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The Best Japanese Shoegaze and Dream Pop Releases of 2020

Despite being awful in just about every way imaginable, 2020 was actually a strong year for Japanese music. The shoegaze scene in particular saw the emergence of some more young and impressive talent and with live music largely crippled by COVID-19, it at very least felt like more bands were striving to improve their online presence. Bandcamp Fridays seemed to encourage more Japanese artists to give the platform a chance, online streaming events took off, and some artists even sought creative ways to stay active by way of intimate studio session streams or pedalboard/gear walkthroughs. There was an obvious lack of in-person contact this year, but it opened up new means of artist-audience connections.

The fun part of looking back on a year is to reflect on the themes and trends of a particular scene. There was a lot of genre crossover in Japanese shoegaze in 2020, as gradually the marriage of punk/hardcore and shoegaze that has become quite popular in the US in particular over the past few years has gradually continued to work its way over to Japan. There was plenty of emo, guitar pop, post rock, indie pop, and early 00s Japanese alternative rock blended into shoegaze in 2020, that the scene felt more diverse than ever, and that is reflected in this best of the year list.

A couple of the annual “don’t e-mail me about this, please!” notes before we start. Hitsuji Bungaku‘s POWERS album is a monster, but it doesn’t qualify for this list despite a couple of absolutely killer shoegaze-leaning songs. Tokyo newcomers BLOOD PICK ME deserve some credit for their impressive output this year. Working against them was the fact that, as always, there was loads of tough competition in the single an EP categories.

 ☆ ★ BEST SINGLE ★ ☆

“Talking to Myself/Smoke from Cigarettes” by Morningwhim

2020’s best new band was responsible for the year’s best single.  Nagoya newcomers, Morningwhim, put out two singles last year – “Most of the Sun Shines” and “Talking to Myself/Smoke from Cigarettes”.  The latter was a Pains-esque jangle-fest riding a persistent wave of guitar fuzz.  Style-wise, this is right up there with the best of the shoegaze-indie pop crossover that really dominated the middle- to late-2010s.  A tremendous start from the Japanese indie band to keep an eye on moving forward (the other single is excellent, too!).

The race for best single was so close that Optloquat’s “Red Orange/Someday” felt like more of a 1a than a “best of the rest”.  “Red Orange” might have been my favorite Japanese shoegaze song of 2020.  The band’s sound blends Slowdive-y textural depth with early 2000s Japanese alt rock dynamic and vocals.  It’s music like this that really makes Japanese shoegaze more interesting than its global counterparts.  

Another year, another COLLAPSE appearance on a Muso Japan best of the year list.  This year’s entry was another epic display of the heaviest shoegaze that Japan has to offer by way of the band’s single “DROWN”.  The Saitama outfit dropped the new single in March and it’s a slow-paced belter that checks all of the requisite shoegaze boxes.  

Kyoto’s tip top nap returned in 2020 with “Kotoba no Hana/Haru no Naka e”, two tracks of some of the sweetest dream pop to come out of Japan this year.  “Haru no Naka e” really carried the release thanks to Natsumi Yamamoto’s ability to tear your heart to shreds with her breathy vocals.  The melody in the chorus is tear-jerking stuff and the gently bouncy backdrop is the perfect accompaniment.

Tokyo’s Stomp Talk Modstone have been around for a while now, but in 2020 the band really emerged as they released an absurd amount of music in such a short period of time. There were plenty of candidates to round out this list, but the best of the bunch was July, 2020 single “Hurt”. Stomp Talk Modstone draws on the standard names of the genre, but still manages to keep it fresh. Had I posted this at the beginning of the year when I should have, I would have recommended that you stay tuned for their album. But since it’s already out, I can say with certainty that you should check it out.

