We are SO back!

Of course, by that I mean the Monthly Recommendation Roundup is back again this year! 2024 now marks the seventh year of the Roundups which is absolutely insane if I think about how long I’ve actually been doing this for now. But well, you know what they say; time flies when you’re having fun, and it’s *always* a fun time listening to Japanese music whenever we do it here so I guess with that reasoning it makes total sense 😎

If, however, this is actually your first time here and you’re not quite sure what you just walked into 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 time frame, 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 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.

I put this disclaimer pretty much every start of the new year but yeah no since I don’t do Roundups come December (because I’m using that slot instead to the Roundup Awards), I usually try to make it up in January, which in turn makes it quite the pool to choose from with some songs that would’ve made it on here getting passed up just ’cause there’s so many of them. I do my best every time to hit a middle ground though so hopefully I managed to well enough here 😅

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晴る/haru
by ヨルシカ (yorushika)
They still got it

Though I guess… it’s not so much that n-buna and suis lost *it*, just that them and their team dropped the ball a bit last year with how they handled the release of their fourth studio album Gentou. I’ve already talked at length about what had transpired regarding it in previous Roundups, but we now have some data to back it up, as we now know that Gentou (at least according to album sales) is the duo’s “worst”-performing album since their debut, peaking at 16th in the Oricon charts. Granted 16th place is still a good number to be at for what its worth, but considering that Tousaku, the album right before that, topped at 2nd, it’s a significant drop off to at least warrant a discussion. I mean, there’s definitely more to it. Like, I know for a fact that Gentou is priced higher than the average CD and that it was only sold in limited quantities as a photo book edition, but I digress. That’s all in the past now. It’s a new year, and we’re starting this year of Roundups with Yorushika bringing with them a particularly interesting sound in Haru here which comes across to me as a cross of the aggressiveness of Matasaburo with the sort of off-beat style in Getsukouyoku. So far I’m noticing a more acoustic inclination in their releases as of late (which I don’t mind in the slightest) and I’m interested to see if this is going to be a trend for them moving forward.

遠吠え/touboe
by chilldspot
That’s the stuff

chilldspot is also starting out the year strong with the release of their fourth EP Madara Moyou this month. On the subject of having *it*, as a quick little reminder, we did crown chilldspot as our “Most Improved Band Of 2023” in the last Roundup Awards (which you can check out here if you haven’t yet gotten the chance to) specifically because they seemed to have found *it* in these past couple of years, which saw to them putting out what was, in opinion, their best album to date in Portrait. I described it both in the Awards as well as in the Al’s Exchange/Rate review for it as chilldspot finally “finding their groove”. I do still stand by what I said, especially now after hearing Touboe here, which still presents the same little improvements that I perceive the band had made. Again, as I had discussed in the past, a lot of it is really just timing and working out which sounds to put forward or back, and as you’ll hear; everything is hitting the right spots, and Hiyune’s vocals in particular are just perfectly situated where it’s neither overbearing or drowned out by the instruments. Excellent work.

中間地点/chuukanchiten
by 春猿火 (harusaruhi)
Still my OG fave

It took a bit of time for it to happen if I take into account my first actual exposure to this project, roughly four years ago when I first came across this cover of Inochi ni Kirawareteiru by Harusaruhi, but dating all they way back then to only just recently I can now say that I am very much a fan of all the singers involved with KAMITSUBAKI STUDIO’s main group attraction, Virtual Witch Phenomenon (or simply “V.W.P”). A lot of that was just me slowly learning to appreciate the idiosyncrasies of each members’ singing and their respective capabilities. At the very least, doing that made me actually appreciate Harusaruhi’s singing in particular, more so since I can definitely hear how much she’s worked on it the more I get to hear her music. If I’m being completely honest it was never her strong suit, as she was always primarily establishing herself as a rapper for the most part (and a darn good one at that), but over the years she has since found a style that works for her unique vocal timbre as you’ll hear in Chuukanchiten in what almost feels like Harusaruhi challenging herself in that area seeing as there’s no rap portion in the song whatsoever. And of course, she passes with flying colors.

タイトル未定/title mitei
by ちゃくら (chakura)
That switch is insaaane

The last time I got to feature Chakura, it was in the context of Japanese Girls Rock. Specifically, I was talking about, whether or not there would be a band (if any) who would be able to get to reach same heights as one if not arguably the most accomplished Japanese Girls Rock band of the modern era in SCANDAL (some might believe it to be BAND-MAID  instead which I can definitely see an argument for) and subsequently pick up where they leave off once they inevitably call it a career. I’m half-convinced that at this point in time it would have to be one of these newer multimedia franchise tie-up bands like BanG Dream!’s MyGO!!!!! or GIRLS BAND CRY’s TOGENASHI TOGEARI  with their “2.5D” audiences to even come close to the kind of notoriety in the music space as the two bands mentioned. One could even argue these 2.5D bands are already more popular than Girls Rock Bands that formed from the ground up just based on streaming numbers. Chakura to me represents a bit of hope for the latter, so when they do something so daring as this switch up in Title Mitei, I really can’t help but applaud the effort and hope that it gets people’s attention like it did mine.

