And just like that, another summer is just about in the books!

I don’t know about you guys, but August seemed to come and go particularly quickly this year. Though considering how packed the past couple of months have been on my end, maybe that’s not all that surprising (lol). What is up guys, welcome back the Monthly Recommendation Roundup! For those joining us for the first time, please give the following a quick read to get you up to speed with what we do around here:

At the end of each month, I put together a post featuring Japanese music that I’ve listened to and want to recommend to you all. Keep in mind, these songs don’t necessarily have to be recent releases. Some might be tracks I’ve just discovered, while others could be longtime favorites that I’m excited to share on a whim.

The songs I feature will all come from YouTube links to their respective PVs, which means there are some limitations on what I can include. However, I find that sticking to one platform ensures the most accessibility for everyone (and there are easy workarounds for region restrictions). This also allows me to create a playlist of all the songs featured in each Roundup, which I update and share at the end of every post

Summer might be on its way out, but we’ve still got one last batch of music to send it off with. So, without further ado;

Let’s get to it!

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忘れたくないこと/wasuratakunai koto
by JYOCHO
Gone but not forgotten

We’re gonna start this month’s Roundup the same way we have a bunch of times in the past, and that’s with a track by one of the series’ flagship feature bands since pretty much its inception, JYOCHO! This time around, we’re checking out the title track off of their latest album Wasuretakunai koto, which, as it turns out, is a rather fitting name for the release for reasons that go beyond just the song itself. Wasuretakunai koto, or roughly “things I don’t want to forget,” will be the last JYOCHO release to involve longtime vocalist/keyboardist Netako Nekota, following her announcement that she will be departing the band to pursue other ventures. It’s saddening news, especially when you consider just how ingrained Netako’s voice has become in JYOCHO’s music over the years. Her fleeting, almost woodland sprite-like singing has always felt like such a perfect match for the band’s very particular blend of math rock and folk, and that’s something I’m certainly gonna miss hearing from them moving forward. That being said, longtime fans would also know that this actually isn’t the first time JYOCHO have undergone a change in vocalists. Singer-songwriter rionos was the band’s original vocalist before Netako took over, and despite that transition, JYOCHO’s core sound largely remained intact. A lot of that, of course, comes down to guitarist Nakagawa Daijiro, who serves as the band’s main composer and creative mind. JYOCHO’s musical identity has always been so distinctly defined through his intricate guitar work and songwriting that I don’t necessarily expect the band to suddenly sound completely different once they enter this next chapter. All this to say, Wasuretakunai koto isn’t the last we’ll be hearing of JYOCHO’s unique brand of folk-y math rock. It is, however, the last we’ll be hearing of Netako’s voice as part of it, which makes the title track here feel all the more bittersweet knowing that. I’ll definitely miss what she brought to the band, but at the same time, having already seen JYOCHO successfully make this kind of transition once before, I’m curious to see where they decide to go from here.

dive into you
by Chilli Beans.
Yo are we actually back back????

I feel like every time Chilli Beans. make their way back onto the Roundup these days, I inevitably end up asking some variation of the same question: Are we back? And by “back,” I mean whether or not we’re ever going to hear Chilli Beans. recapture the kind of form they were in when they first burst onto the scene, which I still believe, and I’m sure a lot of fans would agree, was when the band sounded at their absolute best. Admittedly, part of me does hate that I keep harping on this point whenever I talk about them, especially when it comes to how much of a departure their sophomore album was from their debut. It’s not even that Chilli Beans. suddenly started sounding bad either. Far from it. It’s just that somewhere along the way, it felt like something that made their earlier music so exciting got lost. I’ve always had a hard time putting my finger on what exactly that “something” is, but the best way I can describe it is that Chilli Beans. almost became too conscious of what they were doing. Once the band started gaining traction and realizing the kind of impact their music was having, it felt like that awareness began influencing how they wrote their songs. Things that might’ve happened naturally before suddenly felt more deliberate, like they had figured out why the trick worked and started building songs around recreating it. And, well, once you know how a magic trick works, some of the magic inevitably disappears with it. That being said, I’ve noted with some of their more recent releases that Chilli Beans. do seem to be finding their way back to what made me fall in love with them in the first place, and dive into you gives me a little bit more reason to believe that might actually be happening. There’s an energy and looseness to the way the song moves that feels much closer to the Chilli Beans. I remember from those earlier years. We’re not all the way back just yet though. For me, one thing that’s still missing is what I personally think was one of Chilli Beans.’ greatest strengths during that period: their ability to absolutely capitalize on a chorus through the use of gang vocals. Those big, infectious choruses were such an important part of what made their early songs hit as hard as they did, and I’d love to hear them tap into that again at some point. Whether that’s even something Chilli Beans. themselves are interested in recapturing remains to be seen, of course.

