Matthew Bedford - muso japan

Juvenile Juvenile – “Perfect Lies”

In the Japanese indie scene, the mingling of indie pop and shoegaze is something that happens pretty frequently. The former has been riding a steady wave of popularity for a while now, and the latter is oft-misunderstood but nevertheless enjoying an ever-growing resurgence of its own. These two genres, vague as they may be, are a perfect marriage. However, like a lot of bands who dabble in shoegaze, there are plenty who scoff at being called a shoegaze band. In situations like these, we just slap on the “dream pop” tag and voila, tricky genre debate averted. Osaka has consistently produced top notch indie pop bands in recent years, so its no surprise that it’s also the home of Japan’s finest dream pop band. The foursome is as good as anyone at creating jangly pop tunes and drowning them in reverb and hazy background noise. Their latest mastery of the style has come in the form of a new single titled “Perfect Lies”.

“Perfect Lies” is one track off the upcoming double A-side 7-inch single – the opposite side is titled “Planet Heaven” – that was announced last week. It will be the band’s first single release, and first new music since 2014s Our Great Escape album (which, for what it’s worth, topped my best releases of the year list). The single, which will be released on August 10th in clear blue vinyl via Flake Records, was produced by The Bilinda Butchers’ Michal Palmer and will be accompanied by a bonus CD featuring remixes by Jesse Ruins and Teto 2.

“Perfect Lies” is a pretty, thickly layered, melancholy track, consistent with the vibes of the ultra-dreamy “Just Like You Do” from Our Great Escape. The most attractive element of Juvenile Juvenile’s sound is the depth that they create, not only with their big, lushly layered guitars, but with frontman Masami Tsuchiya’s breathy vocals. What they lack in edge (only mentioned here because of my general affinity for the super loud) they more than make up for in their desire to fill every last square inch of space with sound. On “Perfect Lies” they do just that, even keeping the leads that normally carry their tunes a bit more subtle. Juvenile Juvenile is back at it, and I’ll be looking forward to hearing “Planet Heaven” in the near future.

There’s not a whole lot of info on where the single will be available, but be sure to follow the band on Facebook and Twitter for more info. And if for some reason you haven’t heard their previously released music, you can find it on Juvenile Juvenile’s Bandcamp page.

Sapporo Shoegazers Edy Two Arc

After a couple years of trying to hunt down their music, I was finally able to get my hands on a release from Sapporo’s Edy Two Arc. The CD, titled Kurakute, Oto no nai Tokoro (暗くて、音のないところ), is actually an 8-track split, featuring two tracks apiece from four Sapporo bands. Edy Two Arc, who prior to a sudden name change last month simply went by Edy, lend a dark, heavy shoegaze vibe to a comp that features everything from math-y funk to melancholic pop. Though the band has been around for a few years, they’ve been largely inaccessible with a limited web presence and live-exclusive releases.

Edy Two Arc have managed to remain something of a mystery, despite frequently appearing Total Feedback events and opening for Ringo Deathstarr in Hokkaido. Their songwriting is by no means adventurous, but their sound is very comfortable and should hit the spot for fans of big, billowy shoegaze with a darker vibe. About five months or so ago, the band posted the two tracks they submitted for the split on Soundcloud. Check them out below.

Citrus Nowhere – “A Nightmare Before She Sleeps”

By now it’s no longer much of a secret that Tokyo’s Citrus Nowhere are regarded as one to keep an eye on in the Japanese shoegaze scene.

By now it’s no longer much of a secret that Tokyo’s Citrus Nowhere are regarded as one to keep an eye on in the Japanese shoegaze scene. I wrote as much in my 2016 preview piece at the beginning of the year, and the band’s commitment to not only putting out more material – seemingly the endgame for a lot of promising young bands here – but to gigging and ironing out any remaining wrinkles in their live game has been a really positive sign.

The band had a bit of a coming out party in the form of a self-titled EP and release party alongside fellow passengers on the raging war wagon that is the new generation of Japanese shoegaze bands, Yukino Chaos. At the gig, which took place in Nagoya, there was a sense that everything was still being figured out. It wasn’t super tight, but you got a feel for what they were doing. I enjoyed the opportunity to see them. It didn’t feel like a finished product. To be fair, it was also the band’s fourth ever show.