“Later”
by muque
Might be this year’s chilldspot for me, we’ll see

And by that, I mean, there’s a good chance muque might just end up taking over my entire 2024. We’ll just have to wait and see thought as we’re neither here nor there yet. However, I’ll tell you this now; if the band goes and releases their first studio album this year, they would be making very a strong case for it. Suffice for it to say, I have very high hopes for muque as being a breakout act sooner rather than later, which I wholeheartedly believe they will be able to see through so long as they keep putting out absolute banger tracks like “Later” here. This was something I highlighted last year when first came across them, but I think a lot of the magic here in their sound is the product of their drummer Takachi who also acts as the band’s beatmaker; a position you don’t otherwise see filled in a more conventional band. What this allows the band to do is evident in what you hear in this song, with Takachi laying down different beats that change the entire complexion of the song on a dime where one minute you’re listening to House and all of a sudden it turns into a Funky Reggae-type vibe but not before slipping in some Drill in between. Doesn’t take much of that to make a fan out of me. Love what they’re doing here.

Sleepwalk
by なとり (natori)
I thought he wouldn’t be able to, but he did it again

I wasn’t present for the initial wave of hype that Natori’s Overdose ended up getting after it first got released to the public back in September 2022, but when I started seeing the sheer multitude of shorts and videos of people dancing to and doing covers of it that followed not long thereafter, coupled with the raw views the original video was getting (and still continuing to get to this day), it wasn’t that hard for even myself to identify it as a viral hit. How can it not be one, with its infectious hook and catchy chorus that’s perfect to do a TikTok with? Of course, while we *have* seen artists nowadays like Noa who do purposely try to write songs with the intent of it being used on social media, whether or not that was also Natori’s intention is beyond me. At the time, Overdose felt like a flash in the pan and maybe not something Natori can just recreate in short order and for a while it really did seem to be the case, with his follow up singles not being that same “earworm” as Overdose was. At least… that *was* the case up until late last year when he dropped Sleepwalk here which (in my opinion) has all the makings of a viral hit, at times feeling somewhat of spiritual successor to Overdose in terms of structure.

ストックホルムの箱/stockholm no hako;”A Box Of Stockholm”
by ブランデー戦記 (brandy senki)
Speaking of last year

A band that I didn’t get to talk about last year is Osaka-based three-piece Rock band Brandy Senki who themselves made quite a bit of noise with their debut single Musica, which now sits at a cool 4 million views on YouTube thanks in large part to their music getting featured in an episode of Nippon TV’s Buzz Rhythm music program. I didn’t know about the signal-boosting that they got at the time though, so I did find it interesting how they seemed to have amassed a bit of a cult following despite having only released one song which, to be fair does sound raw and about what you would expect from the first ever song that a barely a year-old unsigned band to be putting out. That being said, Japanese fans resonated not so much in how they sounded, but rather with the meaningful songwriting by the band, with lyrics like “classic wo wakaru you ni nattara” (“when you become able to understand classic (music)”) catching people’s attention as a clever way to refer to someone becoming an adult. In some ways Brandy Senki are still in the process of growing themselves and that’s largely evident in the slow refinement of their sound, with Stockholm no Hako here kinda giving me the vibe of like a mix of yonige and Hump Back which is not a bad look and a direction that I think the band should consider.

Our Song
by ExWHYz
I love this rendition

In this month’s pair of Exchange/Rate album reviews, Al and I talked about bands/artists/groups etc. who we believe are “underrated” and should be getting more attention. We both talk about it in our respective reviews, but the way we went about deciding how to deem if someone was underrated was through Spotify monthly listener counts, with which we decided that less than 10,000 listeners was a fair estimation. Now, I don’t those numbers off the top of my head so I went and checked my library to see who would fit the bill and, to my surprise ExWHYz was only sitting at a mere 6-7 K monthly listeners (at least at the time, that number has since gone up in the past couple of weeks). I would’ve thought it to be more personally owing to them being a WACK product, but that could also just be me overestimating the popularity of groups like BiS and Alt. Idol groups in general. That being said I do genuinely think more people should check out their music, especially those looking to expand from K-Pop; a facet of ExWHYz’s core EDM sound that doesn’t really get brought up but might be of interest to explore. Now, Our Song is *technically* a cover of an older song, though ExWHYz’s rendition of it here was made by the same producer and I do think they were able to make it their own here with how much it fits their style.

Lily
by Anna
Next Anison star in the making perhaps?

