It’s that time of the year.

And by that I mean, we have yet again made it to the ‘last’ official Monthly Recommendation Roundup for the year! Of course, as any self-respecting Roundup follower would know (JK XD /I’m sure all you guys are anyway), we forego having a December Roundup to instead have the annual Roundup Awards. I’ll talk more about it later at the end, but even before all that  if in case this is your first time here and you actually have zero clue about anything I just said (lol), just as a quick primer ー

Basically I put together a post featuring Japanese music that I’ve listened to and subsequently recommend to you guys at the end of every month. Keep in mind that these songs don’t all have to have been released within that timeframe, as they might also be just songs that I only just discovered myself, or songs that I just want to feature and recommend on a whim (XD)

The songs that I’ll end up featuring will all come from YouTube links of their respective PVs so there is a fair bit of restriction on what I’ll be able to put on here, but I find that keeping it all to one platform ensures the most universality (with remedies easily available in the case of region restrictions). This also allows me to put together a playlist for every song that gets put on the Roundup that I’ll update and share at the end of each post.

We do have this month’s Roundup to concern ourselves with first and foremost so let’s go ahead and do just that. More on the other stuff later.

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doll
by Chilli Beans.
The Beans will not go quietly into the night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoCWqwCXjA

Chilli Beans. absolutely killed it last year when they dropped their self-titled debut album (which earned our Roundup Favorite Album Of [The Year] award) and they’re looking to close out this year too with a bang with the release of their second full album Welcome to My Castle set to come out in two weeks at the time of writing. doll is a sneak peek of what’s to come in that regard and from the sounds of it I feel like fans of the band prior would be pleased to find out that despite the mainstream success of Raise, Chilli Beans. are still doing a lot of the things that worked so well with their previous album exclusives; the deep, droning bass lines; the funky hooks; and of course, the band’s signature melodic gang vocals. They’re fresh off the heels of a massively successful anime tie-up and are now on track to deliver yet another banger album.

kioku
by ao
This has got to be one of the most beautifully shot PVs I’ve seen this year

It took over a year for the drama tie-up that I foresaw for the still very promising ao to come to fruition all the way back in October of last year and I do still contend that she’s going to be one of Japanese music’s bright and shining stars one day. While I honestly feel like we get closer and closer to that reality with each new song of hers, kioku is by far one of the biggest leaps in progress she has made ever since she first broke into mainstream consciousness. A critique I’ve had with how ao’s singing career has been handled so far is that I genuinely think that people (mainly her producer) were over-producing her songs to the point that the track drowns out the true essence of her artistry which is of course her voice. The truth is you don’t need to do much to make her sound good because… she already does, and what we got here is proof of that.

LOA
by Furui Riho
I’ve been TELLING you guys since the get

In as much as Furui Riho’s music has been all sorts of fun, in particular her penchant for club-y Hip Hop-y tracks, something I’ve always made sure to bring attention to whenever I talk about her songs is that she can actually sing. In the past I mentioned that one of her greatest strengths (in my opinion) that I perceived was her ability to switch to singing melodically on a dime, and whenever she does, those are the times when you can tell how well she carries a note. Instead of only having it in spots here and there, LOA is a complete showcase of her vocal prowess. As a video commenter succinctly put, Furui Riho does her best work with more Soulful, Gospel-like tracks, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s been fascinating seeing her come into her own, though more importantly, I love that she looks like she’s been enjoying the process also.

MAD
by Foi
Quickly becoming a Roundup favorite

I’ve really come to like Foi a whole lot this past year alone. I find it a bit funny because I though I was gonna end up following a different PLUSONICA product when I first started trying to see which one among them would go on to make a name for themselves given the program’s track record for producing some of today’s most promising singers; chief among them of course being the likes of nishina and Ikuta Lilas of YOASOBI fame. She sort of just naturally made herself a part of my regular listening with how often she kept showing up in my recommendations and my auto-generated Spotify playlists. I’m fully onboard now as a result, and it’s been a blast seeing her run of collaborations this past year. MAD here in particular comes alongside one Gimgigam and bassist Takuma Takagi, the latter’s handiwork being much appreciated here.