This month Citrus Nowhere released its second EP, this one titled A Nightmare Before She Sleeps, as a free download on Bandcamp. At first listen its hard to ignore the release’s raw production value. The fuzzed-out guitars dominate the mix while the drums are faint enough in the background to guide you hazily through each song. There’s a playful poppiness to what’s going on below the layers of noise, and I found the combination more interesting than their previously released work.

The intro track “Beautiful Lies” is a persistent, free-flowing wash of droning guitars. It’s a refreshingly unstructured song with a bit of a subtle jangle and light male-female vocal harmonies fluttering around. There’s some pop there, but it’s subdued for the sake of noise.

“Blue Enemies” is another that stuck out, perhaps because it’s got a bit of a different vibe from the rest of the EP and it sits right smack in the middle of the five songs. The beat on this track is infectious and the band does well to create a haunting mood from some trippy textures and subtle falsetto vocals.

As a stand-alone, Citrus Nowhere’s A Nightmare Before She Sleeps is really enjoyable, but the production will definitely be a turn off for some. In context though, this EP is a step in the right direction, muddying things up in a scene where too many bands try to keep things super clean. It’s their willingness to experiment and not shy away from the harsher side of things that makes these guys, in my opinion, such a key member of this new wave of Japanese shoegaze bands.

You can pick up A Nightmare Before She Sleeps, as well as their self-titled EP, on Bandcamp for free.

Shun Tanabe – “March of Ghosts”

I’m willing to argue with anyone that the Japanese Shoegaze Group on Facebook is the best place for discussion on the topic. Through the group people are not only able to introduce bands to a pretty sizable community, but plenty of artists in Japan have a dedicated platform through which they can get their own music out to an eager and thoughtful audience. The most recent gem to be discovered here is the solo project of one Mr. Shun Tanabe.

Tanabe – whose Soundcloud profile simply mentions that he’s a company employee who records when he finds the time – quietly released a couple tracks online over the last month or so. “Standing on the seashore” is more of a chilled out, dreamy piece and it’s pleasant enough, but “march of ghosts” is a track that got my attention from the first chord. It’s a sweet, somewhat melancholy track with nice space compliments of a warm, ambient backdrop wafting around simple, strummed acoustic guitar chords.

It appears that this is about the extent of what Tanabe plans to do with the project, but as long as he continues to put out music like this I’ll be listening. At the moment he’s just got the two tracks, but there will be some more soon so stay tuned and give him a follow on Soundcloud.

Looprider – “Ascension”

It was just last August that I was writing about the debut from Tokyo newcomers Looprider. My Electric Fantasy was a diverse record, with the band exploring any number of sounds from shoegaze to pop to sludgy, grimy, at times doom-y rock. With their sophomore effort, titled Ascension, released on May 4th via Call and Response Records, Looprider has taken a different and more direct approach to annihilating your eardrums.

Photo by Matt Schley (http://www.mattschley.com/)

You get an idea of what to expect when comparing the covers of their two releases, both of which were done by Tokyo-based artist Nasutakeo. My Electric Fantasy‘s vibrant pink cover art is contrasted pretty starkly by Ascension‘s black and white. The wide-eyed manga-style character on the cover of the first album appears on the second, however it’s a more tormented version this time with severed arms, a distraught-looking face, and sort of creepily ribboned torso spiraling downward. By setting the physical CD cases right next to each other, you are presented with one of the themes of Ascension: the violent destruction of pop.

Musically, Ascension is brutally loud. There are no shoegaze-y pop tracks, nor catchy melodic palate cleansers to be found on the record. “N.E.C.O.” is a noise track featuring drawn out chords and distorted screams over a backdrop of ambient fuzzy static. Tonally, it’s a fitting introduction to the album, which picks up the pace starting with the following tracks, “Fantômas”, “Doppelgänger”, and “Science ≠ Evolution”. There’s a major hardcore influence here and some really nice depth, compliments of a ferocious blur of guitars, overdriven growls, and raging drums.

“Kaboom!” is six-seconds of blast beat grindcore a la Anal Cunt that leads into probably my favorite section of the album. “Sekai” keeps the record trucking a blistering pace before slowing down into the chugging title track. What I really like about “Ascension”, apart from the fact that it’s heavy as hell, is the showcase of my favorite element of Looprider’s sound on this CD. Everything slows down and that aforementioned depth in the form of persistent feedback and squealing guitars really shines through. Also it reminds me a little of older Sepultura, which is awesome. “Mustafar”, presumably named after the volcanic planet on which Obi-Wan Kenobi dismembers a young Anakin Skywalker, scores big points both for its relentlessness as well as the reference – surely no mere coincidence that the album’s release date happened to be Star Wars Day. Finally, “667” closes everything out with seven-plus minutes of harsh noise.