ブルーミンぐ/blooming
by 文藝天国 (bungei tengoku)
JYOCHO, Chilli Beans. and Blooming Bungei? Man talk about a Roundup throwback!

Man, between JYOCHO, Chilli Beans., and now Blooming Bungei, it honestly feels like we’re doing a Roundup from a couple of years ago or something (lol). I love it though. Obviously I adore all three of these bands, otherwise I don’t think I’d still be talking about them for the better part of half a decade, if not longer at this point. Blooming Bungei in particular has always held a very special place in my heart for being the quaint little auteur project that it is between two incredibly creative people in composer ko shinonome and colorist sumi aika, alongside their chosen vocalist haru. And because they’re such a unique bunch, their music activities have always been anything but conventional. New releases from Blooming Bungei aren’t exactly something you can pencil into the calendar with any sort of regularity, so whenever we do get one, I tend to treat it like an occasion. Blooming is certainly no different. In hindsight, perhaps there was already something to the title bearing part of the group’s own name, because after listening to all ten minutes of this song, I can’t think of a better encapsulation of what makes Blooming Bungei so special. And yes, you read that correctly. Ten minutes. I know that’s a pretty big ask for one song, especially in this day and age, but I genuinely implore you to spare those ten minutes because I can guarantee you that every second of it is worth the listen. The melodies, the instrumentation, and just the sheer movement of the song as it passes through one section into another almost like the changing of the seasons is literal poetry put to music. It’s the kind of composition where ten minutes somehow doesn’t feel like ten minutes once you’re actually in it. If this happens to be your first time coming across Blooming Bungei, then I more so encourage you to give Blooming a listen. There probably isn’t a better introduction I could give you to what ko shinonome, sumi aika, and haru have created together over the years. This is Blooming Bungei laying themselves bare musically, taking everything that makes their work so unmistakably theirs and letting it unfold over the course of one sprawling song. I’ve followed these guys for long enough now that I know there will eventually come a day when Blooming Bungei stops making music, and I’ll admit they’re one of those groups whose absence I would probably feel more than most whenever that happens. Hopefully that’s still a long ways away. But when that day does eventually come, I’m at least thankful that they gave us something like Blooming. An opus that, to me, feels like it could stand as a beautiful summation of Blooming Bungei regardless of whatever else they decide to create from here.

