Issue #80: Balallel World
This Side of Japan returns with the new bala album, Kinki Kids' "Jet Coaster Romance" and more recommendations from our friends
Hi! Welcome to This Side of Japan, a newsletter on Japanese music, new and old. You can check out previous issues here.
By now as we enter our fifth month of the year, 2024 should have given us plenty of great new music. And so the second installment of Friends Recommends formally covers exciting releases from this calendar year, the picks all chosen by our friends here with This Side of Japan. You’ve seen a couple of their names in past issues, and I’m stoked to invite over a new one as well into the fold. I can’t cover everything, so I’m glad they’re here to make up for what I can’t.
Enjoy!
Kanra recommends…
“Uyo” by downt [P-Vine]
SAKANA EP by up-and-coming indie-rock band downt was a release I played on loop constantly by the end of 2022, sneakily becoming one of my favorites that year. And my expectations were through the roof for their followup, Underlight & Aftertime. What I got was a somewhat darker, looser set of songs that continued to both expand and refine the group’s sound. “Uyo” is my favorite of the new pieces for this album, stretching out to exactly 5 minutes but never feeling its length. It starts in a quiet twinkle-emo space, just like “See You Again” on SAKANA, before it explodes, singer Togashi making damn sure that every word she says counts. Had the lumbering 8-minute epic “13gatsu” been left off the actual record, this beautiful and potent bit of post-rock catharsis could’ve made for a very effective album closer. —Kanra
Underlight & Aftertime is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
You can find Kanra on Twitter and Substack.
Leika recommends…
“Lightweight” by Johnnivan [P-Vine]
Waseda University has produced some of the biggest movers and shakers of Japan such as the current prime minister (it’s Fumio Kishida right now, BTW) and world-renowned writer Haruki Murakami. And now the canon would like to welcome the indie-rock band Johnnivan. More important than the group’s background, though, is those of its members, from Japan, South Korea, and notably, its English-singing lead Jonathan Sullivan who identifies with both American and Japanese nationality.
In their interview from 2022 with the Angura YouTube channel, the 5-member band talk about their goals of not just consistently making good music but also improving themselves, with the goal of a 10-album streak in mind, making each better than the last. Now in 2024, as they ramp up to album number 3, Johnnivan lean into classic rock with their new single “Lightweight.” The song embodies a conflict between vibes and thought: you're at a dark house party experiencing unfiltered euphoria when your good friend Sullivan stumbles into the room trapping you along with his anxieties and resists any support uttering, “And tell me not to worry / How am I not to worry” and “I don’t need anything / I think I need the Lord.” Despite being self-aware enough to make note of the symptoms of his unease, he’s stuck and left behind: even as the song reaches its anthemic climax, he can find no resolution. Unfortunately, not even your elite education can save you from such human troubles. —Leika
Listen to it on Spotify/Bandcamp.
Catch Leika out and about in sunny California and on Twitter and Instagram.
Mustafa recommends…
“Konomama” by Layla [Office Augusta]
“I’m just trying to live for tomorrow.”
Layla have been one of the most important personal discoveries I’ve made in recent years, with their music defining so many memories ever since I found them in late 2022. I have so much admiration and respect for Aria and Miura, the duo behind the project, and how they’ve pushed through challenges over the years to continue creating and playing music together, shining as a beacon of everything I believe in artistry and authenticity.
In my eyes, “Konomama” does exactly what Miura described last year as his hopes for the future of Layla: surpass and subvert the expectations of their listeners. The duo excel at pushing emotions into overdrive—it’s one of the things I love most about their music. And the song opens with an electric guitar that sounds as if it’s about to lead into an energetic first verse, only for it to be immediately followed by a drone that sounds just like an amp powering down. Miura’s subtly rough guitars eventually culminate with the gentle, softer notes, uniting to express the song’s themes: that lethargy and compromise of the daily can be something beautiful.
Serious topics of hardship, loneliness and lost connections come to mind when I think of Layla’s music, so it makes “Konomama” all the more unique to me as it instead focuses on facing more on the mundane and trying to identify signs of meaning amidst it all. All of my favourite songs from Layla feature heartfelt or frustrated cries of choruses, but here, I love the way Aria sings carefully and measured through a faint filter that makes it sound like her words are rising up from under water. In the chorus, her voice quivers ever so slightly as if she feels, yet immediately resists, the urge to raise her voice, and her inflection of “kono ma-maaa” masterfully sounds like a tired sigh manifest as speech.
A song like “Konomama” that demonstrates balance instead of overflow lends it a special place in the work of Layla. The duo frame their observations as a self-fulfilling question without need of an answer. Accepting life’s idle moments in the song, instead of contesting it, is a wonderful approach to tackle the universal feeling of stagnation. “Konomama” is a song that only they could express in this precise manner, and yet another achievement in their incomparable discography. —Mustafa
Tsuzuku EP is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
You can find Mustafa on Twitter and Substack. You can also check out his interview with Layla here.
