Top 30 Releases of 2020: No. 25-21

25. kasuppa – the half you left and right
Kasuppa have been around for a while in the local indie scene in their hometown of Kobe and nearby Osaka, but not yet made much of an impact more broadly. This ambitious two-parter would have been a great opportunity for them to spread their wings had fate not intervened, and it remains a strong indie rock stsatement, its sparse, rough-edged appeal given a warm intimacy, with some thanks for that perhaps due to engineer Ryohei Tomomatsu and mixing/mastering engineer Ryo Watanabe (of alt-rock/post-punk veterans Convex Level). The way it was released on two CDs despite fitting easily on one gives it the feel of an old vinyl double-album and emphasises the independent (if related) identities of the “left” and “right” discs. Quite what each disc signifies is open to interpretation, with the “left” side seeming to focus on the blankness left behind by a failed relationship, while the “right” side seems to circle around the feeling of being trapped, not entirely unwillingly, in a relationship that won’t end. A garden of forking paths look at two possible results of a troubled affair? Two sides of the same breakup? In any case, these divergent takes on alienation and disaffection provide subtly different emotional climates for each. While the second disc deploys more fuzz and distortion, it would perhaps have been interesting had the band pushed this duality further by pushing more distinctive sonic approaches to the two discs as well, but their brand of cosy indie rock with art-punk edges is nonetheless an appealing partner on the whole journey.

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24. My Society Pissed – Locked Room
There’s a looseness to My Society Pissed that sets them apart from a lot of their Japanese punk contemporaries, pulling them away from hardcore into something more primal and less dogmatic. This 12-inch opens with a distinctive and drawn out, distorted groove before it gives the listener any easy punk thrills, while on tracks like Arms of Solid, there’s a garage-rock bounce to the heartbeat that helps give Locked Room the freshness and freedom from the genre’s own locked rooms that reminds me of those 1970s punk records from before even the punks themselves really knew what punk was.

More about this release here.

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23. Loolowningen & The Far East Idiots – Anökumene
Tokyo-based trio Loolowningen & The Far East Idiots trade in rhythmically quirky but melodically accessible music, both experimental and playful, shot through with humour and a philosophical whimsy that occasionally shades into melancholy. Also notable as cheerleaders for other like-minded artists around Japan (via their own Mitoho Sessions events and last year from the related Mitohos compilation), they make something that could be difficult approachable and welcoming.

Read more about this release here.

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22. Ryo Okada – outerzone
As the guitarist from psychedelic post-punk trio Extruders, Ryo Okada is responsible for a lot of the sparse, meandering misdirections of the band’s sound, so it’s perhaps natural to expect that, stripped of the formal structures and rhythms of songs, his solo work revels in the space. What he does with that space is craft eerie moonscapes just beyond the reach of daily existence — the disorientating ambient outerzones to the Burroughsian interzones he carves out with the Extruders’ oblique take on rock. Compared with its companion, the (also excellent) Snow Mountain EP that Okada released earlier in the year, Outerzone is sonically deeper and more abstract, less a transmission from behind the veil than a transformative energy that wraps you in its alien psychosphere.

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21. Sloppy Joe – Waiting For The Night Begins
It’s impossible to talk about Sloppy Joe without mentioning all the bands they sound like, but they’d never get away with it if the songwriting fundamentals that underscore the jangle and Mozzy hoots weren’t exquisite. They will always be something of a guilty pleasure for me, but the arrival of this unexpected comeback album in the summer of 2020 meant that pleasure landed with extra unrestrained force. Every chime is an immaculate delight.

More on this release here.

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.