owo what’s thi-

Hey there! What’s that? Like the new studio? 😛 I most certainly do, and before I formally begin, I would like to give my thanks to @JellyBeam_Ji for working on this. They’ve been the ones responsible for pretty much all the artwork you see here on the blog so shout outs to them 🙂

Alright, back to business. Hello and welcome. We got a new look, but this is the same ol’ Monthly Recommendation Roundup that you all know and (hopefully) love 😉 If you *don’t* know what this is however 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 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.

So many bands and artists that I follow (whom some of you might as well) ended up releasing new songs this month and as much as I would’ve loved to talk about all of them… I wouldn’t want to be keeping you guys here *that* long either. I’ve ran into this trouble a couple of times already too, especially with the new Roundup format, so I’ve been thinking of ways to circumvent that and I think I finally have the solution. More on that later.

For now though, let’s go listen to the ones that made the cut 😀

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LAZY
by a子 (a-ko)
Gotta love her quirkiness if anything else

A-ko makes it back to the Roundups in relatively quick turn around with her brand new single LAZY. In the developing story that is A-ko’s recent signing under a major record label, we do yet again get another song from her that’s just a little too far removed from what got  her to the dance so to speak. Granted, Planet already was kinda giving me that feeling already, but I mainly chalked that one up to it being potentially just a one off thing. After hearing this follow-up track however, now I’m not so sure. The main thing that both the aforementioned tracks have that (in my opinion) really differ from A-ko’s previous work is that it’s just a lot faster and brighter. At the very least, it used to be that what I personally found appealing with regard to her music had a more dream-like tempo to it with a much warmer tonality that focused more on the instrumentation primarily. For the most part it does seem like the primary focus of A-ko’s most recent offerings in that regard has since shifted towards her singing instead. It’s far from a terrible approach really, and if anything they’re continuing to make it work to tremendous effect (I hear shades of Soutaiseiriron around the 00:55/01:59 mark which I really like here too).

Bite you
by muque
Say what you want, by “My dog is going to bite you” is a bar

I know, I know. Technically muque’s Bite you came out *last* month, but hey, my series my rul- *cough* In all seriousness though, the only reason I didn’t choose to talk about this song back in March was because I already penned down my thoughts on my crush by the time it this was released. That is to say, there was no way I was going to pass up featuring Bite you otherwise. In as much as I’ve praised the band’s lackadaisical “just right” approach to their music thus far, muque decided to go hard in the paint in this one, with the guitars in particular being notably more aggressive by comparison; I would say even the most out of any of their songs they’ve released thus far – perhaps in an attempt to let everyone know that they have a bit of an edge (or should I say… “bite”) to their sound too. If that was the case, they sure convinced me. While I’ve so far given most of the credit for my enjoyment of the band to drummer/beatmaker Takachi and his composition work, I have to give props to vocalist Asakura here for just bringing the spunk right out of the gate with her opening line (the little smirk she does to pair along with it was a nice touch).

Spiral
by 明透 (ASU)
The ASU x Police Piccadilly pairing never misses

You wouldn’t think it with how often she puts out a cover song on her YouTube channel, but it’s actually been a good while since SINSEKAI STUDIO’s ASU has come out with an original song (close to eight months to be exact). I mean, in general some bands and artists can go a year or two without a new song so by comparison that’s not that long of a stretch of time in between releases, so this isn’t really anything to write home about in most cases. It should be noted though that for ASU specifically this *is* longest she’s gone without having released an original. A lot of that can be attributed to the fact that she spent a lot of her time these past couple of months working alongside fellow SINSEKAI artist ARU as part of Albemuth. Following ARU’s recent graduation from the project, in hindsight it does appear as though the project wanted to prioritize closing that chapter properly, and thus all efforts (ASU’s included) went towards that before anything else. She’s back to doing her own thing now for the most part, and what better way to kick it off than with a Police Piccadilly track! This pairing produced what became my ‘Most Played Song’ of 2023 in Light years. It’s too soon to say if Spiral will do the same, but I’d say it has a fair shot.

Loud Land
by CLAN QUEEN
These guys know how to pop off hot damn

We talked about CLAN QUEEN releasing their first full album in last month’s Roundup (give it a listen if you haven’t yet) and for the most part I do think they stuck the landing well enough. I talked about it a bit more in the J-Music Advance Party for April and now a couple of weeks removed from VeiL’s launch, I still contend that the album could’ve use an additional track or two to really seal the deal on it being stand out release. That being said, nowhere did I find the songs on the album to be lacking in their own right either. All the banger singles they released prior still hold up, and the newer songs they did make to go along with them were no slouches either. Loud Land here in particular, serving as the opener for album, has the band firing on all cylinders from the jump with an intro that ended up reminding me a lot of Shinsei Kamatte-chan’s Boku no Sensou. Whether or not that was at all intentional on the band’s part was beyond me, but it does give the song this grand and almost menacing feel to it, which is then accentuated even further by vocalist yowa going absolutely all in on key parts like the chorus/refrain like she always does (in particular I find myself very much fond of how she pops off right towards the end).