★ ☆ ★ BEST EP ★ ☆ ★

“shaman’s daughter” by My Dead Girlfriend

Just like the long-awaited returns of Coaltar of the Deepers in 2018 and Tokyo Shoegazer in 2019, a new release from My Dead Girlfriend was perhaps the most notable event in the scene in 2020. “Shaman’s Daughter”, partially a soundtrack to an upcoming indie film of the same name, was the band’s first new music in 5 years. The Kensei Ogata-produced effort covers a lot of ground tonally from cold, edgy post-punk to power pop with bouts of breakbeats, and is loaded with explosive energy and catchy hooks that you expect from a My Dead Girlfriend album. The best EP of the year and hands down the most fun as well. (CD Japan)

Nuit‘s debut narrowly missed out on my best of 2018 list, but their followup surged to the top of this one. And it’s definitely not due to any lack of competition. “In My Nature” is a massive step forward for the band thanks to some truly powerful guitars and insanely catchy vocal hooks. The balance on the EP is great – Makoto Gomi once again handled the production – and while the band maintained the dramatic vocal style that has defined their sound, it felt much better complemented this time around. Lead single and absolute banger “Forget-Me-Not” is Nuit’s new signature track.

Tokyo’s Moon in June came out of nowhere with their debut EP “Uminari”. Fluttery dream pop has long been a staple of the Japanese shoegaze scene, and while simple pop beats and gentle leads are very much part of Moon in June’s core sound, their ability to build to big, blurry guitar walls at just the right times sets them apart. The songs on the EP are extremely well-crafted.

Something of a Japanese indie supergroup, Tokyo’s Ferri-Chrome dropped some tasty shoegazey guitar-pop on us in 2020 with their debut EP “from a window”. Led by indie mainstay Manabu Kurogome with the support of members from For Tracy Hyde and Boyish, Ferri-Chrome’s sound is a throwback to 90s shoegaze a la Pale Saints or, for a domestic comp, first wave Japanese shoegaze.

Rounding off the list is fan favorite Seventeen Years Old and Berlin Wall, who offered a little bit of a different look in 2020 with their “Abstract” EP. The Tokyo outfit focused less on being a shoegaze band and more on working their shoegaze influence into a wider exploration of genres, and the result is a very fresh, very pleasant new version of itself.

★ ☆ ★ BEST ALBUM ★ ☆ ★

“In Memory Of” by Yukla Down

Tokyo’s Yukla Down blew me away in 2018 with their debut EP “In Demonstrationem”, and their 2020 full length debut In Memory Of stood as hands down the best of what was a strong field for the year. The band takes its shoegaze foundation in a lot of interesting directions, touching on post rock and emo; rolling it back to early My Bloody Valentine one moment and then into a glitchy soundscape the next. There’s not a dull moment on the entire album and the way it wraps up with the twelve-and-a-half-minute post rock epic “Denali” is absolutely perfect.

I’ll spare you my usual comments about how idol music bugs me. RAY is wonderful. For a while, comparing the shoegaze idol group to the now defunct ・・・・・・・・・ was logical, as RAY was seemingly the next step for the management group. But RAY has produced nothing but quality since forming up in 2019. For their full-length debut, Pink, the outfit was supported by an all-star cast of shoegaze composers, including Azusa Suga (For Tracy Hyde), Yusuke Hata (cruyff in the bedroom), and Hiroyuki Imamura (The Florist), as well as Ringo Deathstarr’s Elliott Frazier. I may not be totally on board with so-called “alt idol” music, but in at least this case, I’m warming up to the idea. (Tower Records Japan)

Simple, straightforward, and a bit rough around the edges. On 10 songs, Forbear delivered precisely that many tracks of fuzzy noise pop nostalgia. The album is an uncomplicated flow of sweet vocal melodies over a gritty backdrop and bouncy beats with the occasional breakdown or outburst of scorching guitar noise. There’s nothing to overthink about the album. It’s just really, really enjoyable. (LIKE A FOOL RECORDS)

Two years after dropping their debut demo single that I absolutely adored, Kiwi put out Before You’re Gone, a collection of addictive, danceable shoegaze pop slathered in Ride influence. Unlike a lot of bands that draw on the poppiest of shoegaze’s holy trinity, Kiwi is unafraid to let fly waves of messy guitar noise. The album is loaded with catchy numbers and, seated smack in the middle of the tracklist, “Behind the Times” is premium swoony promgaze. (Tower Records Japan)

