Connect And Receive – Summer 2022 Japan underground picks

With the year just passed its halfway point, here’s a mix sampling of some of the Japanese releases that have caught my attention thus far in 2022. Rock still feels like it’s in a slump here, which might partly be down to the ongoing impact of the pandemic but which is probably part of a broader trend in which no one under 40 really listens to rock music anymore. It means there are a lot of familiar faces in this playlist, although that’s also a simple feature of my attempts to keep up with the output of artists who’ve impressed me over the years (as long as former_airline keeps putting out good music, I’m going to keep including him in these things). Tracklist and brief descriptions are below. I’ve tried to add Bandcamp links where they exist, but where they don’t, you might be able to find them on one of the streaming services — otherwise, they may only exist on a CD-R sold to you by the band directly.

in the sun – Nostalgia
Compared to the noise-rock leanings of their first album, 2016’s El Energy, the Metaphor cassette album from the label arm of Tokyo’s Discipline event team takes some similarly kraut-adjacent progressive soundscapery further away from rock and into more industrial territory. Some of the results are caustic and others, like this track, point a direction towards the epic.

A.P.O.S. – 人糞 / Zinpun
The band name stands for “a piece of shit” and this Hiroshima duo’s self-titled EP strips away explicitly musical sounds and luxuriates in the textures of the remaining sonic effluence. The results are more subtle than the band name evokes though, as the quiet, ambient hum of this track demonstrates.

BD1982 – Chapter Zero
Swiftly following up his 2021 CD album Distance Vision with the new Initiation Insight, a cassette of gnostic electronic hybrid industrial/dreampop, BD1982 is on a creative run at the moment.

re:lapse – Hello
This second EP by Tokyo shoegazers re:lapse follows up their debut with similarly slight J-Pop melodies drenched in washes of gentle distortion.

Forbear – Numb
They might explain the mismatch between the title of this EP (4songs) and the number of songs on it (5) as being because one of them is a cover, but I have a suspicion the real reason is that they’ve already released an EP called 5songs and didn’t want to change the tracklist. Either way, it’s another strong release, covering distorted 1990s indie rock territory loosely around bands like Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr., proto-emo and, in the case of Numb, maybe even some of the scuzzier forgotten ends of Britpop like The Longpigs.

Boris – Beyond Good and Evil
Perhaps the most completely representative track from the fantastic album W, which in some ways functions as a gentler counterpoint to the heavier No from 2020, leaning a bit more on the shoegaze end of the same general toolbox of sounds.

The Earth Earth – Just Like You
This self-titled album by Aomori shoegazers The Earth Earth has been a long time coming, and its release from KiliKiliVilla, one of the hotter labels in the Japanese alternative scene at the moment (who also released the Boris album) means it will probably send some much deserved attention up to the often forgotten expanses of northern Japan.

jailbird Y – PIX-ME
The first of two tracks from releases this site’s partner label Call And Response has put out so far this year, this noise-punk band from Hiroshima (vocalist Anndoe is also part of A.P.O.S.) released Duality, their first album in over ten years and their first ever with what’s more or less the current lineup in March and, with all caveats for bias, it’s a riot.

おとぼけビ～バ～ / Otoboke Beaver – 携帯みてしまいました / I checked your cellphone
At a time when rock is increasingly dead as a genre and words like indie and alternative are meaningless, Otoboke Beaver are the Japanese band who, maybe more than anyone outside the major label circus, seem to come up in conversations with people overseas. Part of that must surely come down to what a good job UK label Damnably have done giving a platform for them to impress with their raucous punk nonsense (the band describe themselves as genreless but they’re absolutely a punk band in its broad sense), and it’s interesting seeing overseas labels hooking noisy Japanese bands up with audiences that are in sparse supply in the insipid citypop-medicated Japanese music scene, but their new album Super Champon shows that fundamentally the band are just devastatingly effective at wringing something weird and memorable out of something as simple and minimal as punk rock.

oops – ヌートリア / Nutria
These Osaka punks kicked off the new year with a new release, titled simply Demo, with a new singer, Minami Yokota formerly of o’summer vacation and LLRR, and her distinctive voice does a good job of highlighting the band’s existing quirkiness and invention, moving that off-kilter aspect of their sound a little more to centre stage.

worst taste – お願いシンパシー / Onegai Sympathy
The second of Call And Response’s releases from the year, Akumu ni Warae! is another comeback of sorts (although like Jailbird Y, the band have continued to be a very active live proposition), marking what’s essentially Tokyo punk/alternative trio Worst Taste’s first album in ten years. As I say, it’s one we released ourselves, so we’re biased, but it’s a delightfully demented, carnivalesque whirl through the goofy-smart fringes of punk, garage and new wave, shot through with a structural intelligence in the arrangements.