summer film
by kurayamisaka
One last ode to summer

kurayamisaka has such a way of just shaking me to my core with their songs, and summer film is definitely no different. When I had first started listening to the band, I thought a lot of that simply had to do with their incredibly effective use of thundering drums, particularly whenever their songs reach their emotional denouement. And don’t get me wrong, that’s still a huge part of why kurayamisaka’s music hits as hard as it does. But the more of their songs I’ve heard over the years, the more I’ve started to understand that there’s another part of the equation that I probably wasn’t giving enough credit to. Specifically, vocalist Naito Sachi. Not necessarily in the way you might initially think either. Her transparent singing voice certainly allows the emotions behind kurayamisaka’s music to come through particularly well, but more than that, I find her voice to be incredibly disarming. The best comparison I can think of is that feeling when you’re on the verge of tears after getting caught doing something bad as a kid, and then your parent or teacher calmly tells you, “it’s okay”. You were doing perfectly fine holding everything in right up until that exact moment, only for those two words to completely tear down whatever walls you had put up. That’s what Naito’s voice does to me. And once those walls come down, kurayamisaka’s music just floods right through. summer film is especially effective in that regard given what the song is about. There’s this idea of summer being fleeting, and with it the possibility of losing something, or perhaps someone, that you wish you could’ve held onto for just a little longer. The PV illustrates this through the recurring imagery of bubbles; seafoam dissipating along the shoreline, as well as the tiny bubbles rising through a carbonated drink before eventually reaching the surface and disappearing. Something beautiful that exists for only a moment before it’s gone. And then, as if the song hadn’t already gotten to me enough by that point, kurayamisaka cap everything off by singing a portion of the nursery rhyme “Shabondama” in the outro. For those unfamiliar, “Shabondama” literally means “soap bubble,” with the nursery rhyme itself telling of bubbles rising into the air only to eventually break apart in the wind. Hearing kurayamisaka reinterpret those familiar words through their trademark melancholic distortion takes an already heartfelt piece of imagery and gives it so much more weight within the context of summer film. Summer comes, summer goes. The bubbles rise, and eventually they disappear. And with August now behind us, I suppose there couldn’t have been a more fitting song to give summer one last sendoff.

乾かない夏/kawakanai natsu
by Spit lulu’s
Speaking of summer

Carrying on some similar sentiments from kurayamisaka, we have Spit lulu’s making their debut into the front half of the Roundup with Kawakanai natsu. Something worth noting right off the bat is that this technically isn’t a new release. Kawakanai natsu comes from the same EP that gave us weird world, which I featured back in the May Roundup when Spit lulu’s first appeared around these parts. Funny enough, part of me is actually glad that it wasn’t weird world that eventually got the PV treatment, because now I have the perfect excuse to talk about another song from that release (lol). Though I say Kawakanai natsu carries similar sentiments to summer film, Spit lulu’s weave a much more harrowing tale out of the last vestiges of summer here. At its core is a tragic story of self-satisfaction veiled as an attempt at kindness, followed by the regret that comes once the consequences of those actions finally catch up to you. And the song very much sounds like someone being swallowed by all of that. Kawakanai natsu practically hits the ground running with its fast-paced rhythm, giving you this frantic sense that you’re trying to outrun something that’s already coming down all around you. There’s very little room to collect yourself once everything gets going, which I think fits particularly well with the kind of desperation at the heart of the song. I also can’t help but draw a comparison between vocalist nyamumarin and kurayamisaka’s Naito Sachi after having the two songs back-to-back like this. Both have voices that are incredibly effective at letting the emotions of their respective songs come through, but they accomplish that in almost opposite ways. Where Naito’s singing can feel comforting and reassuring, nyamumarin sounds much more reflective of youthful indiscretion. There’s less of someone telling you everything is going to be okay and more of someone wearing their emotions completely on their sleeve, crying out because they don’t quite know what else to do with everything they’re feeling. There’s something about hearing a young band like Spit lulu’s already tackle a song like Kawakanai natsu that gets me excited about the kinds of prospective bands we’re seeing come out of the Japanese alternative scene right now. We’re only two Roundup features into our time with them, and I’m already curious about what else they have in store.