SPOOL‘s sophomore effort Cyan/Amber was one of the more highly-anticipated releases of the year, due in large part to the attention the band garnered as a result of a stellar 2019 debut. The album is basically split into two parts, with its “Cyan” half featuring more of the grungy, moody style that the band has largely been known for. The “Amber” offers some lighter-toned melancholy, drifting more toward the realm of dream pop. While it may lack the individual standout song power of the debut, Cyan/Amber as a whole is an impressively worked listening experience.

[Korea] FOG – “Fogesque”

Though Korea hasn’t produced as steady a flow of shoegaze as continental counterparts such as Japan, Taiwan, and Indonesia, its output with regard to the genre has been solid.  Bands like Vidulgi OoyoO and UHF Seoul, and genre-adjacent acts such as Aseul and Say Sue Me have been notable representatives of Korean shoegaze and dream pop over the past decade-plus.  However, beyond a small number of bands and a Korean Loveless tribute, delving into the dreamy realm of the domestic scene has been difficult.

At the start of 2019, there was a brief surge of Korean shoegaze acts on Bandcamp.  The most impressive of these bands was FOG, whose “Shine/DreamingDreamingDreaming” single was an immediate attention grabber.  The band went on to publish a number of songs including a previously released demo album and it was obvious that this Seoul-based quartet was something special.  This week, they dropped their proper full-length debut, Fogesque, and introduced themselves as the new face of Korean shoegaze.

FOG’s strength is building incredible space using a cascade of guitars so deep and drenched in reverb that comparisons to Slowdive were immediate and perfectly understandable. Crafting within that vast space using dancing melodies and chilling, whispering vocals results in sheer bliss at a drugged-out stroll of a pace.  Fogesque is a perfect showcase of that ability and more via a blend of new music and some beefed up versions of older songs.

Four of the tracks on Fogesque are new versions of songs that first appeared on the aforementioned demo album from 2018, The Harder We Push, The Faster Well All Get Outta Here.  The standout of the callback portion of the album is “Dark Room”, which was hauntingly gorgeous in its demo form, but received a considerable amount of additional depth thanks to the production work of drummer Hwanho Lee (aka Bang9suk).   Perhaps the most fun result of the uptick in production quality is “Dehumidifier”, which taps along before a very harsh turn into a squall of guitar noise.  Admittedly, the dynamic change is a bit jarring at first, but there’s something wholly satisfying about such a violent eruption from the peaceful lull that leads up to it.

The new music on the album shows the band’s ability to continue writing fresh, strong shoegaze tunes using their usual formula.  If there’s one single best moment on the entire album it’s the exhale into the chorus of lead single “Nocturne”.  The burst of guitars and piercing melodic lead is tonal perfection.  And while the fadeout at the end of the track feels like a bit of a premature come down, the dense, dreamy haze continues into “Listless” and on into “Acid Dream”.  

Whether intentional or not, the placement of bouncy, whimsical dream pop tune “Dearest” smack in the middle of the album feels like a strategic palate cleanser before the wall of sound kicks back in on “Space Space Space Shuttle”.  From there, the band dives into deep textural exploration en route to the absolutely stunning finale of “Dark Room”.  

After almost two years of buildup, FOG’s new album is a statement that they are the band at the forefront of Korean shoegaze in this new decade.  Whether or not there’s a new wave of domestic artists poised to follow their lead, the young foursome has a bright future ahead of them on the back of a beautiful, deep sound that should appeal to a wide audience far outside their home country.  Fogesque is just the beginning.  

