Issue #82: Conceive the Sea
Exploring the new marucporoporo album, Shizuka Kudo's "Arashi No Sugao" and the indie-rock hits on TikTok
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The buzz behind noa’s “Zenhoukoubishojo” (or “Any Angle,” as the English title has it) has yet to die down since the song’s spread on TikTok from the start of 2024. While its multi-angle-shot meme (referenced in its music video) might have cooled off, the overall hype built for the solo rocker has only transferred along to her follow-up song, “Hatsukoi Killer.” Well, within the Tok’s ecosystem anyway: the success of her music has been dependent on its life on the app, most evident from the single actually released before it, which without her self-promotion had only done the fraction of the numbers of “Zenhoukoubishojo.”
“Zenhoukoubishojo” by noa [self-released]
If noa’s an exemplary TikTok artist is a whole other question. Was her music born from the platform, for the platform, or is she just really great at participating in it? My listening experience of her singles are so intertwined with their appearance on the app, it’s hard to separate the song from the meme it inspired, especially with that start-stop guitar riff of “Zenhoukoubishojo” that syncs so well with the fun jump cuts. Her lyrics, though, digs at an emotional impulse that extends beyond a particular dance: “Even if I look at you from the front / look at you from the side / look at you from below / you got it going on, girl,” noa sings, subliminally encouraging the feelin’ myself kind of selfies that fills so much of the feed. The spiky rock music just so happened to inspire a particular presentation.
Within her residence in TikTok, singer Mulasaki Ima capitalizes on a similar self-indulgence explored in noa’s song in “Masei No Onna A,” or “Femme Fatale A.” “Even Cleopatra is fascinated,” she sings to a rosy jazz-funk tune, and this bar before the chorus conveniently acts as the beginning of the song’s snippet currently circulating on the feed: “Femme fatale, her face line is like Madonna / Her upturned eyes, they give me the chills / Captivated by you, I’m in love.” In isolation, the single keeps meek about the specific identity of its subject. But it resonates wholly different in the app, as a readymade soundtrack for the person in front of the selfie camera to portray the femme fatale. Especially with idols and influencers indulging in this loose meme, it becomes hard to see the single serve any other purpose.
“Masei No Onna A” by Mulasaki Ima [Sony]
Whether or not they’re tied to a meme, the rock songs I associate with TikTok tend to hint at a particular emotional tone on a subliminal level. One explored well through the melodramatic indie-rock of Indigo La End, whose song is currently a hit choice to soundtrack selfies and slide shows: “Namae Wa Kataomoi,” or one-sided is the name. While I come across content synced to wholesome rock tunes time to time—have you seen the andymori memes yet?—this tinge of dissatisfaction felt in songs like Indigo La End somehow strikes a fitting tone for the more mundane content in the feed.
The looming presence of this overall lovelorn mood allows a band like Lala to exist in the app as if a part of a grander aesthetic. While the three-piece injects “WAKARE NO KISS DE” with a lot more pop bounce than Kawatani’s song, that propulsion seems a result of the break-up-inspired angst flowing in the music as reflected from the song title on: “Hey you, do you really think / after your break-up kiss / I’m going to just be fine and go back home”,” goes the chorus. Though I’ve yet to stumble upon them as I scroll, the band’s other singles wouldn’t feel out of place behind a selfie with its similar self-consuming obsession with love. The titles get even more straight to the point: “Shinimonogurui De Koi Wo Shita,” or fell in love like my life depended on it, and “Damasareteageru” or I’ll be fooled for you, which sings about the going back to an ex’s house even if you know damn well you shouldn’t.
This lack of self-respect also plagues the protagonist in noa’s “Hatsukoi Killer.” The singer-songwriter expounds on the conundrum of getting close to that handsome boy who’s clearly out to play with her heart despite others warning her not to. But the song’s elastic pop rhythm makes the romance sound too enticing to avoid it; selfies set to this song hardly minds the messiness, occupied instead in striking poses befitting the song’s jagged sprung spunk. Noa clearly doesn’t mind the possible trainwreck for the sake of pleasure: “Life is short, the night is long,” she advises. At least, plunging into treacherous waters will make for good content.