Even at its heaviest, My Electric Fantasy was a very clean-cut album, production-wise. On Ascension things are much more raw and the album feels very organic. Over the course of nine months, Looprider has shown some tremendous diversity and, impressively, has done so at a consistently high level. The new record demonstrates a pretty big change in approach and style, but over the course of two releases Looprider has shown an affinity for doing things loudly. This time around, however, by shedding previous elements of pop in their sound, that loudness is accompanied by an unrestrained aggressiveness resulting in a brutally chaotic and extremely cohesive album.

The release party for Ascension will be held this weekend, the 7th, at Koenji Niman-Denatsu in Tokyo. You can purchase the album at the following websites (international shipping is available). They’ve got some pretty sweet shirts for sale on Bandcamp, as well.

Here’s the video for “Mustafar”. There are some pretty intense strobe effects, so viewer discretion is advised.

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Collapse – Self-Titled EP

L to R: Kohei, Tomoko, Satoru, Shibuya ( Source )

In my constant search for Japanese shoegaze bands a little more willing to go hard in the paint, I came across a little known band from Saitama called Collapse, thanks to a poster in our Japan Shoegaze Facebook group. Though the band was formed by bassist Kohei in 2013, a bunch of member changes hindered any sort of momentum until Collapse finally established its current four-piece lineup with the additions of guitarist and vocalist Tomoko, guitarist Satoru, and drummer Shibuya. Three or so years of settling culminated in a hot start to 2016 for Collapse, who, in addition to gigging regularly, released its debut self-titled EP on Bandcamp. Shortly thereafter, the band started selling physical copies of the EP via its newly established online store.

At first listen, I immediately appreciated the heaviness of Collapse’s sound. In their biography they describe their sound as the combination of elements of “stillness” and “floating” from shoegaze and the “violence” and “speed” of metal. The result is a sound perhaps more similar to the recent western model of shoegaze than the pop-heavy style that continues to dominate the Japanese scene. There’s balance though. The tonal aggression is contrasted by Tomoko’s sweet-but-not-too-sweet vocals that sit just right in the mix. The melodies are poppy, but they’re not too prominent. In that respect Collapse reminds me of a somewhat more balanced version of AZMA.

“Syrup” and “RIP”, the EP’s opener and closer, respectively, are the two tracks on the album that really stand out. Each really showcases the band’s ability to just pour on the waves of guitar noise with catchy vocal melodies woven in. “Yellow” doesn’t quite keep up in terms of pace, but doesn’t lack for explosiveness. The third track on the EP – conspicuously titled “Intro…” – is just a brief ambient interlude before the screaming finale kicks in.

The debut EP from Collapse isn’t perfect, but it’s a really good start. I talk about my desire for more aggressiveness in the Japanese shoegaze scene in just about every other blog post, and Collapse has come through for me. It’s recommended that you pick up the EP on Bandcamp. At the moment it looks like physical copies are only available for purchase within Japan. You can check out Collapse’s homepage or follow them on Facebook for more information.

<a href="http://collapse-jp.bandcamp.com/album/self-titled-ep" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Self Titled EP by COLLAPSE</a>

My Dead Ishikawa – A Corpse in the Happy Valley

One of last year’s most anticipated Japanese shoegaze releases – at least among fans overseas – was hades (the nine stages of change at the deceased remains), the latest from Tokyo-based My Dead Girlfriend. It was a big year for the band, who earlier in the year shared a stage with Astrobrite and, in support of the album, played a flurry of shows all over the country including a headlining spot at the annual Kyoto Shoegazer event. By October, eccentric frontman Yuki Ishikawa had begun working on his next musical endeavor, a solo project that would be known simply as My Dead Ishikawa.