You can purchase Fogesque in digital or limited edition CD formats over at FOG’s Bandcamp page here:  https://phoque0twisted.bandcamp.com/album/fogesque

A Eulogy to Dots

Sudden announcements have apparently become a thing in the Japanese shoegaze scene.  Late last night, polarizing Japanese shoegaze idol group Dots (・・・・・・・・・) announced via Twitter that its final one-man live will be held in March, eliciting a wide range of responses from its substantial fan base.  The reasons for the breakup – or perhaps more appropriately, indefinite hiatus – aren’t totally clear at this point.  Since forming a little less than three years ago, Dots has emerged as one of the most popular bands in Japanese shoegaze, thanks in large part to its over-the-top live performances.


I first heard of Dots around the fall of 2016 when kiiro records boss Tsuji was getting ready for his first Chiba Shoegazer event.  None of our group of event organizers had ever heard of them, and the mini festival would be their official launching point.  The idea of a 9-person shoegaze idol group was a complicated one.  One one hand idol music has a very deserving reputation as exploitative and creepy – the Maho Yamaguchi story is just the most recent reminder of the dark side of the industry.  The idea of it infiltrating a scene that I had grown so close to was honestly a little troubling.  Dots wasn’t the first idol group to cross over into the genre, but it was the first to make that crossover its central theme.

On the other hand, there was some intrigue as the group was getting ready to get rolling.  The group was mysterious.  Each member took the stage wearing a visor, dressed in white dresses, and dancing almost intentionally awkwardly over blaring gazey pop tunes.  Again, the whole “alt idol” (eh…) thing was well-established by this point, but there was at least something consistent about what Dots was doing.  And as if the whole concept of a shoegaze idol group wasn’t weird enough on its own, the stretches of harsh noise and random cutting and eating of cabbage mid-set gave Dots the “weird Japan” push that would attract a sizable crowd of Japanophiles overseas, making Dots possibly the most popular Japanese shoegaze act on the planet.

I’ve been able to see Dots live a few times, and there’s always been this sense of conflict.  The music is actually pretty good, all things considered.  For Tracy Hyde’s Azusa Suga, who for my money is one of the best songwriters in the Japanese indie music scene right now, has contributed a number of songs – not surprisingly, Dots’ best material.  While there music is at times the sort of paper thin, overly cute stuff you might expect from an idol group, enough of their catalog is well-written and fun.  The group’s live performances are outrageous and the energy is always high, credit for which is due to Dots’ loyal, seemingly entirely male fanbase that travels well and has each song’s choreography and call and response interjection’s down to a T.  The performances are incredibly entertaining spectacles that make you forget momentarily that idol groups are essentially collections of cute, young girls controlled by men for the sake of men.

Despite my apprehension about idol culture, the industry is an important, albeit tragic, part of Japanese music culture.  This has been the strongest half-decade in the history of Japanese shoegaze and Dots has been a significant part of the scene’s canon.  The girls themselves have simply been doing what they want to do, and while we can look to deeper statements that may make about Japanese society, if we come at this from a purely musical or entertainment standpoint, the group has been a success and has gotten shoegaze gig-goers in the country to stop just standing there.

Whether this breakup is a long-term thing remains to be seen.  The announcement was followed up by a super vague blog post that didn’t do much to shed any light on the situation.  Dots has a Total Feedback appearance at the end of this month that will almost certainly be packed – Spool and Dots have been two of the event’s largest draws in recent years – and then the aforementioned final one-man in March.  If I was interested in betting, I’d wager that we’ll see more from Dots in the future.  The whole thing has gone way too well to this point, and even if Dots doesn’t eventually come back, they’ve shown that the idea of a shoegaze idol group can be successful.

 

Misty Cure – Chinese Dream Pop in Japan

Since forming plant cell a few years back, Masaki Sato has shown an eagerness to infuse his music with some Chinese influence.  Sato’s connection to China is one that is rooted in his own personal experiences in the country.  In his new project, Misty Cure, his aim is to push that bond to the forefront.

Misty Cure formed toward the end of 2018 when Sato and concrete twin leader/plant cell support member Kazzuya Okada recruited Chinese frontwoman Riyo, on whom the band’s image has largely been centered.  The trio immediately got to recording, quickly posting a couple tracks to Soundcloud.  The songs are basically covers of Faye Wong covers, with the band doing Chinese-language renditions of The Cranberries’ “Dreams” and “Bluebeard” by Cocteau Twins.  As Misty Cure begins working on its own original songs, the approach seems to be focused around making Chinese lyrics the feature that defines the band in the Japanese scene.