I was planning on drafting up a listicle exploring songs on TikTok for this issue, but once I got to talking about the big one by noa to set up context for the other rock songs in a similar vein, it already seemed like a lengthy enough read. I still want to discuss the Vocaloid songs and hyperpop songs living in the app; I still want to go long on ILLIT’s “Magnetic” despite it being K-pop. Maybe I will save these entries for another issue.
If you want to stay TikTok-free, there’s more music below, covering ambient folk, seiyuu 2-step, and an idol classic. Happy listening!
Album of the Week
Conceive the Sea by marucoporoporo [FLAU]
Recommended track: “Conceive the Sea” | Listen to it on Bandcamp/Spotify
A search for community roots laid the inspiration for multimedia artist Taki Nao and her performance-art piece, “Conceive the Sea,” commissioned last year by the city of Nagoya as a part of an arts event. While the piece’s oceanic title gestures to the history informing the venue of Kasadera Kannon, once an island in a past era, Taki elaborated on our ties with water that begin from the time in the womb. Human life ultimately leads back to the sea, and that common origin point links everyone together as one, including the invited dancers, musicians and visual artists, for Taki’s piece in hopes to create something inspired and new.
After working with Taki for the performance-art piece, marucoporoporo continued with the new ideas picked up from the collaboration to craft her own Conceive the Sea. The singer-songwriter envisions the title track that opens her latest album to evoke the process of birth, “like the breath of life heard from the ancient sea,” she told online magazine Uncanny . New-age synths swell while picked guitar riffs freely drift in the murky sonic field; the singer’s coos and sighs echo, her vocalizations never crystallizing into solid phrases. The abstract ambient-folk in Conceive by the Sea proceeds to swirl around in an embryonic state, in the brink of fully taking shape.
Marucoporoporo’s prior music sounded close-kept and prone to roam but hardly this amorphous. A year after the In the Dream EP, in 2019, the singer-songwriter began her first collaboration with Taki Nao, adapting her music to accompany the mutimedia artist’s light drawings for a live performance. And there, she let her acoustic-folk songs dissolve and perfume the room. Perhaps she was digging back into her roots as early as then: electronica, the kind of “BGM to work to,” had piqued her interest back in high school as did the cinematic post-rock songs of Sigur Ros. Marucoporoporo’s music was already woven with the fabric of ambient; she just needed a platform to flesh it out further.
As defined as Conceive the Sea is in its musical identity, the album fascinates through its music seemingly in a state of constant development. Marucoporoporo imbues these impressionistic tracks with a sense of curiosity as she searches for the exact ways in which to shape these sonic ebbs and flows. It almost fully congeals in “Core,” with her landing at a spiraling phrase from her cobwebbed acoustic guitar yet her voice is still stuck chasing for a lyrical fragment to fall on her lap. Her search takes her to deepest, and at times haunting depths: in its most formless in “Double Helix,” her warped voice turns spectral as it travels in the dead space, like it’s caught in purgatory.
Hardly anything spoken from marucoporoporo resembles lyrics until the penultimate track, “As I Am,” though I can make out more syllables than actual concrete phrases. Throughout Conceive by the Sea, she vocalizes as if a word is at the tip of her tongue, murmuring a phantom language in a place of them. She gets the closest in locating it in “As I Am,” though like the rest of the songs, both her voice and sighed non-words wash away as soon as they shore up. Fitting, then, that the album ends on a song titled “Reminiscence” as if it’s dedicated to the fleeting, dream-like texture of the music. As Conceive by the Sea finally seem to gain clarity, the shapes fade out of view as soon as they arrive.
Singles Club
“Mercedes” by DJ KANJI ft. Starceed & Yo-Sea [Ovahead]
The piano-laced boom-bap of “Mercedes” suggests a sultry R&B slow jam where its main singers are deep in bliss, luxuriating in their own infatuation for another. “You drive me crazy,” Starceed sighs in the chorus with a smooth trill that got me playing SZA afterwards for something complementary. But the more she goes on about her love thing, that refrain starts to echo as paranoia as much as attraction. “In the backseat / you ain’t getting freaky with no other bitches,” she threatens, just after she reminds how she’s aware of the gun stashed away on the glove compartment of his Mercedes. And her warning hits even more menacing as she coolly sings it over such tender R&B music.
