Monthly Listening: March 2025
Rounding up great new releases we checked out during February from Tive, cyber milk chan, Ohzora Kimishima 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 from this year here.
So, how’s that new Playboi Carti, huh? I fortunately found myself some time where I can sit with the entire 30 songs on the album in one sitting—a work thing where headphone-listening was allowed and I needed to keep my mind busy for a good couple hours between the tasks—and I surprisingly found the content dump refreshing than exhausting in its sprawl. His different voices certainly helped from it getting tiring. My favorite so far is “I SEEEE YOU BABY BOI.” It’s as great as its title.
Speaking of the sprawling music, I got my senses shaken by Kevin Drumm’s noise classic Sheer Hellish Miasma for the first time; I’ve not checked out II, just recently released. Other than that, I was inspired to pick back up on the discography of Rhythm & Sound, thanks in part to Resident Advisor’s great 10-song feature on vocal dub techno. Other good ambient-adjacent stuff? RAVEN’s new record from Incienso, label also home to Huerco S., DJ Python, among many others; and new one from more eaze and claire rousay.
Oh, and of course, a lot of Japanese albums. Here are my favorite picks from March, plus another set of Bonus Beats.
Flesh by cyber milk chan
► “mad substance” | electronica
Love My Death by DOWNED
► “Abattoir” | powerviolence
Blood in the Void by Empty old city
► “Moonian” | EDM / electropop
Nichijo Shometsu by kinoue64
► “Kieteiku” | indie rock / shoegaze
Opto6 by Koh-Gaku & Yukichikasaku/men
► “2025” | electro-funk / electro-pop
behind faint echoes by nagareyama righteye
► “sing(along)” | indie rock / Vocaloid
Otonosuruheya EP by Ohzora Kimishima
► “Jyo” | electro-prog
Farewell Gas by PostmodernHippie
► “The Highest Heart Rate of a Roller” | indie rock
Resonance TATTOO by SAYOHIMEBOU
► “Black Dog” | electronic / breakcore
A Kindness Comparable to Nuclear Energy, and Akirame by Tive
► “Akirame” | hardcore punk
“The initial stretch of A Kindness… is all about speed and power, but Tive’s lyrical introspection answers to the band’s desire for more depth out of punk beyond pure physical thrill. A complete decimation of ego via punk damage, the four-movement centerpiece of a title track clearly draws the line in the sand: after this EP, there’s no going back to their former selves.” —Read more on issue #93.
Timed by uri gagarn
► “Memory” | indie rock / emo
mnemeoid EP by yureruwayurei
► “Point Nemo” | indie rock / dream pop
“yureruwayurei’s shoe-gazing indie-rock less haunts than it envelops like a warm embrace as it blankets you with woolly reverb and translucent guitar tones. Wrapped up in glittering rock, their words in the EP’s bookending song ring with tenderness than grave concern—there’s hardly any stress to mind.” —from issue #93.
Bonus Beats: 4 Nagoya-kei albums
Since a few years ago, I’ve been trying to acquaint myself more to visual-kei little by little. Along the way, I’ve come to find that I gravitate a lot so far to the subsection of Nagoya-kei out of all the different strains that emerged in the ‘90s. Nagoya-kei refers to a scene of bands from the city of Nagoya whose first wave of acts provided a draft to the brooding, heavy rock sound associated now to early visual kei through their blend of goth, new wave and punk. A spearhead in the scene, Kuroyume and their ‘90s run is a fine look into the sound: if you can get your hands on 1993’s Mayoeru Yuitachi ~Romance of Scarlet~, that would be ideal as a starting point (currently unavailable on DSPs), but 1995’s Feminism does just as well.
Maybe it’s from me recently finding out Dir en Grey was touring the U.S. this April—my god, I am not ever letting go that I will unfortunately miss this tour where it looks like they’ll perform VULGAR and Withering to Death—but this month, I got it in the mood to continue my dig into visual-kei and Nagoya-kei in particular. I picked up a small selection from visual kei’s initial boom in the mid-90s as well as one at the end of the decade which hints at the even heavier path the scene will take in terms of their sound.
Kuroyume - Feminism (1995)
Laputa - Kagerou (1996)
Merry Go Round - REDDISH COLLECTORS NO DEAD ARTIST (1999)
ROUAGE - BIBLE (1996)
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