest, and while these have their moments, they probably would have benefitted from some judicious editing.
MON/KU
MOMOKO blooms in 1.26D
(Self-released)
Just because you can throw everything into a DAW production doesn’t necessarily mean you should, but that doesn’t stop MON/KU from trying. The Tochigi-based producer’s debut album combines the sonic maximalism of World’s End Girlfriend with emotive cyborg R&B vocals à la James Blake or The Weeknd circa Echoes of Silence, then chucks everything into the Aya/Arca deconstructed club blender. It’s all way, way too much, with obsessively detailed sound design that seems like it’s trying to hit you in a dozen places at once (and saxophones!). 11-minute closer ‘muuu6’ is a sleek house groove that suggests MON/KU could be the heir to D.A.N. or Yahyel if he streamlined his approach, but where would be the fun in that? Also available here.
Triola
Scapegoat
(Constructive)
You may have heard Atsuko Hatano without realising it, via her work with Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O’Rourke. She and violinist Anzu Suhara are the only core members in Triola, though the group’s first full-length summons an orchestral richness. There are passages that bring to mind Michael Nyman’s string quartets, but Hatano’s arrangements defy easy categorisation, deftly blending synthesisers and sound collages, or switching suddenly into band mode (with Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and Hiroki Chiba).
Ryo Murakami
Gen
(Depth of Decay)
Like Deathprod, Ryo Murakami has strayed from his usual dark ambient pastures to embark on a deeper exploration of the timbral properties of acoustic instruments. Per the title, strings are the dominant voice here, lowing and scraping in a way that’s sometimes redolent of Charles Curtis’s work, though there are also pieces that feature (prepared?) piano, organ drone and what sounds like saxophone. It’s a stark, uneasy chamber music.
99LETTERS
Zigoku
(Phantom Limb)
The “gagaku techno” tag is misleading. Takahiro Kinoshita may use traditional Japanese instrumentation as fodder for his tracks, but his sound has more in common with Pass Me By-era Andy Stott, Actress or the waterlogged sonics of Nondi_. On this follow-up to last year’s Kaibou Zukan, he offsets the claustrophobia with chunky melodies redolent of vintage video game soundtracks (and which, if I’m honest, can outstay their welcome).
Yukihiro Takahashi
Neugier OST
(Disk Union)
One of the less celebrated aspects of the late Yukihiro Takahashi’s career was his contributions to the world of video game soundtracks. The 1993 action RPG Neugier never got a US release, which might be why it isn’t better known. It’s easy to imagine Takahashi lending his distinctive croon to the title track – which, like many of the other pieces here, is distinguished by some lively drum programming. Hat-tip to the label for choosing the most confusing way imaginable to label this on Bandcamp.
Nextman
G Strings of Life / Live at Hikari No Lounge
(Solitude Solutions)
Cassette releases are often a matter of convenience for DIY labels, but it’s absolutely the right format here. Nextman is the artist alias of Daisuke Kamiya, whose venue Hikari no Lounge in Okazaki, Aichi has become a crucial hub on the electronic underground. The ‘G side’ starts off like an Ike Yard demo tape and then gets increasingly feral, but things really kick off on the flip: an industrial-strength live set that’s like taking a bath in a vat of molten steel.
Various
Micro Ambient Music
(Micro Ambient Music)
A five-volume compilation in tribute to the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, Micro Ambient Music features a predominantly Japanese lineup and an admirably catholic admissions policy, making space for Onkyo stalwarts (Tetuzi Akiyama, Sachiko M, etc.) and field recordings (Sugai Ken, Takashi Kokubo). Diehard fans will want to get it just for Alva Noto’s immaculate ‘für ryuichi’, but the overall standard is extremely high. Ken Ikeda’s ‘Circulation’ is a personal favourite, sounding like a modular synth trying to imitate fireflies.
Akhira Sano
Shadow’s Praise
(IIKKI)
France’s IIKKI imprint releases handsome collections of music and photography that aim to be genuine collaborations between the artists involved. I’ve yet to see one of their books in the wild, but the music stands on its own merits. This is my favourite of the things they’ve put out this year (though if you want sutras and smooth ECM vibes, Akira Uchida’s Kurayami has got you covered). Shadow’s Praise is hushed, hermetic electroacoustic music, made with what sounds like sine waves, muted bells and a gossamer of white noise. It reminds me of some of the loops that came installed on the old FM3 Buddha Machine, though is also a bit like eavesdropping on a sotto voce dialogue between a gamelan and a telephone exchange.
Akira Sakata / Toshimaru Nakamura / Raiga Hayashi
Kinjo no Tabibito
(Meenna)
Akira Sakata, free jazz titan and man of many voices, keeps surprising with his choice of collaborators. Following on from his recent tussle with Ken Ikeda, this new trio pairs him with no-input mixing board maestro Toshimaru Nakamura and 24-year-old drum wunderkind Raiga Hayashi. The latter starts off with the roiling intensity of a young Takeo Moriyama – drawing some ecstatic outbursts from Sakata – but can switch in an instant to the stuttering, on-the-grid style favoured by contemporary jazz drummers. The biggest surprise, for me at least, is how well Nakamura works in this context, summoning a frenzy of blurts, whoops and whistles that are every bit as energetic as his bandmates.
Moreru
Juso Kokuhaku Hatsukoi Soshite Sekai
MUSICMINE
I’ve never really got the appeal of 100 gecs, but it’s probably because I was expecting them to sound more like, well, this. Moreru (who I was disappointed to discover are actually a band rather than just some dude with a laptop and serious attention issues) are screamo on a TikTok binge after too many cans of Strong Zero. More abrasive even than BBBBBBB’s album, this is a joyous burst of genre-trashing insolence that I’m very glad exists, and will happily never listen to again. Not sure if the use of Pachelbel’s Canon on opening track ‘Nensya’ is a hat-tip to Jun Togawa, but I’ll take it. Available here.