The Voice is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Mygem” by DJ KRUTCH ft. G.RINA, Emi Okamoto & sequick; “Girls Like Me” by MALIYA
“memorycard 15” by inu [past]
From the song’s squeaky future-bass breakdown to inu’s own confessional murmurs, “memorycard 15” off of the bedroom-pop artist’s album, loop/boy, recalled the earnest EDM heart-share of Porter Robinson’s Nurture. And then a candid pair of lyrics stuck a chord similar to how my favorite tracks from the latter singer-producer have for me. “From the back of my mind / ‘I think I can keep on going…,’” inu sings in a rather depressive state, echoing the chorus in “Look at the Sky”: “Look at the sky, I’m still here / I’ll be alive next year / I can make something good.” While their mind seems more clouded with doubt, I want to believe from the bright shine of its beats that they’re headed down an ultimately positive path.
loop/boy is out now. Listen to it on Bandcamp/Spotify.
See also: “Oyasumi” by HAKU; “@location” by Peterparker69
“MAYBLUES” by Tomori Kusunoki [Sony]
Tomori Kusunoki’s hard-rock single “Shingetsu” isn’t too bad, if a bit traditional in sound coming after her ambitious twin albums from last year. Over on the B-side, though, the voice actress treats us to this dreamy 2-step track arranged by KBSNK. Compared to the swift beats familiar to the producer’s work as TEMPLIME, the skittering beat of “MAYBLUES” sounds more hushed, subdued and fittingly so: “mayday, I can’t get the feeling to do anything at all,” Kusunoki sighs in the chorus, her wispy voice shot with defeat. Like its singer at the center, the melancholy garage beat is going through the motions, searching for a pulse.
Shingetsu is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Love Me” by Kana Hanazawa; “Dansen” by Tenma Tenma & Tsudio Studio
This Week in 1989…
“Arashi No Sugao” by Shizuka Kudo [Pony Canyon, 1989]
No. 1 during the weeks of May 15-May 29, 1989 | Listen to it on YouTube/Spotify
Since Shizuka Kudo struck solo, her singles had been gradually shedding the teenage innocence from her time in idol collective Onyanko Club. For each attempt to put herself out there like the coy flirtation of “MUGO N… Irropoi,” she dealt with the emotional aftermath from a complex relationship. While she was mixed with anger and heartbreak in “FU-JIT-SU” singing from the perspective of a woman who’d been treated like a complete stranger from an ex, the singer tried to figure out what to do with this inconsolable desire felt in “Koi Ichiya” despite having it all.
After these attempts to navigate a grown-up world, “Arashi No Sugao” debuts this brazen, adult image of Kudo. The flashy R&B music announces her arrival. A buzzing electric-guitar riff and gated drum stomps come bursting open as if it’s rolling out the red carpet to debut the more fierce look for the former teen idol. Backed by a soulful chorus, the singer re-introduces herself with a new persona that’s as assertive as suggested by the title: “I’m going to cause a storm / and destroy everything.” The titular refrain that opens the single seems to gesture to a more assured character — Kudo’s no longer the naive teenager who you once knew.
But as Kudo reveals more of her true intentions, that stormy refrain starts to sound more like a juvenile tantrum, the singer throwing a fit out of pure frustration. Because all this self-conscious act to present herself in the image of a stoic adult ends up biting back. She’s putting on this act in this record, it turns out, primarily to get the attention of men who likes “strong women”; what she truly wants is to be babied. The punchline is that her put-on translates into a misunderstanding and results in the very opposite effect. “You’re so captivating, you should be all good by yourself,” Kudo sings from the perspective of her romantic pursuits. “Give it until tomorrow / and you’ll find someone else to love.” That supposed adult self-sufficience becomes a mask she’s forced on herself, hiding the very loneliness she wishes for someone to notice.
Rather than be a coronation of this grown-up Shizuka Kudo, “Arashi No Sugao” winks at the very idea of maturity in the eyes of the audience. It’s all for show, the record says. Though the joke soon starts to become real as the song’s adult persona and rock sound lays a way to the next phrase of Kudo’s career in the ’90s, where she’ll actually grow into a Japanese pop veteran but also the personality she’d been honing in her early records. Along with Kudo herself in general, “Arashi No Sugao” would later be the subject for impressions and memes, with much of its identity in this century taken over by its often-imitated “tut” choreography. This treatment might have been what the teenage singer would have wanted, poking a hole in this facade of an all-grown-up star.
You can listen to all of the songs covered so far in this section in this playlist here.
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