Welcome back to This Side of Japan after a month-long break! So back in March, as I first went into my short vacation, I thought I could get a head start on these issues as the newsletter started rolling again in May. And here we are—late! Please take our special issues published during April as compensation. They were treats to hold you over the break, but also projects I really wanted to work on for some time. I hope you enjoyed them! If you haven’t seen them, you can check them here and here.
Big thanks to our friends for those recommendations, and below you will see my picks on new music, including some nostalgic filter house talk, tracks I describe as “prog pop” and “vaguely Grouper if they spend some time out in the sun,” and a boy band classic.
Happy listening!
Album of the Week
bala-llel world EP by bala [ASOBIMUSIC]
*Recommended track: “barla” | Listen to it on Spotify
If the press pitch for bala — a “girls artist and creators collective” — sounds too convoluted, take the introduction from the unit themselves. “Here we are / genius hyper gals,” the four close out “Heavenly,” the first track off their bala-llel world EP, with a dreamy sigh as the muffled beat fades out, like an advert for a getaway vacation. An approximation of what I presume of gyaru, “gals” ties a neat bow on to the identity of the group’s music, a triangulation of much of current, Y2K-nostalgic pop from skittish garage-house to street-fab R&B. But it also signals the EP’s focus on the cultures as well as the fleeting experience of youth, all explored within the space of their dance-pop music.
The sound defining the gals of bala in their EP leans sleek in finish. Rather than, say, the unhinged garishness of hyperpop, the first two tracks see the group boogie to the glistening hop-skip grooves of filter house. A duo of producers Ryan Hemsworth and Giraffage, Bodysync smack with the brightest of keys in “Heavenly,” which packs a particular punch as it abruptly emerges from the subgenre’s famed filter sweep. Known Daft Punk fan Shinichi Osawa competes with booming four-on-the-floor keys in his supply of cut-up funk in “barla”; the drum-led beat lays down a solid grid for the group’s hip-hop posturing, furnishing a home for both raps and diva vocals.
For those who find the French-house production locating into too niche a turn-of-the-century nostalgia, producer LLLL hands in a more recognizable callback to the wake of the 2000s. “Galaxy in Your Eyes” runs on a glittery drum ’n’ bass beat with a soft, twinkling shimmer fitting to decorate the group’s titular ode to a crush. Meanwhile, “Freedom” taps into garage-house, the members gliding across its glossy synths and slinky drums as a dial tone blares across the waves. bala’s raps, too, cool into a smooth cadence. “Don’t hold your breath / When you take a step forward / enter a trance with the beat,” they go, flowing like water while the busy beat zigzags behind them.
Though bala often indulge in raps, the influence of rap music seems rather incidental throughout the EP. They adopt rapping more as a stylistic trope as they’ve heard countless pop acts before them use the form, simply a piece from the favorite music they grew up listening to. There’s hardly any overt gesture at some explicit, street cool, no calls to bring attention to what they’re borrowing. They’re more enamored by the thrilling bounce of the cadences and how it can function as an extension of their own charisma. The way they wield it, it works as youth language of kids just being kids, best displayed in the second verse of “barla” that rallies like an innocent cypher between the gals.
The energy put forth by both the members and the beat-makers goes a long way to drive their songs as the lively vehicles as they are. The lyrics falter upon close examination as they often read self-indulgent, the group’s motives and ambitions lacking much depth. Admittedly, their songs are not meant to be all that deep, yet it can easily seem bare as it does when it chills down into proper hip-hop speed in “LIKE THAT” without much momentum to fall back on. Bara-llel World thrives when it’s so consumed in the rush of the collective’s own lust for life, regardless of them being clear on what they’re exactly pumped about. At their best, bala captures this optimism of being young, feeling like an electric experience is moments away, through music that’s just as awe-struck and alive.
Singles Club
“BAKU” by KOTONOHOUSE, DC Mizey & e5 [Kawaii Dance]
Let’s cut to the chase and get to that drop of “BAKU”: that sour screech blaring out from an otherwise dreamy synth-scape with a break beat rolling underneath. Perhaps the noise is business as usual for KOTONOHOUSE, who has lately been flexing their hand dealing with the loud as much as the neon-bright. But e5 is equally responsible for animating such EDM pyrotechnics, the central rapper so enthralled by the sounds as she runs through a tough, rapid-fire verse. I recommend you watch the music video above to really feel the excitement pumping through the collab: “Wait, oh shit, is that a Nintendo DS?,” e5 remarks of spotting the console as a filming device before she gets into her live set, and both her and the audience look like they’re having the time of her life.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Dive Out” by Divermy; “Pink Gang” by the telephones ft. 4s4ki
“Cycle of Love” by marucoporoporo [FLAU]
marucoporoporo places her folk songs in a hall of mirrors in the entrancing “Cycle of Love.” The rich twinkle from her guitar picking refracts a warm, gossamer ambiance as it touches the air; the deep echoes makes the solo musician’s wispy vocals sound as though she’s humming along to her own song in real time, estimating her own lyrics as she goes. Seemingly unbound by gravity, the ethereal production positions her latest batch of music closer to the realm of ambient, vaguely like a Grouper track with some time out in the sun. It’s only a small offering from her upcoming new album, Conceive the Sea, that already promises a world full of entrancing music like this.
