Tower Records, Tokyo, sports the slogan ‘No Music, No Life’. Expanding this equation to ‘Silence = Death’ convinced me to don some headphones.
Now, J-Music (Japanese Music) has something of a bad reputation. If Pop manufactures bands, J-Pop manufactures them and then wraps them up and ties a pretty pink bow. Or so I thought.
Yet listening to a shop-floor’s-worth of J-Music has opened my ears to some surprisingly palatable sounds.
Here’s a rundown of what I heard:
Kiga – J-punk – Screamy energy.
Fragment – J-Club – Spacial eerie beats for early morning clubbing
Fear and Las Vegas – J-Punk – Teeny vocal synth.
Kunyuki Takahashi – J-Cub – Jazzy prog beats.
Yuki – J-Classic – Whispering classy concerto.
Christmas Time Bosa Compilation – J-Pop – Sweetly digitalised snowy treats.
Fantasma – J-Club – Dirty turntable sample jokeying with trombone.
Suburban EP2 – J-Hiphop – Ghetto jazz for Starbucks.
Temp5 – J-Indies – Cheery tonal loopiness with twiddles.
Juju: Request – J-Pop – Piano + classy bird + ‘pop creation for dummies’ book.
Acidman – J-Rock – Easing into wild and wacky crescendo.
So there we have it. J-Music. A mixed bag, as with any music, but worth more of a listen than you may realise…