Nicfit – Human Inane
Another band who made a bit of a bang overseas thanks to their release from UK label Upset the Rhythm, Nicfit have been a longstanding feature of the Nagoya underground scene with their distorted, twisted art-punk. With their previous releases coming out piecemeal on a series of singles, split releases and compilations, Fuse is their first time tackling the challenge of a full album from scratch and it’s top notch.

WBSBFK – Haircut
Also from Nagoya, WBSBFK (pronounced “wabi-sabi fuu-kay”) took their time following up their 2017 album Open Your Eyes, but the results on Grotesk seem to pick up their sparse, precise post-punk more or less where they left off, finding new ways of expressing as few emotions as possible using as limited a range of sounds as they can. This dedication to minimalism, however, means that even the smallest diversion or distortion has even greater impact when it sneaks through.

The Noup – Geodesic
Hailing from Okayama, The Noup made a minor but noticeable impact in the Japanese underground scene with their tightly wound 2018 kraut-noise debut Flaming Psychic Heads, but with this follow-up, Nexpansion, they’ve dialled it back to stripped down beats and finely honed repetition, like Nisennenmondai’s entire career trajectory condensed into the step from one album to the next. There’s more than four years of silence in that leap from 2018 to now though, and you can also hear elements of drummer/vocalist Takafumi Okada’s side gig as a member of rhythmical ensemble Goat, as well as his own solo work as Manisdron here.

former_airline – Phenomena
One of Tokyo’s most reliably prolific artists, former_airline continues to explore the fruitful, faintly melancholic 1980s landscape bordering krautrock, post-punk, shoegaze, dub, minimal wave and ambient music in his very nice new Control Factor EP.

Jin Cromanyon – Stone henji
Taken from the Synth in Japan split album with Tokyo’s always excellent Soloist Anti Pop Totalization from the Berlin-based Objet Trouvé label (released as an LP in a series of increasingly expensive and limited edition boutique packaging designs), Jin Cromanyon provided the bouncy and unashamedly pop counterpoint to the dark sonics of the Soloist Anti Pop Totalization side.

Masami Takashima – Stairs-01
Takamatsu-based Masami Takashima is known primarily as a singer-songwriter and as part of the new wave trio Miu Mau, but on her latest solo album she takes a more experimental, instrumental route, weaving piano and keyboard through intriguing electronic soundscapes (or sometimes simple silence).

Punk roundup (Summer 2020)

With the remarkable increase in new music releases finding their way onto the web since the COVID-19 pandemic cut off or restricted live outlets for bands to get their music out to people, it’s been a struggle to keep on top of it all. Punk bands in particular thrive in a live environment, but there’s been a lot of new releases keeping things alive on the noisy side (including a couple from my own label, which I’m not going to be ashamed about sharing here too). With that in mind, here’s a roundup of some of the releases that from the first half (or two thirds or whatever) of this year.

The MSGS – Ghost
Based in Fukuoka, although with guitar/vocal “Mr. Paal” recently relocated to Korea, The MSGS specialise in three-minute blasts of pop-punk that find a neat balance between clean harmonies with razor-cut guitar buzz and just enough of a rough Get Up Kids edge to retain the natural feeling of a band playing the songs together in a room. This means that while songs like opener September Sky are as effective a shot-in-the-arm of hyper-efficient melodic punk as you’ll find anywhere, when the band ease off the gas and give the songs a bit more space to breathe, there’s a mature pop songwriting heart beating there, with third track Victoria in particular embodying the best of both worlds. (Album will be released on August 19th)

