We talk about guest features!

Hello and welcome back to another installment of the one and only J-Music Exchange/Rate—ChatGPT’s top recognized series for Japanese music album reviews! (not exactly sure if that’s a good thing, but hey, we’ll take it XD). If you already know where to go, do feel free to proceed, otherwise, if you’re new to the blog and you’re not quite sure what this series is all about—

The Exchange/Rate is a tandem album review series conducted monthly by yours truly, alongside my good friend and fellow Japanese music fan, Al (from Omunibasu). Each month, we pick a specific theme to shape our reviews. We then select albums from our libraries that best align with that theme and exchange them. After listening, we review the album we’ve been given. This project not only allows us to explore music outside our usual playlists, but also gives us a chance to see our favorite albums through a fresh perspective. We hope this series does the same for you—whether it introduces you to a new artist or offers a fresh take on one of your favorite albums!

Al and I take turns picking the theme for our series, and this month it was Al’s turn. With Halloween just around the corner, he thought it would be fun to incorporate a bit of that spooky festive spirit into our Exchange/Rate. So, this month, we’ll be discussing albums featuring our favorite guest artist spooks (lol). This includes albums with surprising guest features—whether it’s because it was unexpected to see them on the album or simply a neat inclusion in general.

To that end, I went ahead and gave Al the album yet by the boy himself maeshima soshi (check out Al’s review here!). I, in turn, was given Shin Sakiura’s Inner Division to talk with you guys about today.

Let’s check it out!

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Shin Sakiura is a Tokyo-based producer and guitarist known primarily for his production work, collaborating with a range of artists such as SIRUP, Mukai Taichi, iri, Toki Asako, Aile The Shota, Aina The End, and more. He has been actively releasing original music since 2015 and has gained significant recognition within the Japanese music scene. Sakiura truly captured public attention after his successful collaboration with AAAMYYY on the song “NIGHT RUNNING,” which became a radio hit after being featured as the ending theme for the anime BNA.

＜Ｉｎｎｅｒ　Ｄｉｖｉｓｉｏｎ＞
(＊Spotify link to the full album)

CDJapan Affiliate Link(s):
N/A

＜T ｒａｃｋｌｉｓｔ＞

０１・Magic
０２・n.o.y.b (feat. Furui Riho)
０３・Lonely (feat.bane)
０４・bud
０５・Amber
０６・Parachute (feat. Wez Atlas)
０７・Universe
０８・Yourself
０９・からっぽ (feat. さらさ)
１０・Dream (dub)
１１・Easy
１２・Shave (Remix)
１３・Blue Bird (feat. Maika Loubté)

Ａｌ：Being someone who happened to discover an ‘informal collective’ of fantastic artists/songwriters/rappers last year (most of which have relations to the w.a.u creative label), it really was neat to see all these incredible and underrated talents collaborate with each other; whether it be guys like Kota Matsukawa creating cool tracks for a specific artist’s release or a bunch of singers hopping on a composer’s album/EP for a guest vocal feature. Obviously, this month’s theme revolves around the latter, and one of my favorite examples of this that I stumbled upon last year would be Shin Sakiura’s fourth full-length release, titled Inner Division.

I’ll be up front: the main/initial reason why this album piqued my interest was because of the Wez Atlas feature and how I became a fan of that dude throughout 2023. And while most- if not, all of the guest appearances Wez has made have been great (whether it be on that one voquote EP or his past work with VivaOla, to name a couple), I genuinely think “Parachute” still might be my favorite out of the bunch. Not only because the production from Shin Sakiura felt cool-yet-layered with certain elements like the guitars and synths, but I do believe it gave Wez a solid base to work off of and really display his effortless talent with mixing Japanese and English in his bars. I loved how his passion-filled and energetic personality, as well as his unique way of rapping, shined a lot on this track, making it a huge stand-out for me personally.

That said, the same can honestly be said about the other guest features on Inner Division. While I’m not as familiar with Furui Riho compared to other fans like Leap, I still thought the vibes and general atmosphere on “n.o.y.b” totally felt like something I’d hear on her own respective releases, especially with how insanely well those clubby style tracks work with her strong style of singing. On the other hand, the low-key nature within “Karappo” felt like a natural fit to the softer demeanor many are used to from Salasa. This only scratches the surface of how good the vocal features are from everyone involved – including Shin who has a pretty nice voice himself – but I do think the composition side also deserves a ton of credit. Shin Sakiura’s production on this album was really nice to listen to, especially with how slightly varied it was, as heard in the different moods/paces being expressed and the addition of some electric/acoustic guitars. Solid album, for sure.