It’s hard to really get a good idea about a band when covers are all we have to work with, but based on Sato and Okada’s previous work and the quality of the vocals on the track, I’m looking forward to hearing what Misty Cure does next.

The Best Japanese Shoegaze and Dream Pop Releases of 2018

2018 was an incredibly busy year in the Japanese shoegaze scene.  There were exciting comebacks from beloved artists, brand new bands popping up all over the country, compilation albums galore, and lots of crossing over with international artists.  It feels like this happens every time there’s news from MBV, but the year was incredibly active.

As a result, the “best of the year” list was an even bigger pain than it normally is.  There was a good number of full length releases in 2018, and as usual the EP count was ridiculously high.  There are a ton of omissions that I will certainly get panned for, but in particular the EPs from Nuit, Nurse, 17 Years Old and the Berlin Wall, tip top nap, and figure, among others were all really solid and could have easily made the list.  On the album side, plant cell‘s Landscape release would have made it, but since the majority of the record is re-released material it didn’t feel right to include it.  Also, the Total Feedback 2018 compilation was one of the best albums this year, but as a continent-wide shoegaze comp it didn’t qualify.

Now that that’s out of the way, here are my favorite releases of 2018:

 ☆ ★ BEST SINGLE ★ ☆

“Without you” by Otom

Tokyo-based ambient shoegaze producer otom has been steadily releasing singles since his last full-length release five years ago.  The first of his 2018 releases, “Without You”, was also his strongest.  The 6-minute track is a beautiful, blurry dreamscape of sunken vocals and layers upon layers of guitar and electronics.  Otom’s catchy rhythm gets the listener’s attention before a crescendo of hissing static opens a portal to his vast world of sounds.  “Without You” is gazey ethereal escapism at its finest.

Perhaps the biggest news of the year in this realm was the sudden release of new material from legendary alternative outfit Coaltar of the Deepers, whose “SUMMER GAZER ’92” single was the band’s first new music in 7 years.  Though the track itself was a preview of the “Rabbit EP” that would soon follow, it was the only new track on the CD.  The dreamy, jazzy number was perhaps more subdued than expected, but it was a really strong return from NARASAKI and Deepers.

Kyoto’s Browned Butter was one of the most pleasant finds of 2018.  The young band announced itself with its debut single “Fall”, which was also included on Ano(t)raks’ “Die in Pop” compilation and would later appear as the title track of the band’s debut EP.  “Fall” follows the very familiar Japanese shoegaze formula of a blaring guitar lead and twin vocals, but the former isn’t overly relied on and the latter is done exceptionally well.  It’s a lovely song that isn’t even the best song on Browned Butter’s EP, which speaks to the quality of the band in its first year of activity.

There isn’t much else to say about otom that I didn’t already say in this post, but his winter-themed “Snowfall” single was yet another of the best singles of the year.  If I stretched this list a bit more, he’d have even more music included.

When I wrote about Tokyo newcomers Kiwi recently, I made the comparison to one of the all-time Japanese shoegaze greats, Ether Feels.  It’s a small sample, but their debut single “Beautiful Back” was a bit of emotional nostalgia that hit me in a way that few other tracks did this year.

★ ☆ ★ BEST EP ★ ☆ ★

“(I’m) Lost in Sadness” by Luby Sparks

Not too long after the release of their full-length debut in January, Tokyo’s Luby Sparks announced the departure of their singer Emily.  Given her role in helping the band establish itself over the past couple years and how seemingly perfect a fit she was for their sound, there might have been some concern moving forward.  But new frontwoman Erika absolutely kills it on the new EP, matching up perfectly with the dreamy melancholy of the new music.  Luby Sparks picked right up where they left off with another moody effort that fittingly wraps up with a heart-wrenching version of Mazzy Star’s “Look on Down From the Bridge”.