Daiei Spray – Behind the Wall
Raucous, punk rock in a Hüsker Dü vein, Daiei Spray’s Behind the Wall is a deliriously rough buggy ride through ramshackle harmonies, distortional detours and rebel yells, from (at least in part) Tokyo’s always reliable Debauch Mood label (who released the My Society Pissed 12-inch also featured on this page). The lyrics ricochet back and forth between Japanese and English anti-authoritarian sloganeering with a thread of almost self-help positive thinking for the rebel masses, while despite the music’s rough-and-ready delivery, there’s also a willingness on songs like Overdone to play with more complex or unpredictable dynamics.

getageta – EP + 7 songs & Hell
This collection of tracks originally recorded around 2013-2014 seems to represent the complete recorded output of this thrillingly unhinged, band. I already reviewed this album as part of the Undrcurrents blog’s second Bandcamp roundup in June, so have a look over there for more of my thoughts.

My Society Pissed – Stomach
Another release featured in my contribution to the Undrcurrents blog’s second Bandcamp roundup in June, this cassette EP by My Society Pissed helped make April a particularly productive month for the band, with their 12-inch also coming out around the same time. A short but versatile blast of off-kilter punk rock, it’s a powerful introduction to the band.

Born Shit Stirrers – Lester
From song titles like Old Punks Are All Cunts and Fuck My Fucking Life you wouldn’t think it, but Lester is in many ways a cheerier, more lighthearted, more functional version of Born Shit Stirrers than they’ve shown us on any of their previous albums. The short, incoherent punk punches to the face are all present and familiar to anyone who’s encountered the band before (despite the promise of its title, the song Two Minutes Back In Hartlepool doesn’t even make it to 40 seconds), but musically the palette is wider, making room for cheesy rock solos, laid-back interludes and even the treacherous territory of pop in places. This isn’t a retreat from the band’s hardcore principles though, so much as a more effective expression of what the band always were. The machine gun etiquette of Born Shit Stirrers’ rage was always self-mocking, with the band themselves as much the butt of the joke for their whirlwinds of impotent fury as the petty grievances of life that they railed against were. On Lester, the band are still losers and scumbags, but we’re all brought just a little bit more in on the joke — and as a result, maybe it’s a little easier to see the squalid Born Shit Stirrer in ourselves.

Sassya- / VACANT – Sassya- x VACANT split
Harsh post-hardcore abrasions juxtaposing explosions of effects-drenched guitar and panic-wrought vocals with tight, sparse, intricate rhythms define Sassya’s approach on the first two tracks of this split EP. Vacant bring a heavier, riff-driven grind to their two tracks, but nonetheless share some if the same mathematical repetition and angular dynamics with their disc-mates. The result is a brutal and caustic sounding EP with music underscored by intricacy and intelligence.

M.A.Z.E. – Tour Tape 2020
This cassette EP was initially meant to support a split tour with US post-punk/no wave band Warm Bodies, which was cancelled due to the onset of Covid chaos this spring. The EP, made of six one-minute shots of brittle, post-punk-tinged garage recordings, has the muddy, fleeting feel of a moment of live energy captured on tape, and looking back over past releases this “this is us, this is what you get” simplicity seems to be the space that the band feel most comfortable in.

LLRR – < = >
Kansai-based LLRR’s background pulls in connections to bands including Tokyo’s Otori, Kobe’s O’Summer Vacation among others, and listeners familiar with those bands will feel get a sense of where LLRR are coming from immediately from the hyperactive, jittery rhythms and Minami Yokota’s shrill chatter that kick off opening track Shūmatsu no Fool. This EP uses those familiar sharp post-punk slashes, wandering bass lines, effects-enriched guitar textures and unpredictable rhythms to carve its own path between the experimental and downright pop. All of which makes < = > an extremely impressive debut, albeit one currently with no physical release, means to purchase online, or full lineup to play live with. The whole EP is available on subscription services though, for those who have access to them.