＜Ｓｏｎｇｓ　ｏｆ　Ｉｎｔｅｒｅｓｔ＞

０１・Magic、０２・n.o.y.b (feat. Furui Riho)
I’m gonna start off this review by coupling together Inner Division‘s opening track Magic along with the second track of the album n.o.y.b which also happens to have the first featured artist in this record, the ever so lovely Furui Riho. As you all might already know (and are tired of hearing me say as much) if you’ve been following my side of the J-Music Exchange/Rate for some time now, I very rarely pass up an opportunity to talk about an album’s opener. It’s a unique designation, regardless of whether or not an artist acknowledges or doesn’t think too much of it, as the mere fact that it’s the first song you get to hear from a record (assuming that you’re playing things in order), it already presupposes a certain level of intent. So, with that being said, what was the intent behind opening with Magic, then, you might ask?

In an interview with Japanese magazine publication EYESCREAM, Shin Sakiura talks about the central theme behind Inner Division as being that of “facing one’s self properly”. In relation to that, the album title is in reference to the Japanese word 内部部門 (‘naibu bumon‘) which can also be translated as “internal department”. As Shin Sakiura had thus intended, the album is meant to be viewed as an attempt at expressing his inner workings as a musician, with Magic being his first crack at doing so. Something to note here is despite Shin Sakiura being pretty much known for making flow-y, guitar-driven R&B tracks, he instead, uncharacteristically comes out of the gates with a more club-y dance music kind of track—a style of music that Shin Sakiura claims to be at his roots, and thus chose to revisit here as part of this introspective work.

Magic transitions to n.o.y.b following a nifty beat switch up towards the end of the former which Shin Sakiura points to as something he wanted to pull off at least once in the album to showcase the breadth of his arrangements. It certainly made for a smooth handoff to the Furui Riho feature which also lends itself to being a more club-y dance music track. More than that, this is actually a fairly standard Furui Riho track, all things considered. n.o.y.b has the same kind of hooks that she normally does, with the same vocal layering, and even the same bass synth beat as most of her songs. I’ve actually listened to this song in the past and it was only until sitting down to prepare for this review that I learned that Shin Sakiura produced the track. Granted, Furui Riho has always had a good grasp on her identity as an artist, so this might have just been a case of Shin Sakiura opting for what best suits her style, but it’s something to keep in mind moving forward as we go through the rest of the tracks on Inner Division.

０４・bud
Another thing that Shin Sakiura wanted to showcase in Inner Division, apart from his skills as a producer, was his own musical chops as a singer-songwriter—with singing in particular being something he hasn’t really done a whole lot of if at all prior to the release of this album. Initially, when I was planning this review, I considered focusing only on the tracks with guest artists to align with this month’s theme. However, the more I listened to Inner Division, the more I felt the need to shine a light on the tracks without a feature. Of course, a lot of that is because they *are* good (if not great, even) in their own right, and as such I feel like I might overshadow that fact by neglecting to go over them. bud, specifically, is also a strong contender for my favorite out of all the tracks found in Inner Division so so it was always going to have a place in this review.

While I do enjoy a good club-y dance music track, I like how Shin Sakiura went back to the well for this one, as in my opinion he does his best work with a guitar laying down beats on the mellower side such as what you’ll hear here instead. It could be just a matter of personal preference on my end, but at the very least I do think it’s fair to say that this kind of sound is more of Shin Sakiura’s bread and butter so to speak relative to the first couple of tracks we went over. On the whole, I do also find that his guitar-playing, whether he intended to or not, sort of ended up being the cohesive glue holding Inner Division together—something I’ll get into later when I discuss my overall thoughts on the album.

０６・Parachute (feat. Wez Atlas)
Moving on over to the next featured artist that I wanted to showcase for this review, Wez Atlas, who gets the call up to hop on this sixth track of Inner Division, Parachute. Ol’ Wezzy is no stranger to the blog, whose own mini album This Too Shall Pass having also made its way here on the J-Music Exchange/Rate in December of last year. Of course, as you might expect, in preparation for *that* review (check it out here if you haven’t yet already) I got to spend some time with it, which in turn granted me a fair amount of familiarity with Wez Atlas’ flow, his rhythm, and overall style of rap.

Parachute is, in many ways, classic Wez Atlas. Much like how n.o.y.b. was undeniably a Furui Riho track, Parachute has Wez Atlas’s signature all over it and would fit seamlessly into his discography. Of course, both Furui Riho and Wez Atlas (and I would argue most Japanese R&B/Hip-Hop artists for that matter) do work with different producers and composers and in spite of that are still generally able to retain their individuality as artists, whether it’s their style, delivery, or other artistic choices. A lot of that is definitely artist preference, and the producer catering to that the best they can using the tools at their disposal. It does, however, raise an interesting caveat as to whether or not the creative direction of a song should largely be dependent on what the artist can do as opposed to what the producer can do for the artist.