CHEAT LIFE feat. punchnello (prod. by GRAY)
by eill
Heartwarming seeing so many comments from Korean fans

It’s easy to forget nowadays how much of eill’s artistry is rooted in multicultural influences when she’s just been killing it (relatively speaking) in the J-Pop scene. Yet another PLUSONICA graduate (just throwing that out there, lol, this group I swear….), a lot of her earlier work clearly takes inspiration from K-Pop, and given her apparent deep appreciation for both the music and the culture as a whole, she’s seemingly fluent in the language if not at the very least fairly comfortable singing it dating back to when she first started putting out her own music. Seeing it come full circle, now with her releasing a song that’s primarily in Hangul in CHEAT LIFE here, is low key pretty awesome given that context. Not only that, but she even has Korean rapper punchnello and producer GRAY on the track too so you know she got that respect.

秘密/himitsu
by V.W.P (virtual witch phenomenon)
It’s a shame this group is associated with a more infamous acronym

To this day I’m not really sure what to make of V.W.P and KAMITSUBAKI STUDIO as a whole with regard to their NFT-centered business model (and you know how I feel about digital assets in Japanese music). I mean, I get that it’s fitting for the sort of digital universe they’re creating, and maybe the way the Japanese handle NFTs would be more tasteful and carefully handled compared to how it is in other parts of the world. I dunno. I try to not think about it but the subject does rear its head every so often as I continue to follow the group. It’s a shame, because otherwise the music they come out with is just so darn good! (lol) I’m only half-joking though as KAMITSUBAKI’s marriage of Electronic Rock and Hip-Hop is right up my alley, and coupled with some really talented singers under their wing, tracks like Himitsu here are just hard to not like.

箱庭/hakoniwa
by Albemuth
Gotta love how their voices play off with one another

KAMITSUBAKI STUDIO’s sister banner SINSEKAI STUDIO appear to be perfectly content having the duo of ASU and ARU be the label’s standard-bearer. Dubbed as ‘Albemuth’, the two in turn seem up to the task after having worked as a unit for a little over a year now. Though not as experienced as their KAMITSUBAKI counterparts, both ASU and ARU already had a pretty good grasp of their artistic identity even before they got brought together to form Albemuth, and as a result their respective individuality shines all the more whenever they sing together as you’ll hear here in Hakoniwa. In particular, I really like the contrast of their tonalities relative to the imagery of water being used in the PV; with ASU’s bright vocals akin to light reflected on the water’s surface; and ARU’s surprisingly darker tones representing the water’s depths.

化石/kaseki
by 日向文 (hinat(a)ya)
Long overdue Roundup debut

Hinat(a)ya is yet another artist that I came across during my Spotify travels. Specifically, her EP SWALLOW from last year made its way into my recommendations one fateful day and after giving it a spin I’ve since been pleasantly surprised. More than anything, I was shocked to find out just how long Hinat(a)ya has been doing the darn thing, with her profile dating the start of her activities as a singer-songwriter all the way back in 2011 when she was only 17 years old. Her first official release would come in 2013, and since then she has consistently put out singles, EPs, mini-albums, and even some full albums almost every year. It’s insane, almost criminal, how you don’t hear much about her despite that. So here I am now telling you guys about her and how you should listen to her music, starting with Kaseki here. Also this PV goes inexplicably hard (lol)

しょうがない/shouganai
by 7co (nanaco)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

7co showed up on my radar more or less in the same sort of manner as Hinat(a)ya did, though instead of an album recommendation, it was through one of their songs making it’s way on to my Spotify Chill Mix (which, as I’ve mentioned, I’m a regular follower of). They would quickly become a staple artist in that auto-generated playlist the more I started listening to their otherwise relatively small discography. The more I listened to them the more I got curious about their background and that’s when I found out that “7co” is the collaborative venture of producer RYUJA and artist Ashida Nanako. With the former laying down smooth R&B tracks and the latter’s lush and captivating vocal work, the two make for a promising pairing. Shouganai will be their 11th overall single so fingers-crossed we might get an EP from them next time.