NEW ERA
by 十明 (toaka)
SLAY QUEEN

Singer-songwriter Toaka continues to impress as she now makes her second appearance here on the Roundup, this time with an absolute stunner of a track in NEW ERA. Now, before you say anything… yes, Noda Yojiro ends up doing a little bit of Ready Steady by Giga here (lol) but if you can get past that or if you don’t mind it at all, then we can now move on to appreciating this track for what it is; and what it is is a complete showcase by Toaka both vocally *and* lyrically. Toaka’s singing prowess isn’t really new information at this point I feel, but she made me a fan of her songwriting here. The song is being used in a promotional campaign for the Professional Institute of International Fashion (very cool btw) and as a proud representative of the “new era” herself, Toaka more than just understood the assignment as her words imbibe in you the kind of confidence one would need to walk the runway. I mean, c’mon, “Dreaming Cinderella can’t go far with the shoes someone else picked out” is a BAR what. Very nice showing by Toaka here. Here’s hoping her and her team go all in and make a PV for this in the near future. I think with a well made one (maybe even as a collaboration with the PIIF) this song has the potential to blow up.

Judgment Syndrome
by East Of Eden
Somebody get these girls an anison gig already

I’ve been wanting to talk about East of Eden for a good while now, at the very least ever since I found out about the band’s inception last year and I finally get to do so here with their new song Judgment Syndrome. What initially caught my eye with EOE upon their debut was the surprising inclusion of two members in particular who I was already familiar with prior. The first being violinist Ayasa; someone who might not need as much of an introduction owing to her YouTube channel as well as her involvement with Morfonica from the BanG Dream! project. The second is bassist Wakazaemon, which is a name that might not ring a whole lot of bells by comparison, but has trust that she has been around the game for quite some time, and as such has earned her a fair amount of reputation that saw to her playing alongside famed guitarists Ubukata Shinichi and Kikichi Hideaki as part of a special feature with Gibson Japan. In noticing a commonality between the two, I became curious as to what kind of backgrounds the other members of EOE had and, sure enough, everyone else too had been doing their own thing prior and independently of one another. In as much as I’m fond of bands formed organically, talents grouped together to form one have their own appeal too I would think, more so those like EOE that have members you might have already seen elsewhere; kinda gives a “super group” kind of feeling to them in a way.

night walk
by ELAIZA
What an oddly specific brand of beer

While we’re on the subject, Japanese-Filipino model/actress-turned-singer Ikeda Elaiza (or simply ‘ELAIZA’), is also someone who I’ve been wanting to have on the Roundup after having chanced upon her songs on Spotify. After having about as clean and successful of an artist debut as you can have (with her debut single Close to you now raking in close to 2 million views, and her first full album cracking the Oricon Top 50), ELAIZA has been enjoying a modest music career since in terms of overall activity, presumably juggling both it and her acting career (with her most recent gig at the time of writing is her playing the lead role in the TV drama adaptation of Fune wo Amu). Suffice for it to say, she has her work cut out for her. Now that filming for the aforementioned program has since wrapped, right away ELAIZA comes out with a new song almost on cue in night walk. I don’t really see her stepping away from the modelling and the acting anytime soon (it seems to be what she wants to be doing anyway, and she’s killing it at that), but part of me does genuinely think she can hack it as an artist too. If anything else, she most definitely has the voice for it and, as we’ve seen both in the past with songs like AYAYAY as well as in this song here, with the right producer she can more than make it work

Cage
by Pvri
Nostalgia trip

There’s something about Cage that tickles this very specific part of my brain whenever I hear it that for some reason makes me think of frickin’ The Remedy by Jason Mraz (lol), which is a song that I otherwise don’t end up thinking about a whole lot whenever I listen to Japanese music (or at all nowadays for that matter). If I had to say what exactly, it definitely has something to do with the dreamy soundscape backing the track, but on the whole their sound also just gives off a very 2000s vibe (something that’s seemingly becoming a bit of a recent trend, particularly with the rise of “Hyper Pop” and “Hyper Rock” as of late) so if you’re into all of that then this track is for you. I have to give a quick thank you to both the Reddit Japanese Music Discord as well as to ANGURA’s Harry Bossert (@ANGURA_live). I don’t think I would’ve found out about Pvri if they didn’t clue everyone in on the band’s most recent EP so shout outs to them. ANGURA has been doing great work giving bands from the indie scene a platform and a voice to further promote their music by way of documentary-style videos so do check their channel out if you haven’t yet, and here’s hoping they get Pvri on in a future video.