My Society Pissed – Locked Room
In addition to their Stomach cassette EP, this April also saw My Society Pissed release this six-song EP which expands on the band’s tortured, deviant take on punk rock. Opening song Circle Dancing sets things up with its relentless, doom-laden bass line and scratchy, discordant guitars, while Volcanic Reaction kicks things into a more frenetic pace, while retaining some of the scratchy, disconcerting internal sonic disorder. Throughout the record, the band walk a line between arty post-punk deviation and a core of raw, Stooges-like 1970s rock’n’roll riffs and thrills.

illMilliliter / TG.Atlas – 900%
The first of a couple of releases that I’ve worked on through my Call And Response label here, so think of this less as a review than as just my own insider’s take. This split EP comes from a similar place to the Sassya-/Vacant split earlier on in this article, with both bands taking a post-hardcore approach, playing with the juxtaposition between intricately constructed arrangements and blasts of harsh guitar noise and distortion. Of the two, Tokyo’s illMillliliter take the more precise and minimal approach, the opening Short Sleeper building a menacing quiet/loud dynamic while Powerpoint is uncompromisingly fast and furious, if no less brutally sharp. Hokkaido band TG.Atlas slash their way across the canvas in a more expressionistic fashion, with a similar consciousness of and willing to play with the spaces inside the music, but less mathematical in how they unleash the storms of sonic violence across it all.

jailbird Y – Secret Code Y
Another release from my own Call And Response label, this single by Jailbird Y was originally recorded while on tour in Taiwan last year (the cover photo is of the entrance to Taipei underground record store Senko Issha) and released as a fundraiser for Tokyo live venue Moonstep. The opening Y War combines hyperactive almost bubblegum new wave delivery with hardcore energy, while the second track, Love Letter (a new recording of a song that the previous lineup of the band recorded for their 2017 Sex Trip EP) comes in darker and more portentous, before the band’s anarchic, frenzied approach to song arrangements takes over and wreaks its customary mayhem.

June 2020 Bandcamp recommendations

Earlier this month, I wrote a rundown of ten recent Japanese Bandcamp releases over on the US-based Undrcurrents blog, covering punk, experimental, indiepop and a little bit of electronic and hip-hop, with releases by Barbican Estate (also covered on this site), a new Puffyshoes, My Society Pissed, Uhnellys, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto & Riki Hidaka, Phew, Yoshida Shoko and Getageta, plus compilations from Tokyo’s Discipline underground event and from the local music scene in Kumamoto, Kyushu. Check out my comments and links to the music here.

And if you’re still in the mood to explore, my own Call And Response label has been going through its back catalogue and uploading old releases to Bandcamp where the artists themselves haven’t already made them available. The page also has Call And Response’s new release, the Secret Code Y single from Hiroshima noise-punks Jailbird Y, so check that out if you only check out one new release today (all funds go to helping out one of our local live venues, Nakano Moonstep). All non-compilation releases are now available to listen/buy, with links to them all on the label’s top page here.

Top 20 Releases of 2017: No.11 – jailbird Y – Sex Trip EP

7-inch vinyl, Pexpox, 2017

Jailbird Y had a rough year in 2017, with the release of this EP of explosive noise-rock coinciding with the entire band quitting, leaving vocalist Anndoe to reconstruct the band anew from the ground up with each successive gig. This chaos in the band’s internal life can perhaps be viewed from afar as simply an extrusion into physical space of the hyperactive, swirling insanity of their music. In that sense, one has to admire their dedication to their art.

The Sex Trip EP consists of just two main songs, with the one-minute noise instrumental Chinboru rounding the vinyl EP out the three tracks in total. As squalls of machine noise overlaid with what sound like the the warbling oscillations of a 1960s sci-fi movie teleporter go, the instrumental is very much of a piece with the hyperactive, loosely hardcore-influenced junk of Jailbird Y’s typically playful songwriting.

Playful is the right word too, because in contrast to the posturing machismo and earnestness of much hardcore and hardcore-influenced music, Jailbird Y can be deliciously camp at times. The vocals on Goemon come across like tortured, demonic chipmunks, but when they bring the noise, it lands like a metric tonne of sheet metal. Love Letter, meanwhile, opens like a Teutonic nightmare, the stamping boots of a conquering robot army, before lurching into gear in a frenzied flurry of screams, twisted guitars and dubby effects.

The download retails, rather confusingly, for ¥100,000 on their Bandcamp, or ¥1000 for the vinyl. The EP also includes download-only remixes of Love Letter and Goemon by Shinji Masuko from DMBQ. Remixes are usually a pointless addition at best, but Masuko clearly gets what makes the original songs tick and takes them in his own, Love Letter From Berder Kingdom drawing out and expanding on the song’s dubby elements, and Goemon Had Formed a band in 2000s remaining true to the song’s – and the band’s – chaotic heart.