Spaceboy
by SYAYOS
Bringing that rural summer heat

On the subject of not-so-new releases, Spaceboy by Nagano-based four-piece SYAYOS is actually the opening track off of the band’s Anthem 1.1 album that came out all the way back in August of last year. It only just now got the PV treatment, marking the band’s first ever since their inception in July 2024. Suffice it to say, SYAYOS are still a very young band in that regard, but I also don’t think the timing of their first PV is quite as random as it might initially seem if we consider the circumstances surrounding them at the moment. As some of you might know, SYAYOS are one of four bands making an appearance at this year’s Next Music From Tokyo event in Canada, alongside Haku., yureruwayurei, and pudelhunds. NMFT has long been a showcase for up-and-coming Japanese bands, with more than a few of its past performers eventually going on to amass sizable followings both locally in Japan and internationally. So part of me does wonder if finally giving Spaceboy a PV is a way of getting SYAYOS on more people’s radars ahead of their upcoming trip overseas, on top of, y’know, simply promoting their music while there’s some buzz around them. I already enjoyed Spaceboy a fair bit when Anthem 1.1 first came out, but coming across the song again now with the knowledge that I’ll soon get to hear SYAYOS perform live has gotten me considerably more excited to see what they’re like on stage (as, just to go on a tangent, and to announce it to you guys as well, I’ll actually be attending NMFT this year!). I’ve always had a hard time putting into words the exact feeling I get from SYAYOS’ music, but there’s something incredibly organic about it. Every time I listen to Spaceboy, I can almost feel the prickliness of a hot summer day in the air. There’s this rustic, rural quality to the band’s music that makes me picture wide stretches of countryside under an oppressive afternoon sun; something that actually reminds me a little of the feeling I got from Trooper Salute’s Fuji when we talked about that song last year. Maybe some of that Nagano air found its way into the recording (lol). If you haven’t yet, I do implore you guys to check out Anthem 1.1, especially if you’ll also be attending NMFT this year. Consider Spaceboy your introduction if you need one, and if you are gonna be there…I’ll hopefully see you there!

タイムスリップしたい/time slip shitai
by o_all
The nostalgia is real

Moving on now to bands who I want to see live someday (I mean, really, that’s just everyone I feature around here, but), we have dream pop/emo/post-rock band o_all with their latest single Time slip shitai. My introduction to o_all actually came through Holiday Records last year after I decided to try out the store’s HoliReco Select service. The idea is pretty neat: you give store manager Ueno Hideaki a set budget of ¥10,000, and he’ll personally handpick albums and EPs for you based either on your own music preferences or entirely on his recommendations if you decide to leave it up to him. I gave him some idea of what I liked, and after a brief exchange that also resulted in me finding out that Ueno-san was actually aware of my Japanese-style alternative playlist, he went ahead and put together a selection based on what he knew about my tastes. Sure enough, one of the releases that showed up in my package was o_all’s Dream deep dreams. And yeah, he pretty much had me figured out (lol). Dream deep dreams is an absolutely beautiful release, and one that probably would’ve taken me considerably longer to stumble across had Ueno-san not sent it my way. Listening to Time slip shitai, I can also pretty easily tell what about o_all made him think they would be right up my alley. It’s those guitars, man. There’s this wonderful sway to their guitar melodies, with just the right amount of distortion around them to give everything this hazy, nostalgic quality without drowning out the melodies underneath. Couple that with vocalist Tomoka’s crystal-clear singing and you get the kind of wistful dream pop that very specifically pushes all the right buttons for me. Given a song literally called Time slip shitai, I suppose that feeling of being transported somewhere else is pretty appropriate too. I swear I didn’t intend for this feature to turn into a Holiday Records plug, but while we’re here, I might as well give HoliReco Select my recommendation too (lol). If you’ve got the cash to spare and want to make a bit of an adventure out of discovering new Japanese music, I highly recommend giving it a try. Ueno-san communicates with you throughout the process, Holiday Records ships internationally so there’s no proxy required, and at the end of it you essentially get this little curated care package filled with music picked specifically for you. Considering it led me to o_all and Dream deep dreams, I’d say mine worked out pretty darn well all things considered.

ruri
by その感激と記録 (sono kangeki to kiroku)
Definitely the sleeper release of the year