My Dead Ishikawa’s debut album 幸せの谷の死体 (English: A Corpse in the Happy Valley) – set to be released on April 20th – features a number of guest musicians, including current and former members of My Dead Girlfriend, shoegaze and indie pop mastermind Kensei Ogata, GUEVNNA drummer Yamaguchi, and a bunch more. The idea came up a few years back, but really started coming to fruition last fall. Each of his guest musicians really helped shape the overall sound on the record, adding their own influence during the recording process. As a result, the album explores a vast array of sounds, from grindcore to shoegaze to guitar pop to experimental noise. Ishikawa notes that while there are similar elements to My Dead Girlfriend’s music on the record, it’s how the sound is balanced that really separates it from his previous work. While MDG’s sound is built more delicately upon a shoegaze/noise-pop foundation, each track on A Corpse in the Happy Valley offers something different. “The theme is just recording my feelings and ideas, without being too elaborate.” The resulting sound is a lot more free and experimental, with the pop-shoegaze sound that Ishikawa has to this point become known for representing only small portion of the finished product.

The moment the album starts, the difference in approach becomes clear, as the first two tracks – the album’s title track and “temi blaster” – are blistering noise pieces. Ishikawa’s first vision for his debut solo release was a start-to-finish noise album. “On those two tracks I was going for the fusion of noise and yelling in Japanese like on JOJO Hiroshige’s solo work.” To make things even more aggressive, Ishikawa called upon his friend Tomoyuki Yamaguchi – of stoner rock band GUEVNNA – to play drums on the first two tracks. Ishikawa cites Yamaguchi’s previous musical endeavors as the likely reason for the heavy grindcore influence that can also be heard in the songs.

There’s a major shift in style as the chaotic guitars and violent screams make way for the sort of melodic pop tunes that fans might have been expecting on an Ishikawa solo album. Just as on the first portion of the album, the sound on the third and fourth tracks, “kininaru aitsu” and “the theme from tenohira”, reflect the guest musicians that performed on them. This time around current and former members of My Dead Girlfriend are featured, with ex-drummer Takashi Shimano playing drums on both songs and former bassist Fumiaki Arakawa joining in on the third. The result, not surprisingly, contains sort of bubbly melodies, subtle guitar noise, and playful male-female twin vocals – in other words, this sounds a whole lot like My Dead Girlfriend. In the studio there was a certain sense of nostalgia for Ishikawa. “Current member Ideta and former member Shimano played, so there was the image of the band performing around 2007-2008 as we recorded the songs.”

By this point in the album, there are clearly two distinct sections. Ishikawa identifies the third act of the album as his favorite. Composition-wise, the album turns back to the more free-form style found in the opening two tracks. “A Nervous Addict in the Nittoh Mall Kumagaya” is a whimsical dreamscape of a tune, with wispy synths and spacey guitars woven together over steady backing percussion. On “Manbiki” and “Submission to the Silence”, things get a little more chaotic. My Dead Girlfriend drummer Tomoaki Kunii takes the lead in the writing process here and goes all out on the drums. All around him is a mess of squealing guitar noise, with spoken word vocals – courtesy of Saori Takei and Si,Irene’s Reed David on tracks 6 and 7, respectively – topping everything off. The latter two songs Ishikawa notes as being influenced by David Lynch’s Crazy Clown Time.

The 8th and final track stands alone as the final theme on the record. The guest musician on “kamikakushi” is none other than Kensei Ogata (of talk, flaria, and perhaps best known to readers of this blog as the man behind Tatuki Seksu). “I wanted to do a Japanese-style lyrical shoegaze song,” Ishikawa explains. “I was really happy that Kensei Ogata, who I really like, performed the vocals on the track.” The song has a talk-esque dreamy vibe to it, with Ogata providing delicate, J-Pop-style vocals over a backdrop over fuzzy guitar noise.

The album really consists of four phases that, at least stylistically, are pretty different. That being said, the changing of one word in the band name seems to have given Yuki Ishikawa a sense of freedom to express himself in a variety of ways. The original plan was to make a noise album, but he was under no obligation to stick to that. Musically, there’s always seemed to be a certain disconnect between his personality and the tone of My Dead Girlfriend’s music. There’s a sense of sweetness in the bubbly pop leads and poppy vocal melodies that is contrasted by the sweaty, screaming frontman destroying his guitar at the end of a gig. Balancing those elements is a key to what My Dead Girlfriend does, and on this album he’s thrown that all out the window. There’s no balance here. It’s just a whole bunch of what Yuki Ishikawa feels performed with a bunch of people Yuki Ishikawa likes to work with. It’s a personal record and that’s what ties the whole thing together.