As is the case every year, the EP pool was extremely deep.  While there are more releases than I can reasonably fit in this list, COLLAPSE‘s “Delirium Poetry” sat alongside Luby Sparks’ EP on a tier above the rest.  COLLAPSE’s noise attack is relentless on both the EP’s slower, brooding numbers and its pacier tunes.  “Meadow” is perhaps the best example of what COLLAPSE do as well as anyone with a beautiful balance of heavy, layered guitars and wispy vocals.

Nagano’s AND LORELEI created a gorgeous listening experience with their “And Lorelei 0.2” EP.  The songwriting throughout is really good, and the band showed the ability to create deep, breathtaking songs using a variety of methods.  “Umarekawaru” and “Himitsu” are two of my standout tracks of the year.

Yuragi took a massive step forward in 2018 with the release of their “Still Dreaming, Still Deafening” EP.   The young Shiga outfit has been consistently impressive over the past couple years, but the new music feels bigger and a bit darker than their previous work – you can especially hear this on the reworked version of “bedside”.  I noted in my review that the flow of the EP as a whole feels a bit disjointed, but as a collection of individual tracks, “Still Dreaming, Still Deafening” is as good as any release from last year.

I wish I could make this list longer, as it doesn’t feel right to omit some really really good EPs, but that’s just how it goes every year.  Taking my final spot in this post was the debut demo EP “In Demonstrationem” from Tokyo’s Yukla Down.  “Torture Me (With Your Kiss)” is a delightful nod to My Bloody Valentine, while “If You Only Knew” is an absolute banger.

★ ☆ ★ BEST ALBUM ★ ☆ ★

“Luby Sparks” by Luby Sparks

So, yeah.  2018 was a pretty good year for Luby Sparks.  This one was pretty much decided back in January when their self-titled album hit shelves.  Luby Sparks is a warm and emotional yet dynamic collection of pop songs that range anywhere from jangly indie pop to lush dream pop to fuzzed-out gazey guitar rock that feels a lot like something off of Supercar’s iconic Three Out Change album.  There’s a sort of gloomy nostalgia hanging over the whole record that is extremely satisfying.  No album felt better to me in 2018.

While Coaltar of the Deepers and Sugar Plant got a lot of the comeback release attention this year, Lucy’s Drive‘s double CD release, pair of sounds, was arguably the best of the bunch.  Split into a red and a blue version, pair of sounds as a whole is an effective nod to 90s UK shoegaze and britpop, with each of the discs having its own unique feel.  The atmosphere ZEPPET STORE bassist Yuichi Nakamura creates in his solo project is consistently deep throughout.

Tokyo’s Once Grace Forever announced themselves in a big way, opting to forego the introductory single or short EP release and putting out a self-titled record that was shockingly good.  The 8-track album is decently-produced for a self-produced debut effort and the songwriting is quite good.  What really pushes this album to my best of the year list is the depth of sound from start to finish as the album drifts from post rock to more textural shoegaze.  It’s not as refined as some of the other releases this year, but the quality of the content is really impressive.

Acidclank‘s Addiction album is another genre-hopping effort that once again shows the band’s affinity for 90s UK indie music.  Just as on their 2015 debut, Inner, the band covers a lot of ground, but Addiction never manages to feel weird or inconsistent, thanks largely to more consistent production quality this time around.  On the record, Acidclank is at their best when belting out textural psych tunes like “Overdose” and “This Time”.  It’s another impressive, versatile release from the Osaka band.

Headlightswas the ultra-mellow, dreamy comeback release from Tokyo dream pop outfit Sugar Plant.  The band’s first music in 18 years, Headlights throws it back to the band’s old sound, while also managing to keep things fresh on this tripped-out dream pop return.