Speaking of albums, one that really stood out to me among everything that came out this month was HaHaHa by Tokyo’s Sono kangeki to kiroku. I’ve actually been keeping tabs on the band ever since I came across their debut album Minohodo wo shire, if I recall correctly, through a Spotify daylist of all things (lol). Spotify as a service definitely has its flaws, possibly more than it has merits at this point, but one thing I will give it credit for is its algorithm when it comes to finding music based on your listening habits. Every once in a while it’ll throw something my way that makes me understand why I still bother digging through all those recommendations, and Sono kangeki to kiroku was certainly one of them. Though I say I’ve been “keeping tabs” on the band, there admittedly haven’t been that many tabs to keep track of from a release perspective. Following an EP in 2024, things went relatively quiet, with the band going through the entirety of 2025 without putting out anything new. Despite that, Spotify would still occasionally find some way to slip their music back into my rotation, so I never truly forgot about them either. Sono kangeki to kiroku finally resurfaced around the middle of this year, and rather surprisingly, that return eventually culminated in the release of an entire new album, HaHaHa. As I would come to find out, that supposed period of inactivity wasn’t really inactivity at all; the band had spent that time creating the songs that would eventually make up the album. And when I tell you HaHaHa might be the sleeper release of the year, know that I say that having already spent a fair amount of time with this thing. ruri is really only a taste of what awaits you on the rest of the album, but what a taste it is. The breathtaking instrumentation is immediately what gets me here, with the band packing so much detail and movement into their music that I find myself wanting to go back through songs just to catch everything happening underneath. It’s the kind of album that makes me glad Spotify kept periodically reminding me that Sono kangeki to kiroku existed while they were away. Definitely check out ruri, but more importantly, if what you hear here does anything for you, please give HaHaHa a listen. I have a feeling this is gonna be one of those releases I’ll be bringing up again once we get to the end of the year.

うなずいてほしかった/unazuitehoshikatta
by 君が四角くなる前に (kimi ga shikakuku naru mae ni)
Never would have thought

This next one’s a fun one, if at least for me personally, and it comes to us by way of artist collective Kimi ga shikakuku naru mae ni. I’m choosing to call them an “artist collective” here because I honestly struggle to call them a band or, really, much of anything with respect to the group’s central dogma of not wanting to be confined within a frame. It’s right there in the name too, with Kimi ga shikakuku naru mae ni roughly translating to “Before You Become Square.” The idea, as the group themselves explain it, is that so much of the art we create and consume is ultimately confined within rectangular frames. Album covers, photographs, videos, novels, comics; all of these things can preserve our memories, emotions, and reality in beautiful ways, but they’re still attempts to contain something innately human within a defined space. Kimi ga shikakuku naru mae ni respect the beauty in that while simultaneously questioning the contradiction of trying to contain those raw emotions, moments, and people within a frame in the first place. And yet, of course, they themselves continue creating these same “rectangular” works. Hence, Before You Become Square. It’s a fascinating idea, and in pursuit of it, just about everything surrounding the group feels appropriately free-form. Their music can range from high-energy Pop Rock to the heavily distorted sound we get with Unazuitehoshikatta here, while the people involved are an equally interesting assortment of artists. Among them are nerdneko on guitar and, perhaps most surprisingly to me, dateiga on vocals. Now that’s a pairing I never would’ve expected to cross paths, but here we are (lol). dateiga especially threw me for a loop because I primarily knew her through her earlier work within the menhera pop scene, if we can even call that a scene. Because of that, I don’t think the thought of her being the frontwoman for something like Kimi ga shikakuku naru mae ni had ever even entered my mind. But man, she sure as hell showed me. Unazuitehoshikatta gives her a wall of heavily distorted guitars to contend with, and rather than getting swallowed underneath all of that noise, hearing her voice against it brings out a completely different side of her than what I had associated with her before. Then again, I suppose finding myself surprised by what any of these people are doing together is pretty appropriate for a project built around the idea of not putting art, or the people making it, inside a box.

避暑地を探してる/hishouchi wo sagashiteru feat. 歌愛ユキ (kaai yuki)
by インターネット温泉 (internet onsen)
Did someone say running?