Dear,my friends
by muque
Those guitar loops are so fire

In the rare instance (Jk) that I’m actually not listening to Japanese music, one of the things that I like listening to are beat makers producing a track piecemeal. I find that hearing how a producer builds a song from the ground up using preexisting loops and just tweaking them to fit what they’re going for, in turn gives me a better appreciation for the many individual sounds that a particular mix has. One of my favorites utilized are guitar loops, specifically those melodic Midwest Emo-y ones, just ’cause I really vibe to it. Now, I wasn’t sure at first how exactly muque ended up having those same kind of guitar loops here in Dear,my friends despite being a band primarily. The answer became quickly apparent when I looked into the band’s members and found out that their drummer actually sidelines as a beat maker. Funny how that works (XD)

MUST LISTEN:
“doll” by Chilli Beans. and “Dear,my friends” by muque
What can I say man, the mainstream curse hasn’t gotten to them just yet despite a massively successful tie-up with of the biggest anime franchises at present in One Piece, and the Beans are still dishing out the goods. I’m poking fun of course, but if doll is anything to go by,  I really do appreciate how ‘Chilibi’ are still sticking with what got them to the dance with their upcoming sophomore album. muque dropped their Design EP, which is their first release after being signed under the A.S.A.B record label (give it a listen here!). As some of you might recall, A.S.A.B is the home of many Roundup favorites, including the aforementioned Chilli Beans, Sato Chiaki, and Atarayo to name a few. Suffice for it to say, muque is in good company, and a welcome addition to the Roundup’s rotation as well. Looking forward to hear more from them.

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The YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music playlists have all been updated with this month’s, and now effectively all of this year‘s featured tracks! (more on this in a bit :D)

What are your guys’ thoughts on the last Roundup for the year? Lemme know your thoughts down in the comments! Likewise, if you have any recommendations of your own for this month, as always please feel free to send them over my way by dropping me a link down below as well 🙂

We had Week 23 and Week 24 of the Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft this month. If you’ve been keeping up with the Draft picks, you would know that the current standing is 94 out of a 100. It’s literally coming down to the last two weeks, as fitting as that sounds. Stay tuned till the end to see who’s going to take it all home; yours truly or everyone’s favorite music streaming service!

The J-Music Exchange/Rate is back again in your screens this November and, in preparation for the holidays, Al and I decided to imbibe a bit of that Christmas spirit in this month’s set of album reviews. In particular, we went ahead and drew up a Christmas/Secret Santa Wish List of descriptions for an album that we want to be given as a present (XD). Based on what he wanted, I gave al Maison book girl’s yume to for review (which you can catch over at Omunibasu.Substack.com). On my end, I received Sayonara Ponytail’s Yumemiru Wakusei as my present, my review of which you can check out here if you haven’t yet done so.

As is now tradition for us here over at the Exchange/Rate, Al and I will be reviewing each other’s Japanese Music Album Of The Year! If you’ve been following the Roundups this year you might already have a good idea as to what mine ended up being so do look forward to that 😉

Last but not the least, speaking of both tradition and the Roundup, as some of you might already know, in place of a December Roundup we instead hold the annual Roundup Awards to serve as my year end post for the blog. If you haven’t seen any of the ones I’ve done in previous years, think of it as just one big celebration of Japanese music. I give out awards (100% purely for fun), ranging from ‘Best PV’ to ‘My Favorite Discovery Of [The Year]‘ as I reflect on the 110 songs that I had the pleasure of sharing with you guys over the course of this year’s Monthly Roundups. I cordially invite everyone (especially you reading this now) to attend. It’s sure to be a blast and I hope to see y’all there 😀

Next month is gonna be packed to the brim (XD) but until then, I hope you guys had a wonderful past couple of weeks. Stay safe, and as always ー

Happy Listening!