Once Grace Forever – “♭1”

Having just released a self-titled debut full-length last month, Tokyo’s Once Grace Forever wasted no time in putting out its follow-up single “♭1”.  The single’s A-side, “Ao” is the more impressive track of the two, transitioning back and forth well between clean lulls and big, wailing choruses.  “Flat” is a fuzzy guitar pop tune that doesn’t change much dynamically, relying instead on the vocal melody and melancholic chord progressions.  The single is pretty solid, but might have come out a little too soon after the record, which is a tough act to follow.  If you haven’t heard any of Once Grace Forever’s music, I recommend starting here and then moving on to the album.

 

Acidclank – “Addiction”

When Osaka indie-rock shoegaze band Acidclank popped up in 2015 with its debut album, Inner, the band showed a tremendous versatility in sound. The record essentially felt like a lo-fi exploration of 90s UK indie music, drifting from shoegaze to psych to pop.  On each of the two singles that followed, the band continued to give different looks into its wide range song-writing capabilities.  Acidclank’s latest full-length effort, Addiction, is more of the same, drawing on a variety of influences and styles, but featuring enough consistent elements that it never feels weird or disjointed.

There are some familiar titles in the track list, including a buffed up version of “Clever” from Inner and both of the singles that were released last year.  Just like the first album, Addiction features some very shoegazey tunes, highlighted by “Turning” and the very Loveless-inspired “Sleepwalk”.  On songs like “Wrong” and the aforementioned “Clever” Acidclank delivers some noisy but danceable indie rock, while “Disease” feels like a nod to Death Cab’s Transantlanticism.  Throughout the album, you get a lot of different but high-quality looks, as the band has shown a knack for consistently crafting catchy, well-written songs.  But Addiction really shines when it gets super trippy, particularly on “This Time” and “Overdose”.  The former has a very Dark Side of the Moon vibe to it with a slow-paced, steady groove setting the foundation for layers of spaced out guitars and reverb-soaked vocals.  “Overdose” is pacier, more of a free-form psych track with guitars, atmospheric synths, and harmonized vocals all blanketed over a droning bass line, waxing and waning in intensity.  While the album as a whole is consistently very good, these two tracks are the standouts.

Addiction CD versions can currently be found on Amazon is currently available on most streaming platforms.  You can purchase it via iTunes as well, and an LP version is due out at some point in the next month.  You can also check out some of their earlier work at Bandcamp.

concrete twin – “Re:boots”

Tokyo-based shoegaze outfit concrete twin is back with its first release in two years, a two-track EP titled “Re:boots”.  Originally the solo project of Kazuya Okada, concrete twin has remained a consistent but underrated member of the current Tokyo shoegaze scene over the last year or so.  Okada, who also currently performs with better-known Chiba shoegaze band plant cell, has been making music for concrete twin – originally known as Guruwa Vail – since 2008.  In 2017, he recruited members and the band started gigging in the Tokyo area, appearing multiple times at monthly Koenji HIGH shoegaze showcase Total Feedback.  After losing a few members recently, Okada rebooted the lineup with bassist/keyboardist Fumio and drummer Zenn.

“Re:boots” is a bit more subdued in terms of pace than concrete twin’s previous EP release.  “Accelerator” is a swirly, dreamy mess of guitars and sunken, blippy synths.  “Door” is much larger and more chaotic, and I can’t help but think about how much bigger it would sound with real drums.  The vocals on both tracks sit right at that perfect point of being unintelligible but present enough.  While the latter track is a really solid concept, “Accelerator” is a legit gazey dreamscape that is also executed well on the recording.  It’s hard to imagine concrete twin’s sound not being incredible in a live setting.

You can pick up concrete twin’s latest release at the band’s newly created Bandcamp page.  Physical copies of their material are also available at their shows.

Yuragi – “Still Dreaming, Still Deafening”

When Yuragi appeared out of Shiga in 2016, it was as another impressive young Kansai act putting out some catchy, and surprisingly loud, poppy shoegaze.  Their debut single “bedside” fit in well with the pop-leaning tone of the local scene.  When the band released its first EP, “nightlife” just before the turn of that same year, there was something markedly different about its sound – leads were more sunken into the mix, the previously clean vocals were now echoing from whirlwinds of guitar noise.  Over the course of nine months and six tracks, Yuragi’s sound had changed  into something deeper and even a bit darker.