If you know anything about me and my occasional penchant for voice banks as chronicled here on the Roundup, you’d know that I’m not particularly averse to Vocaloid, or really any other vocal synth for that matter, as I know some people can be. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that either! Like, I totally get it. Vocaloid definitely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, especially for those who might’ve developed a distaste for its sound during its earlier years. Personally, I’ve always been pretty open to vocal synths as simply another avenue through which artists can express their creativity, and with the advent of increasingly refined voice banks, it’s opened the door for the technology to be used in ways that I find especially fascinating. Which brings us to Internet Onsen. If you follow my Japanese-style alternative playlist, you might’ve noticed Internet Onsen’s name pop up a good handful of times by now. As that might suggest, what makes the project so interesting to me is that their music primarily occupies the alternative rock side of things, only with a synthesized voice taking on the singing. That might not sound particularly novel depending on your own history with Vocaloid, but as someone whose earliest and strongest associations with it were largely within the electronic music space, hearing it used this way still fascinates me. Hishouchi wo sagashiteru is a great example of why. There’s certainly still an electronic texture running through Internet Onsen’s compositions, but it’s the guitars that really get me. The way they build these airy melodies around them, with layer upon layer seemingly rushing past one another, gives the song this wonderfully expansive quality that goes well beyond the novelty of simply hearing a vocal synth front an alternative rock song. And once it starts running, man does this thing run. It’s that combination that I think makes Internet Onsen worth checking out even if you don’t normally consider yourself a Vocaloid fan. In fact, if you currently belong in that camp, I’d almost encourage you to forget about the Vocaloid part entirely on your first listen. Don’t go into Hishouchi wo sagashiteru thinking of it as “Vocaloid music.” Just listen to it as a piece of Japanese alternative music and let Internet Onsen’s composition do its thing You might be surprised by where it takes you.

MUST LISTEN:
“summer film” by kurayamisaka and “ruri” by Sono kangeki to kiroku
I swear, kurayamisaka just has my number at this point. We’ve talked about them plenty of times here on the Roundup, but summer film is yet another reminder of why their music has become so affecting to me. The thundering drums and distorted guitars certainly do their part, especially once the band starts building toward those emotional peaks that they execute so incredibly well, but I’ve increasingly come to appreciate just how integral Naito Sachi’s voice is to making all of it work. There’s something incredibly disarming about the way she sings. It’s soft and transparent without ever feeling emotionally distant, and when you pair that with a song about the fleeting nature of summer, loss, and things disappearing before you’re ready to let them go, it just absolutely wrecks me The use of “Shabondama” in the outro is really the finishing blow. Taking the imagery of those soap bubbles rising only to eventually break apart and disappear, then filtering it through kurayamisaka’s melancholic sound, makes for one of my favorite musical moments of the month. If summer had to end, I suppose this was one hell of a way to say goodbye to it. On the other side of things, we have what might just be my biggest sleeper pick of the year so far. Sono kangeki to kiroku had been sitting somewhere in the back of my mind ever since I first came across Minohodo wo shire, helped in no small part by Spotify periodically putting their music back in front of me during what ended up being a fairly lengthy period without any new releases. Then HaHaHa came out, and suddenly I remembered exactly why I wanted to keep tabs on these guys in the first place. ruri is breathtaking. There’s a tremendous amount of detail packed into the instrumentation, but what I love most is how naturally everything moves despite that complexity. It’s the kind of song that rewards repeat listens because there’s always another guitar line, another shift, or some little instrumental detail waiting for you that you might not have fully registered the first time around And that’s really been my experience with HaHaHa as a whole. I’ve already spent a fair amount of time with the album, yet I still feel like I’m discovering things within it every time I go back. So yes, ruri is my other MUST LISTEN for August, but consider that recommendation an open invitation to check out the rest of HaHaHa while you’re at it. If this album somehow ends up flying under people’s radars this year, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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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!