Outside of a few gigs lined up in May – including a supporting spot on Mayalsian post punk outfit Joi Noir’s Japan tour – there are no concrete plans for My Dead Ishikawa going forward. Joining Ishikawa as the regular live band will be Sakagami (vocals & guitar) of Shojo Skip, Kawasuji (guitar), and My Dead Girlfriend members Kawakami (bass) and Kunii (drums). While nothing’s been decided, Ishikawa is considering the possibility of recording with the current lineup in the future.

Fans overseas are in luck as My Dead Ishikawa’s debut album A Corpse in the Happy Valley, will be available for purchase via outlets that ship internationally. Also, if you’re in the Tokyo/Saitama area in early May you can catch their first couple gigs.

Purchase the album:

The Return of Muso Planet (English/日本語)

After a fairly lengthy absence that started right around the time of my wedding, Muso Planet is going to be back, and it’ll be a little different this time. Putting together the zine involved a lot of interviewing bands, translating (English, Japanese, AND Spanish), signing contracts with record labels all over the world, editing, doing minor graphic work (which I’m shit at, by the way), etc. It was a lot of fun, but I got away from my original goal of discussing Japanese music. Now with the blog re-focused on Japan and a somewhat regular radio show – as well as some other fun projects this year – I can’t go all out on the zine, but I can still effectively run Muso Planet in the form of a blog. I’ve admittedly lost some touch with music outside Japan over the last year plus, so this will be a great opportunity for me to dive right back in. This time, I’ll be focusing on reviewing material from overseas in both English and Japanese. While it may not be as thorough as the zine was, I’m hoping that the blog will serve the same purpose effectively while also being a little more accessible with no downloads and everything embedded. Anyway, it should be getting under way soon.

Muso Planetという世界的なウェブジンは久しぶりに再開する！でも今回はちょっと違う形となる。ウェブジンを作るためにインタビュー、翻訳（英語、日本語、スペイン語）、世界中のレーベルとの契約、編集、レイアウト等をほとんど１人でやっていて、各号に沢山の力を入れていました。楽しくて、毎号完成後は満足していたが、このブログを作る目標「日本の良い音楽を海外の方に伝えること」からちょっと離れていた。この1年間半逆に日本の音楽に集中していて、日本、アジアのシューゲイザーラジオ番組をアメリカのDKFMでやっているため、以前のようにMuso Planetを一生懸命やる時間がないけど、ブログの形で出来そうだと思った。ということで、これからMuso Planetブログで海外のシューゲイザー、ノイズ等のアーティストの作品をバイリンガル（英日）でショーケースしていく。ウェブジンのように徹底的なプロジェクトではないだろうが、良いバンドを紹介する目的は変わらないし、ダウンロードする手間のないもっと便利な形になると思います。もうすぐ始まる。

A Guide to Japanese Shoegaze in 2016

The first month of 2016 has come and gone and I’m finally getting around to posting about some of the year’s potential story lines and some things that fans may want to keep their eyes and ears open for. Fortunately, January didn’t really see a whole lot of action on the Japanese shoegaze front, with the most noteworthy release being a full-length release from Tokyo’s 7eyes40days. It’s been a slow start, but recent years have seen a significant growth of the Japanese scene and there’s no reason to think that 2016 will be any exception.

1. New bands to watch out for in 2016…

One of last year’s most impressive newcomers Plant Cell can hardly be considered a new band, but 2015 served as sort of a warm-up year during which the Chiba outfit recorded a bunch of music, solidified its lineup, and even squeezed in a couple gigs right before the end of the year. They go into 2016 poised to do big things, and we can only assume that there will be a lot more music to be heard in the coming year. Their sound is deep, thickly-layered, and raw and they’re right at the forefront of new Japanese bands balancing out the country’s pop-heavy scene with a heavy dose of swirling noise.

Citrus Nowhere is another band whose noisy approach to pop music is extremely welcome to the Japanese scene. The mysterious Tokyo-based band released a self-titled EP just before Christmas after putting out some extremely unrefined – yet quite satisfying – demos throughout the year. They’ll be releasing some new material at a special Nagoya-only (yes!) event at the end of February alongside one of last year’s ‘bands to watch out for’, Yukino Chaos.