０９・からっぽ (feat. さらさ)
This last track that I wanted to talk about before I go over my overall thoughts about Inner Division is yet another one performed by an artist who I’m also familiar with, is Karappo featuring Salasa. I came to know of Salasa towards the tail end of 2022 where I became just obsessed with her album Inner Ocean for a period of time. At one point thereafter I even had Al review it for the Exchange/Rate (catch his review here!). I was particularly drawn by the rich and velvety tonality in her voice that you just don’t hear all that often in Japanese music. Her vocals are so distinctive, in fact, that I would even go so far as to say that I have since come to associate her entire artistry with that unique sound of hers.

In that sense, I do think it’s quite hard to take away Salasa’s individuality as an artist on whatever song she sings, as her voice is just going to shine through regardless of the arrangement, at least in my opinion. I imagine any producer working with her would have their work cutout for them in that regard, more so too for someone like Salasa who regularly produces her own tracks on top of that. However, by that same token, because Salasa’s artistry is as well-defined as it is, it actually becomes much easier as the listener to pick out what Shin Sakiura’s idiosyncrasies are as a producer in his own right and what he brings to the table in the sound department. This is also the point in Inner Division where you do kinda start seeing a through line between all the tracks that he worked on with the featured artists on this album.

＜Ｗｈａｔ　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｏｆ　Ｉｎｎｅｒ　Ｄｉｖｉｓｉｏｎ＞

It was interesting learning about the origins behind the naming of this album. Before coming across the interview with EYESCREAM, I assumed it was referring to the divisiveness that goes on inside an artist’s thoughts when it comes to creating music—like the tension between making the kind of music they genuinely want to make versus creating songs that caters to a broader audience, even if that’s not their true artistic vision. An internal struggle or conflict within one’s self, if you will. Of course, this could be chalked up more to the limitations of translation, but I don’t think I ever would have been able to infer that as instead being in reference to a company‘s “internal department”.

Even more surprising was Shin Sakiura’s reasoning behind it which, is a sentiment that grew within me the further I got into the album. As I mentioned earlier, the main theme of Inner Division according to Sakiura is about “facing himself properly”. He describes the process of creating this album in particular as being somewhat of an internal dialogue, almost like a company board meeting with himself, where he questioned whether people would like the sound he was going to produce or if he should even try singing his own songs. Eventually, he dispelled those doubts entirely. Inner Division about coming to terms with his own musical identity and embracing the decision to make the music he truly wanted to create and just dealing with whatever criticism might come his way after the fact.

For the most part, Sakiura accomplished exactly what he set out to do. The album is infused with his signature style, with nearly every track showcasing his guitar- and bass-centric approach. This really shines when he performs his own songs, fully expressing his musicality, and I think he succeeded in that regard. However, the reason I grew more surprised as I listened to more tracks is that much of his individuality seems to fade when there’s a featured artist performing his songs. It’s not that his production becomes generic—far from it—but it feels like he intentionally steps into the background, allowing the guest artist’s musicality to take the spotlight. In most cases, I would think that that’s how someone in his line of work should be going about it anyway, but for this album in particular, it feels somewhat at odds with the central theme he laid out for himself. By taking that backseat approach, to me it almost runs counterpoint to the thesis statement of Inner Division being about fully embracing his own sound and musical identity.

＜Ｍｙ　Ｒａｔｉｎｇ＞


４.７５ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ５

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９.５ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ １０

All that said, I’m not here to critique Sakiura on whether or not he made a contradiction, nor do I think our enjoyment of Inner Division should hinge on how precisely he delivered on his own vision. In releasing this album, Sakiura has already made peace with his internal dialogue. As listeners, we’re not really supposed to be part of those “company meetings” artists have with themselves—we just get the final product. So, it’s only fair that we judge it on its own merits, without over-analyzing the process. And on that note, Inner Division is a tight album. The production is top-tier, the guest features were fantastic, and as I mentioned in my review, I thought Sakiura did an excellent job performing his own songs as well. If we could’ve traded one of the demo instrumentals (which were great, don’t get me wrong) for an additional featured artist, I would’ve easily given it a 10.

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What are your guys’ thoughts on Shin Sakiura’s Inner Division? Have you listened to it before? What did you think of it? Let us know all of that down in the comments!

Likewise, let us now too—what are some albums that come to mind for you when you think of surprising guest features? Feel free to share them!

Before I let you go, don’t forget to catch Al’s review of maeshima soshi’s yet over at Omunibasu if you haven’t yet already!

Happy Listening!