a Japanese indie music blog
Beijing noise-rockers Carsick Cars will be releasing their third album, appropriately titled 3 on February 28th. Carsick Cars has been making waves for years in the Beijing music scene and 3, which was produced by Hamish Kilgour (The Clean) and Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3), will be the start of an eventful 2014 for the band. The release via Maybe Mars will be followed by a North American tour in March and April.
Brooklyn’s Dead Leaf Echo look to follow up their success from last year’s monster album Thoughts & Language with their first release of 2014, true.deep.sleeper. The 4-track EP will be released on February 25, and is available for pre-order on Bandcamp. The title track is available to stream if you’d like to have a listen.
Tijuana, Mexico’s Celofan has just released its debut album “Ideas a Medias”. I’ve been looking forward to this release since the band’s work was brought to my attention by Jairo from Latinamerica Shoegaze, who mentioned the then upcoming release in Muso Planet volume 3. Nice big sound from the Mexican shoegazers. You can get the album simply by tweeting its existence here http://www.paywithapost.de/pay?id=24b4d62b-d70f-45b2-99e9-e1c630514897. Follow the band on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/CelofanTJ
“Ether” is the latest single from Tokyo based dreamy post-rockers Dormer. It’s a really chilling ambient track featuring some beautiful vocals and a bunch of layers that are arranged quite brilliantly. The single is available through More Records here: http://morerecords.jp/?pid=70023737 (Japanese only). Here is a preview of the track:
Sweden’s Zeit wowed us in 2013 with the really strong Life is Just a Blur EP. The Gothenburg-based quartet has gone back in time and posted its self-titled album from 2011 for free (or whatever you’d like to pay) on its Bandcamp page. Click here to get the album: http://zeit.bandcamp.com/album/zeit.
The city is another relatively unknown shoegaze band in Japan that is worth getting familiar with. Formed in Osaka in 2011, there is very little information about the band outside of some photos, some social networking pages, and one song. The song, “Celebration” was released in November 2013 and inspired by a long list of classic shoegaze artists. The four-piece has been playing out around Osaka and is planning on getting into the studio some time in the spring. Check out their lone track at their Audioleaf page here:
Osaka-based instrumental three-piece Lemon’s Chair has released a video for the track “My Favorite” off the upcoming album My Favorite Reverb. It’s an epic 12-minute song that starts off in a calming way, but in typical Lemon’s Chair fashion explodes into some really big beautiful noise. The album is due out next month.
Scotland’s Le Thug have released their second EP Art Software, a follow-up to last year’s Ripping EP. The release features three heavily layered, dreamy tracks driven by chilled out electronic beats. It is available for whatever you’d like to pay on the band’s Bandcamp page: http://lethug.bandcamp.com/.
Stella Diana has released the first video from their upcoming album -41 61 93-, due out on Valentine’s Day. The single is titled “Isabeau”, named after the character from the 1985 film Ladyhawke. I’ve been looking forward to this release for some time now from the Neapolitan shoegazers and die-hard football fans. Here’s the video. Enjoy!
The eighth and final band has been added to Muso Planet Volume 4 and it’s the brilliant French psychgazers Dead Horse One. Very excited to have them on board and now that the band list has been wrapped up we’ll be looking to finalize all volume 4 content in the coming weeks. The complete band list for volume 4 is as follows:
Adelaida (Chile)
TuT (Taiwan)
orangenoise (Pakistan)
SHE (England)
Le Thug (Scotland)
The Chambermaids (U.S.)
Sea Dweller (Italy)
Dead Horse One (France)