And of course, if ten songs somehow weren’t enough for you, there’s always more where that came from! As always, I’ve put together this month’s Roundup EP, featuring even more songs that I enjoyed throughout August but couldn’t quite squeeze into the main features above. So if you’re still in the mood to discover some new Japanese music, definitely give it a listen! You might just find a personal favorite or two hiding in there. And with how much good music we had to work with this month, there’s plenty more waiting for you.

But enough from me! What did you guys think of this month’s Roundup? Were there any songs in particular that stood out to you? Maybe an artist you hadn’t heard of before that you ended up really liking? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts! And likewise, if there were any songs you were listening to throughout August that you think I should know about, feel free to send those recommendations my way too. I’m always looking for more music to check out!

And if you’re looking for even more music to check out, don’t forget to stop by last month’s J-Music Advance Party! We had some absolute banger releases on the docket, including Saiwai na heya’s Sumiyaka na Kisoku, Chromleily’s Day By Day, and, would you look at that, Sono kangeki to kiroku’s HaHaHa! Funny how things work out, huh? (lol) For those unfamiliar, the J-Music Advance Party is my monthly series where I take a look ahead at some of the most exciting Japanese albums and EPs set to release over the coming month. Think of it as your chance to get acquainted with a handful of releases before they actually drop, and maybe find something new to keep an eye out for in the process. Our next party is set for September 13, 2026, pushed back slightly from its originally tentative September 6 date. So mark your calendars, and I hope to see you guys there!

And while we’re on the subject of Saiwai na heya’s Sumiyaka na kisoku, I also had the opportunity this month to do something a little different here on the blog. Following my conversation with the band about the album for the J-Music Advance Party, I was able to speak a little more with drummer Utsunomiya Kai about Sumiyaka na kisoku, the ideas behind it, and Saiwai na heya themselves, which eventually turned into my first proper interview feature! This was actually my first time doing anything quite like this, and admittedly, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect going into it. But having now gone through the experience, I’ve become even more receptive to doing more of these moving forward. As much as I enjoy writing about music from my own perspective, there’s something especially valuable about being able to let the people behind it speak for themselves. If anything, I think it gives me another way to introduce these bands and artists to you guys while making sure that what I’m sharing is as reflective of their own vision as possible. So if you’ve already listened to Sumiyaka na kisoku, or perhaps the Advance Party got you interested in the album, definitely check out my conversation with Saiwai na heya as well! And, uh… Let’s just say that might not be the only album we’ve talked about today that I’ll have something a little more to share about soon. 👀

And before I let you guys go, we of course have our monthly J-Music Exchange/Rate! For August, Al and I decided to look back at some of the bands and artists that we actually started listening to because of the Exchange/Rate over the years. Which, when you consider how long we’ve been doing this series now, gave us quite a few names to choose from (lol). For my part, I had Al revisit MALIYA with her album pluto, while Al sent Isekaijoucho’s Shikisai my way. I really like this theme because, more than anything, it serves as a reminder of why we started doing the Exchange/Rate in the first place. The whole point has always been to put music in front of one another that we might not have otherwise checked out on our own, and all these years later, there are now bands and artists that have genuinely become part of our regular listening because of it. So if you’d like to see what I thought of Shikisai, definitely check out this month’s Exchange/Rate! And don’t forget to head over to the Omunibasu Substack as well to read Al’s thoughts on pluto. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up discovering someone through the Exchange/Rate too!

And with that, I think we’ve just about covered everything for this month’s Roundup!

As always, thank you guys so much for taking the time to stop by. Whether you’ve been following these recommendations for years now or this happens to be your first time here, I hope you found something new to add to your rotation.

August certainly gave us plenty to talk about, and judging by how things have been going lately, I somehow doubt September is gonna make things any easier on me (lol). Not that I’m complaining, of course.

Until then, take care, enjoy the music, and as always;

Happy Listening!