Monthly Listening: March 2023
This month's round-up of great new Japanese releases from Crispy Camera Club, miina and luci, PAS TASTA and more
Hi! This is March’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.
Strangely, I gravitated more towards non-Japanese music when I wanted to put something on during my week in Japan. Maybe my subconscious felt it was overkill to intently go for J-pop in the place where that stuff is just pop, or maybe it craved some contrast to spice up the scenery. There’s definitely something to be felt listening to, like, Kali Uchis’s Red Moon in Venus on the train back home from Tokyo, or walking the Saitama suburbs to Myke Towers’s reggaeton singles from his excellent La Vida Es Una.
Here are some other non-Japanese records I checked out while I was there, most of them on a whim: 100 gec’s 10,000 gecs; The Bug’s Pressure (2003); Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration (1986); Japan’s Oil on Canvas (1983); JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown’s Scaring the Hoes; Plies’s The Real Testament (2007); Yves Tumor’s Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds).
I also did some catching up with new Japanese releases when I could, one of which makes it here. Here is also a Spotify playlist of my 40 favorite singles from March.
Happy listening!
On the way to the future by Crispy Camera Club
indie rock | ► “Machiawase Wa Tsuki No Shitade”
Villains:Impress EP by harmoe
electro pop | ► “Anti Client”
Waiting for the moon to rise by miina and luci
soft pop / indie rock | ► “Autobahn”
GOOD POP by PAS TASTA
hyperpop | ► “river phenomenon” ft. Soushi Sakiyama
Mercury Departure by Planet After the Rain
post-hardcore / idol | ► “CO2”
Overtake. EP by Various artists/Rave Racers
EDM / trance | ► “C0ntr0l” by CYBERHACKERSYSTEM
BORN IN ASIA by SATOH
pop punk | ► “HURRY UP!!!”
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