To those of you who are unaware, I have now formally begun writing on my Substack newsletter by way of the J-Music Advance Party which is a brand new series exclusive *to* Substack where I talk about EP/album releases that I plan to check out in the coming months. One such release, was singer-songwriter Anna’s debut album Alstroemeria which came out just a couple of days ago at the time of writing. I largely became curious about her music after coming across her song Hana no you ni through a Spotify recommendation and one of the things that immediately stuck to me was how well her voice carried. It’s strong, clear, and resonant; like wind chimes in a summer breeze. Add to that my personal bias towards “AcoGui” S-SWs and cover artists making the move to being an official artist (always gonna have a soft spot from me) and yeah, no, there was no way I wasn’t becoming a fan. I have, of course, since listened to the album and it does honestly deliver, with Lily here in particular being a nice showcase of what she has to offer to the greater J-Pop scene. I personally would like for her to continue exploring Anison now that she has a couple under her belt as I think her voice fits right at home there.

Escape
by miida and The Department
Yes

In recent years of me doing the Roundups, the last song has somehow taken a meaning of its own where unknowingly I’ve just been saving this spot for artists who are independently releasing their work. If I had to say, it’s the product of the “format” for the Roundup wherein the latter half of the month’s recommendations are from artists that I’ve yet to talk about, which does lead to me being proactive in finding either new artists or artists that are flying under the radar. I’ve been more salient about this once I started to notice the pattern and as it happens, miida and The Department’s new single Escape just dropped so I figured now’s the perfect time to have them on here. miida isn’t a new name around these parts, with her history as being a member of Negoto, as well as her solo career which we’ve featured in both the Roundup and in the Draft. However, her work as part of miida and The Department (avengers in sci-fi members Kohata Taro and Inami Yoshihiko) is something I only now have the opportunity to showcase to you guys. It’s not completely dissimilar from the kind of Retrowave Synth that you hear in her solo work, but as you’ll hear in Escape here it does also possess a New Wave/Techno kind of flair to it too courtesy of The Department which kind of gives the song this cool post-modern type feeling that you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.

MUST LISTEN:
“Later” by muque and Our Song by ExWHYz
I think I might just be a sucker for A.S.A.B artists (lol), but I do genuinely believe muque has the potential to be one of this year’s breakout talents. At the very least, I think they’re uniquely positioned to do so given what I see as this collective move towards more DTM-like music which the band does have in spades as you heard in “Later”. They have a leg up in that area specifically so I’m curious to see if muque will be using that to full effect this year. Speaking of unique positions, with this rendition of Our Song, ExWHYz may have opened to the doors for them to to truly be able to connect with what I think is the appropriate fanbase for them, and that’s (at least from my observation) fans of Hip-Hop and EDM. I’d actually be interested to hear more renditions of older songs of a similar nature to Our Song from them. Luckily, the group will be coming out with a V.A. album in March which features collaborations with different producers so hey, who knows, we might get another banger cover from it. I personally would love to hear ExWHYz do a rendition of tofubeats’ Suisei. I think that would be sick.

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The new 2024 playlist the Monthly Recommendation Roundup on YouTube is now live! Make sure to save it 😉 The running Spotify, and Apple Music playlists have also now been updated with this month’s featured tracks.

What are your guys’ thoughts on this month’s recommendations? Lemme know in the comments which one (or ones) was your favorite! Likewise, if you have any recommendations of your own, please by all means drop me a link to them!

It’s good to be back as I said, but we actually started out the year much earlier with the launch of the J-Music Advance Party which, as I mentioned, is my new project of sorts that I host over on my Substack where I talk about upcoming releases for the month so if you haven’t yet, sign up and register to RSVP yourselves for all upcoming parties moving forward. Registration is free, so if you wanted to know more about it, head on over there and see what it’s about 😀

We kicked off another season of the Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft this month as well, with Week 1 and Week 2 now officially in the books. I introduced some changes to the Draft that I think makes things a bit more interesting this time around so do start tuning in if you haven’t yet!

Speaking of new seasons, the J-Music Exchange/Rate is back again this year for your guys’ album review needs. This month, as I mentioned, we talked about artists who we deem to be “underrated” and feel deserve more attention than they’re currently getting. I went and gave Al ExWHYz’s debut album xYZ for him to listen to and do a review on (which you can check out here). Funnily enough Al also ended up giving me an album by an idol group in SANDAL TELEPHONE’s REFLEX. You can catch my review of it here.

Yeah… I think that’s everything (XD) With the addition of one more series it really makes it feel like I’m making one big recap now as I’m writing this final bit. We’ll see how it works out. So far I’m liking how things are lined up, but lemme know what you guys think of this whole suite of projects that we kinda have going on right now. I can only hope they’re as fun as it was making them 😀

Thanks as always for dropping by whenever you guys do, and I’ll catch y’all in the next one.

Happy Listening!