白昼夢/hakuchuumuon
by 月追う彼方 (tsukiou kanata)
100% pure emotion in that chorus

If you’ve made it this far down in the list in the past you should already have a good idea as to what kind of bands and artists I tend to save for last, but for the uninitiated, I do like featuring lesser known acts towards the end here in what has over time become the de facto indie portion of the Roundup. There are so many bands and artists out there looking for their big break, with some ending up more fortunate than others, and while I can’t hope to cover all of them I do at the very least want to do what I can to bring new ears to the few that I happen upon however much that helps. One such band is the three-piece (now seemingly a two-piece band with a support drummer) band from Kita-Kyushu, Tsukiou Kanata, with their new song Hakuchuumu. What’s interesting about this release in particular is that it appears to be a part of a project in the works by Sony dubbed “monogatary“, in what’s looking to be a service that brings together aspiring creators (that is to say, novelists, illustrators, and musicians) and provides for them a platform where they can collaborate with one another and create something together – as what appears to be the case for this PV. I personally think this venture is really neat, and I hope to see more collaborative works like this come out of it in the future.

Get Over
by NEK! (neki)
The Girls Rock renaissance is real

It wasn’t that long ago when I was lamenting the fact that it felt as though the golden age of Girls Rock had long since come to pass and how we were all just wondering how long SCANDAL will continue to do their thing. Yet, here we are now in a post Bocchi The Rock world, with up-and-coming all-female bands like Sabasister starting to make themselves known, and even longtime stalwart of the genre Silent Siren making a comeback. It truly does feel like we are in the midst of a revival. At the very least, new bands like NEK! (pronounced as “neki”) entering the fray gives me hope of one. The band appears to be a coming together of talents like East Of Eden albeit in a much smaller scale, with their most experienced member being bassist Kanade who has garnered popularity through YouTube shorts of her performing bass covers. Her slap bass in particular is in full display on Get Over here which I think their team recognize as a charm point for the band owing to how much they let her do it in the song. I actually would’ve preferred if they used it sparingly as it does overtake the track quite a bit. A couple of ad libs in the chorus with more pronounced gang vocals could’ve done wonders for the song, and on the whole it is just a little rough around the edges. But, it can’t be denied that the technical ability is there, which is probably the more important hurdle to get over (heh) anyway.

MUST LISTEN:
“Bite you” by muque and “Cage” by Pvri
I’ve already listened to Bite you a crap ton throughout this month, and I do think I’ll continue to do so until the end of the year or up until muque drops their debut album, whichever comes first (though I still in my heart of hearts believe the muque will most definitely release an album before the year ends). Either way, song is a lot of fun, and if you weren’t yet a fan of theirs, I reckon this song will be the one to convince you to otherwise. Speaking of releases, I’m also gonna pick out Cage by Pvri as a must listen here, with the added caveat that I ask you guys check out their EP them as well. I can pretty much guarantee that it’s a breath of fresh air for most, whilst also being a bit nostalgic for some of you guys like it ended up being with me.

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The YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music playlists have ALL now been updated with this month’s featured tracks. Make sure to follow them on your preferred listening service if you haven’t yet!

As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to facilitate being able to share more of what I’ve been listening to in the past month beyond just the ten songs that I choose to feature, and in so doing I present to you now the first… Roundup *Extended* Playlist (or “EP” for short :P). Every Roundup moving forward will have EPs to go along with it, which means less songs being “passed up” by me, and more recommendations for you guys!

How did you like this month’s Roundup? Let me know down in the comments! Likewise, if you have songs that *you* would like to recommend, feel free to drop a link to them down below! I’ll be sure to check them out.

We held the J-Music Advance Party again this month at the regular venue over at Substack, where I got the chance to talk about some of the albums I’d been looking forward to checking out. Be sure to sign up to the newsletter if you haven’t yet done so to get your monthly invitation. It’s 100% free; no strings attached, and no dress code! (lol) The next Party is scheduled for May 5, 2024. Hope to see you there!

We also had Week 7 and Week 8 of the Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft this month, which come with them some interesting developments, if I do say so myself. Check to see what I’m talking about if in case you missed it 😉

The J-Music Exhcange/Rate is now back to its regular scheduling, bringing to you a new pair of album reviews from both me and my buddy Al. This month’s theme is one of the more interesting ones that I’ve had to think about (at least for me personally), as it involves us reviewing albums that we would choose to play when we get passed the aux (XD). I had Al go on a bit of a joyride with this one as I had him listen to Awich’s Queendom (check out his review of it over at Omunibasu). I on the other hand got to give MISAMO’s Masterpiece a good couple of spins. You can read my thoughts on it here 😀

Yep, I think that covers just about everything. Thanks for tuning in as always, and especially so if you who made it this far down. If you know that to be you, know that I appreciate you taking the time, and I can only hope it was as fun reading as it was for me making it <3

That’s enough from me. Catch y’all later, and Happy Listening!