Monthly Listening: January 2025

Rounding up great new releases we checked out during January from Suichu Spica, Pale, The Traveling Theory and more

Hi! This is January’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.

It hasn’t taken long for 2025 to bring us some awesome releases. There’s been some good compilation albums in particular; I list one of the many here, with a couple more already tabbed to add for the February listening list. I also provided some bonus titles for extra listening. Have fun at it.

Here are the releases I enjoyed in January:

Shinsei Mokuroku by Hoshimachi Suisei

► “DEADPOOL” ft. KAF | pop

Hoshi No Watashi by KAIRUI

► “Maho” ft. Hatsune Miku | synth pop / Vocaloid

POST DAISY BELL by Various artists/KAOMOZI

► “Cycles” by Noko Sato | electronic / Vocaloid

Music for Walking (Out of the Woods) by Lovely Summer Chan

► “The Great Time Killer” | alternative rock

Our Hearts in Your Heaven by Pale

► “Euphoria” | metal / blackgaze

can’t swim EP by Pygmy I’m cricket

► “mifune” | emo / math rock

Lux by Suichu Spica

► “Spica” | math rock

“While Suichu Spica share the riches of their new-and-improved math-rock toolbox in Lux, their core message of celebrating human perseverance shines even more.” —Read more about the album in This Side of Japan: Issue #90.

Too Late to Apologize by The Traveling Theory

► “Long Way to Failure” | emo / pop punk

In Your Languages by Yuragi

► “Our” | indie rock / slowcore

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Bonus Beats: 4 Favorite 1980s Idol Albums

These past few months, I’ve been trying to make more effort browsing music by idol acts from before the 2000s to up my idol-music knowledge. Here are 4 new-to-me idol albums I enjoyed from this month:

• Hiroko Yakushimaru - Hanazukan (1986)

• Miho Nakayama - Hide’n’ Seek (1989)

• Seiko Matsuda - Tinker Bell (1984)

• Tomoyo Harada - NEXT DOOR (1986)

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