Monthly Listening: January & February 2024
The round-up of great new Japanese releases from the past 2 months, ft. kinoue64, ZAZEN BOYS, Liyuu and more
Hi! This is January and February’s Monthly Listening list, a quick rundown of new Japanese albums I checked out this month that I enjoyed. You can browse past Monthly Listenings in the archives.
My interest in Vocaloid music began to pique again this month after listening to a lot of releases by kinoue64—whose new record we covered for one of the issue’s Album of the Week! Specifically, more math-rock-leaning arrangements with *pantomimes huge air quotes* angular riffs, and so I’ve also enjoyed inabakumori’s ANTICYCLONE and Jin’s MEKAKUCITYDAYS, both of which are not from this year. I still got tons of VocaloPs I need to dig into, so if you got any recommendations, please let me know.
No VocaloPs in this Monthly Listening list, though, yes, you’ll hear Hatsune Miku in one of these records, and a whole lot of live human voices by singers, rappers, idols, you name it. Here are new Japanese music releases I enjoyed from January and February. And below is the playlist to my top favorite new singles of the past 2 months.
Finger Runs by Finger Runs
big beat / idol | ► “SPICE”
Pieces EP by Hoach5000
indie rock | ► “Taiyokouhatsuden”
Shiawase Ni Kurasone by kinoue64
shoegaze / indie rock | ► “After School with You”
“For kinoue64, their mix of shoegaze and Vocaloid functions as a means to reach a more optimistic life view. Their efforts in Shiawase Ni Kurasone may be DIY bedroom-pop competing with blockbusters in the world of modern-day shoegaze. Yet their determination to uplift others competes with any cinematic epic, and this time the shoegazer writes out their message in finer print.” —Read more about the album on issue #76
Tsuzuku EP by Layla
indie rock | ► “kadode”
Soaring Heart by Liyuu
electro-pop | ► “Soaring Heart”
Action by machina
techno / electro | ► “Wake Up”
CHAnnel #1 by OCHA NORMA
funk / idol | ► “Good Luck No Munesawagi”
OTOTOY FRIDAY by OTOTOY FRIDAY
pop / idol | ► “Yuurei Buin”
naive by rowbai
electronica / rap | ► “sign”
“The sleeker production gets rid much of the noise that once roughed up rowbai’s beats. The lyrics, meanwhile, spill like stream of consciousness, and the candidness paints a rather quotidian scene in which her ghosts tend to live. Rowbai’s problems start to feel easier to handle in naive, her mind free from the intensity of the past.” —Read more about the album on issue #77.
Itsudemo by So Shibano
indie rock | ► “Yoru No Sanpo”
Empire by yonige
indie rock | ► “Aishiatte”
“The profound growth from Arisu Ushimaru in Empire is in how she can afford to be at ease about coming to terms with issues remaining messy and unresolved. She effortlessly spins episodes of relationship in-fights into lyrical matter of sprightly pop-rock tunes.” —Read more about the album on issue #75
Land by ZAZEN BOYS
post-punk | ► “Tchaikovsky, Yoroshiku”
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