From Tokyo to nearby Kanagawa-prefecture, Kawasaki’s Spicy Ground Floor are another new band that wasted no time getting to the studio and pumping out demo tracks. They’re still a bit raw, but it’s early days for a band whose Soundcloud page has filled up quickly, and their swaying gently between bouncy pop-driven verses found in their single “Chili Chili” and the steadily marching, guitar driven style of “Flood”. It’s not perfect just yet, but these guys are on the right track.

As a resident of Nagoya, there are two local bands who got started last year whose progress I’ll be monitoring closely in 2016. The first loosely qualifies for this list, but The Skateboard Kids essentially do everything you could ask of a shoegaze band with bouts of thunderous guitar noise exploding out from their sweetly melancholic, occasionally playful pop verses. The other is haguki, a three-piece shoegaze band hailing from Anjo-city, about a half hour outside Nagoya. Their three-track EP tobira gets a bit math-y at times, and there’s also a bit of a post rock influence that reminds me of prefecture-mates Aysula. The EP was a short but sweet sampler of their music that has me really interested to see which direction they ultimately decide to head.

A band that’ll be getting things going this year, though one whose principle member needs no introduction is Tokyo’s Flaria. Kensei Ogata – who is perhaps best known among foreign shoegaze fans as the man behind Tatuki Seksu – announced late last year that his band, talk, would be going on an indefinite hiatus and his focus would be shifting to his new Tokyo-based project. Flaria played its first gig on January 15th and it probably won’t be too long before we get to hear what Mr. Ogata’s new project sounds like.

2. New releases to watch out for in 2016…

Hands down the most exciting release of the year will come from Aomori’s The Earth Earth, who promised us a new EP and then finally gave us some new music in the form of their single, “n e a r”. There’s no real timetable for the release of the EP, but I’ll just be really optimistic that the rest of the EP is in the production phase right now and will be out sooner or later.

Something I’ve been waiting for for a while now is new music from another of Japan’s best shoegaze bands, dive. The band’s activity has been pretty slow in recent years, but there was word that Sasaoka and company would be putting out some new music in the fall of 2015. Here we are almost a month into 2016 and there’s been no music, but one gig in the books so far this year and another coming up in March (a flurry of live activity by dive standards) might be an indication that they have the time to record some new music. I’m not holding my breath, but if both dive and The Earth Earth were to put out new music in the same year there isn’t much else I’d need.

I may not have been paying enough attention when the project was initially announced, but one release that makes this list based solely on reputation is the solo album from My Dead Girlfriend‘s Yuki Ishikawa. The quirky frontman is currently recording the album which features a ton of guest musicians, including the aforementioned Kensei Ogata. There’s not a whole lot known about the direction of the album, but given the cast of contributors and the reputation of the man whose name will be on the cover, it’s at least worth checking out.

The Florist, whose 2014 album Middle of Winter was one of the best of the year, have been writing a bunch of new material and now appear set to record a new album over the next two months. With the band collectively drawing on such a wide range of influences, it will be interesting to see if they decide to approach the follow-up effort differently or if they ride the same formula that produced their memorable debut full-length.

3. The festivals!

2015 was a pretty spectacular year for gig-going shoegaze fans in Japan, with Astrobrite’s Japan tour and all of the festivities surrounding it kicking off something of a flurry of resurgent 90s shoegaze acts touring the country. This year probably won’t be as intense in that respect – though I’m sure we can count on a Lush appearance at some point in 2016 – so the focus shifts back to Japan’s domestic shoegaze events. Since it’s inception six years ago, the Japan Shoegazer Festival has been the country’s most identifiable shoegaze showcase, and the Tokyo leg of what has mostly been a two-city event is generally more stacked and given more attention than its little brother counterpart in Osaka. Tokyo is the shoegaze capital of Japan, as it seems to be for most genres, and events like the monthly Total Feedback at Koenji HIGH further solidify its reputation as such. The first Japanese Shoegazer Festival of the year will be held in Tokyo in early March and while it looks like details won’t be out for another week or so, what we currently know is that Cruyff in the Bedroom will be appearing and we can assume that Lemon’s Chair will be joining them on the back end of the bill.