Conceive the Sea is out May 15. Listen to the single on Bandcamp/Spotify.
See also: “Fuyu No Asa” by Rhucle & Asami Tono; “Yoake” by sagara nao & uami
“Kyosou Mirai Romantica” by Risa Takeda [MY BEST!]
A first glimpse into the multi-instrumentalist’s upcoming new album, “Kyosou Mirai Romantica” sees Risa Takeda pivot back to pop—compared to her more experimental output from the past year anyway. An immediate burst of rampant pianos and a restlessly skittering drum beat opens the proggy 7-minute track before Takeda graces her vocals. If you’re not already familiar with her brazen 2019 full-length, Meteoros, the discordant jazz might call back to the maximalist pop of Hakushi Hasegawa for some. But that’s before she fully dives into her own world in the extensive breakdown, indulging in what resembles a fantastical theme from her imagined soundtrack of a solo album. There’s so much commotion in “Kyosou Mirai Romantica” yet never any disorder as Takeda wield chaos with full control.
Listen to it on Spotify.
This Week in 1998…
“Jet Coaster Romance” by KinKi Kids [Johnny’s, 1998]
No. 1 during the week of May 4, 1998 | Listen to it on YouTube
Many idol groups would kill for a romancing song like “Jet Coaster Romance” as their debut single. “I want to gather these spectacular winds and steal you away,” the duo’s Tsuyoshi and Koichi Domoto sang in the opening refrain that’s practically designed to be serenaded by a pair of teen heartthrobs, and they extend a question with a knowing confidence: “Is that fine with you?” As their band’s glistening jazz-funk beats behind them like the summer sun, ready to take you into an effervescent romance, the answer couldn’t be anything other than “yes.”
There is an alternate timeline in which “Jet Coaster Romance” introduced KinKi Kids to the public as the duo’s first impression, but Tatsuro Yamashita sensed that “Jet Coaster Romance” wasn’t up to snuff after he sent over the demo1. After all, the record to debut KinKi Kids had to be good enough not only to hit number-one but also move a million copies per order from the late Johnny Kitagawa, the then-head of what’s now reformed as STARTO Entertainment. Even given the stature of STARTO during the mid-’90s, this was a brutal request. The company hadn’t landed a million-seller since the early ’80s, and their biggest act then, SMAP2 wouldn’t succeed until its 27th single, 1998’s “Yozoranomuko,” but not without putting in work outside of music.
Together with legendary lyricist Takashi Matsumoto, Yamashita at least fulfilled the other request placed in that order: write a song based on the life of young boys in their teens. For “Jet Coaster Romance,” Matsumoto mocked up a scenario seemingly out of a rom-com for the duo to act out on record. “The two of us / pretended we got lost from our friends / and headed off to the cape,” the idols open the second verse. If the extensive scene-setting in the lyricism didn’t echo Showa-era songs, the beatific funk conjured some of the decadence inherent in pop records about a decade before “Jet Coaster Romance” hit stores.
The decision to pass on “Jet Coaster Romance” as the first look into these teen idols perhaps become clearer in hindsight. KinKi Kids arrived instead with 1997’s “Glass No Shonen,” which also involved Yamashita and Matsumoto. Their formal debut embodied not excitement of youth but its yearning melancholy. While the music outfitted them also in slick jazz-funk from the recent pop past, it evoked a much more forlorn piece of nostalgia. The two wore not this brazen confidence afforded by those at the top of the school-ground caste but a deeply fragile masculinity that was often hidden from plain sight.
As time later showed, this moodiness defined the duo’s main mode during their early years. “Jet Coaster Romance” makes better sense in retrospect as the alternative face of the group. This is the sweet getaway from a more bitter reality. If you’re not already subscribed to what they’re out here to sell you, “Jet Coaster Romance” won’t surprise you as Matsumoto presents a narrative with them playing it straight to the script of being teen idols. That said, the duo can indulge in a romance fantasy as deftly as their confessions of heartbreak. The climbing, nostalgic music behind them mimics not the spiraling course of its titular ride but the rising anticipation before the big drop. And if you let them, KinKi Kids lovingly convince that they can steal you away to somewhere dreamier, if only for a moment.
You can listen to all of the songs covered so far in this section in this playlist here.
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Later recorded as a track in their A Album, “Kiss Kara Hajimaru Mystery” is another rejected candidate for the KinKi debut. Again, it’s a single an idol group would die to have as a single—who could resist a record made by Takashi Matsumoto and Tetsuro Yamashita? And against the duo’s catalog, it’s not a bad song at all. The words I wrote here, though, can similarly apply to “Kiss Kara…” as well. Now that we know which song they actually would go with, yeah, something far better was waiting for them.
Recently on his talk show Dareka To Nakai with Koichi as a guest, former SMAP leader Masahiro Nakai talked about seeing KinKi debut: “People didn’t come see [SMAP], our CDs didn’t sell… And three, four years later, around I think our 10th [single], we got number one for the first time. So when I heard [KinKi] was going to have a debut single, I thought they wouldn’t sell much. People don’t care about idols anymore anyway. There’s no way. And then they debut at number one with a million sold. I was in shock.”