On its latest release, the six-track mini album “Still Dreaming, Still Deafening”, Yuragi shows us something totally new.  The CD kicks off with wailing clean guitars over a march-like cadence crescendoing into the post rock shoegaze explosion of “Horizon”.  On “Utopia” the band goes back to the uptempo, danceable sound of its previous releases, but doing so in a much more massive way.  The reworked version of “bedside” sits in the middle of the album, verifying the band’s transition to much bigger sound by keeping the poppy sweetness of the original but making the guitar wash much more prominent in the mix.  Lead single “Unreachable” returns to the melancholic post rock style of the openers, before the almost 11-minute “Path of the Moonlit Night” wraps things up in epic fashion, building from a dreamy lull to a raging outburst of swirling guitars before descending into a quiet marching snare that wraps it all up very comfortably.

If I have one issue with “Still Dreaming, Still Deafening” as a whole body of work, it’s that the middle portion of the mini album almost disrupts the flow between the first and final thirds.  It’s hard to really complain too much, though, since each of those tracks is ridiculously good on its own.  From a songwriting standpoint, this is the most impressive music Yuragi has released to date, and production-wise it’s excellent.  The new generation of Japanese shoegaze is moving in a very cool, very loud direction, and Yuragi, along with bands like Collapse, Softsurf, and YURAGI LANDS, is among the most exciting contributors.

You can pick up a copy of “Still Dreaming, Still Deafening” via Amazon (JP), though their previous releases have flown off the shelves so it’s best to do so quickly.

Magic Love – “Night Falls”

So remember that new release from magic love that I predicted would come around the end of 2014?  Well it’s finally arrived.  ight Falls is the Tokyo trio’s first new release since they put out their previous EP Dawn in the summer of 2014.  Just as their sophomore effort followed a pretty lengthy transitional period, magic love has spend the last two years…

Source: Facebook
Source: Facebook

So remember that new release from magic love that I predicted would come around the end of 2014?  Well it’s finally arrived.  Night Falls is the Tokyo trio’s first new release since they put out their previous EP Dawn in the summer of 2014 (the two-track Night Before single doesn’t count, because it was just a filler release with a couple live tracks).  Just as their sophomore effort followed a pretty lengthy transitional period, magic love has spend the last two years since its release retooling its lineup and re-recording some previously released material.  It’s been a long wait, but Night Falls features everything we’ve come to love about magic love and then some.

Night Falls kicks off with a new version of “Waiting for Rain”, a track that originally appeared on the Dawn EP.  The new version is essentially the same as the original but with female vocals complements of new-ish addition Marika Sato.  “Midnight Baby” is a brand new track that had only previously been released via the Muso Asia comp at this year’s Kyoto Shoegazer event.  Along with “Popularity”, the middle segment of the EP is a little more dream pop than the roaring, guitar texture-laden shoegaze tracks we’ve come to expect.  There aren’t many shoegaze bands in the country that belt out waves of huge guitar noise as well as magic love, but they show that they can mix it up a little bit without sacrificing quality.  It’s a nice departure from their usual sound, but a brief one, as the EP wraps up with a blaring, bendy hook in “Ghost Novice”. Though tonally this is very much back to what I expected of the new EP, there’s a bit more energy and a skip in the step of the chorus that plays more like a 90s US alt rock track than a straightforward shoegaze song. 

Though magic love showed us something a little different on Night Falls, the band’s quality remains consistent and they continue to establish themselves as one of the best – and underrated – bands in Japan.  The EP was first released in Taiwan where they played “Meow Bang Party vol. 1” along with Fuguko and Bison Country.  Currently physical copies are available exclusively at shows, though you can purchase the digital EP on Bandcamp.  According to the band’s Twitter account, the CD may soon be made available online as well.  Give them a follow on Twitter and Facebook, and keep checking their Bandcamp page to stay tuned.