The event that’s been slowly overtaking the Japan Shoegazer Festival as the premier shoegaze fest in Japan is the Kyoto Shoegazer/Noisy Pop event run by AOQ (pronounced ‘aoku’) frontman Katayama. 2016 will see the fourth installment of the event, which will be expanding from its previous two-day format to three days spanning two weekends this April. The first show will double as the first leg of the Japanese tour of Taiwan’s Doodle, and the rest of the lineup should be excellent as the organizers have shown a tremendous ability to bring in talent from all over the country despite the not-so-prime location of the tour. This show is also a great opportunity to get out to Japan’s most attractive city, take in some of the sights in the early afternoon, and then hop over to Nano for a long but satisfying evening of music.

4. The genre outside of Tokyo

It’s no secret that the Japanese shoegaze scene basically funnels its way to Tokyo, and understandably so. There are a ton of people, a lot of great bands, and it’s really the best place for bands to attach themselves to scene as run by the elder statesmen of the genre. It’s also no secret that I’d love to see the control of the shoegaze scene in Japan shift from the controlling hands of older bands in Tokyo and spread more evenly throughout the rest of the country. I know this goes against the whole hierarchical nature of Japanese music as a microcosm of everyday social structure, but I also think it’s best for development. I like the Kyoto Shoegazer model, and while this year that is sort of the main story outside of Tokyo, efforts to expand the event to other cities such as Nagoya and Osaka appear to be in the works. I’d just like to see the endgame much less defined by one group and more molded by a generation of cocky young bands with the freedom to create and mold the genre as they see fit.

The End Of DKFM…For Now

As 2015 was winding down, shoegaze and dreampop fans all over the world had their usual year-end routines of reading Top 10 lists and sorting out their own interrupted by some pretty sad news. California-based independent radio station DKFM, a staple within the shoegaze community, had announced that at midnight Eastern time the station would cease to be on air. The reason came down to the expiration of the Webcaster Settlement Act, established in 2009, which enabled small and mid-sized webcasters (as determined by a revenue threshold) to pay special, more manageable rates. With the expiration of the current agreement and the Copyright Royalty Board’s newly increased rates, DKFM and its small webcaster brethren are left with uncertain futures, removing from the music world a group of valuable and highly appreciated resources.

Anyway, it’s 2016 right now and no last-minute miracles occurred. DKFM is silent and the shoegaze community is pretty bummed out about it. For the purpose of this post I’ll spare any “little guy getting squeezed out” rants.

I had originally talked to the station’s owner, Greg Wilson, around the time of the first issue of Muso Planet. It was around that time that I’d first heard of DKFM, and I adored the station’s concept. Tuning in for the first time, it occurred to me that good radio was something that was I seriously missed – I’d never really listened to much Internet radio to that point, Chicago had been without a quality radio station for probably a decade, and what I’ve listened to of Japanese radio hasn’t been pleasant. A station devoted 100% to shoegaze and dream pop was just the thing I needed. On top of that, the station’s mission to promote new music from all over the world via its New Tracks Weekend programming was on a much larger scale than what I had intended with my own project. I admired the hell out of what DKFM was doing, and tuning in made my life a little better every time.

A year and some change ago, I was fortunate enough to have been adopted into the DKFM family and given a bi-monthly hour-long slot during which I could share choice tracks from Japan and around Asia. DKFM had no lack of Japanese music in its database, but Greg, fueled by a love of Kensei Ogata and Tatuki Seksu among others, wanted to have programming dedicated to it and I was happy to oblige. Having recorded my own radio shows on a tape deck when I was a child, the opportunity was something of a dream come true. I had a blast working on Muso Asia over the following year and throughout 2015, and for that I’ll always be grateful.

Other members of the DKFM family included Mikkel of Danish new wave/post punk trio The Foreign Resort, Amber of the essential shoegaze and dream pop blog When The Sun Hits, and the somewhat mysterious DJ Ariel. The family was getting bigger, the programming was expanding, and DKFM just kept getting better and better. What seemed like a sudden announcement by the CRB put an end to a good thing, and what we’re left with following the station’s final broadcast on New Year’s Eve is a big hole that all the YouTube spam and description-less Soundcloud links in the world can’t replace.

I get that that last bit’s a little dramatic. The disappointment could very well just be a temporary thing, as there’s reason to believe that DKFM’s absence from our airwaves may be short lived. There are alternatives, and while returning to its previous format isn’t likely, a somewhat modified version of DKFM is preferable to none at all. Twitter activity indicates that the powers that be are working hard to find a solution. While there are no guarantees, shoegaze and dream pop fans can and should hold out hope that the planet’s foremost purveyor of all things blissful will be back sooner than later.