Tag: kansai

Mississippi Khaki Hair – “1st Demo”

It doesn’t feel like very long ago at all that I was gushing over a promising teen indie shoegaze outfit from Osaka called Whisper Voice Riot.  2015 was a great year for the band, who established themselves as one of the promising young bands to keep an eye on – and not just in the indie scene.

It doesn’t feel like very long ago at all that I was gushing over a promising teen indie shoegaze outfit from Osaka called Whisper Voice Riot.  2015 was a great year for the band, who established themselves as one of the young bands to keep an eye on – and not just in the shoegaze scene.  They put out their debut EP, Before the Morning Cleaves Our Night, last fall, appeared at Total Feedback and Kyoto Shoegazer, and seemed to be picking up steam.  It was therefore a bit of a shock that this past spring the band announced that their appearance at the 2016 Kyoto Shoegazer fest would be their last.  The news was pretty sudden, and I was personally really disappointed to see such a promising young band call it.  

There was some consolation, however, upon hearing that three of Whisper Voice Riot’s members, including frontman Taito, would continue making music under a different name.  The direction of the new project, called Mississippi Khaki Hair, was a bit of a mystery, but one thing was made perfectly clear: this wasn’t going to be a shoegaze band.  

Mississippi Khaki Hair got right to gigging in early May and this past Friday released a 3-song demo EP.  They released two-thirds of the EP a week or so in advance on Soundcloud, and my first thought was that it wasn’t a massive departure from some of the dancier WVR stuff.  There is much more of a groove to the new project, though, but it didn’t seem different enough to necessarily warrant a completely new project.  “True Love” is a romantic, synth-laden blend of new wave and shoegaze, while “Phone Call” has a distinctly Strokes-y vibe to it, with overdriven vocals and prominent guitar lead paced by a consistent four on the floor beat.  “Silence Like A Shout” is a bit more along the lines of the latter – another lo-fi indie rock dance track.

The demos are really rough, and Taito acknowledges this along with the fact that this is pretty much just a sample to show people what the new band is all about.  When I asked him why he scrapped Whisper Voice Riot to start a new project, his answer was simple:  “I couldn’t be satisfied with WVR.”  In addition to members being busy and it being difficult to consistently write music, there were creative issues as well and Taito stresses the goal of MKH is to make music that’s more original.  “Whisper Voice Riot’s music was derivative, and I didn’t want it to end there.  The two new songs we posted are really traditional, but, combining shoegaze, post punk, and pop music, we are getting ready to show people what we’re all about.”  

This is just the beginning of Mississippi Khaki Hair as a band, and, just like WVR, they’ve gotten off to a pretty fast start.  Physical copies of their demo EP are only available at gigs at the moment, but there are plans to release it digitally on Bandcamp and potentially sell physical copies online as well.  In the meantime, the whole thing is up on Soundcloud.  It’s still a demo, but you can get an idea of what the band is going for, and it’s a lot of fun.  My personal favorite track – it’s probably not a coincidence that it’s also the song that most resembles WVR’s music – is “True Love”.  You’ll be wanting to keep an eye and an ear open for these guys, so be sure to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.  

Standing on the Moon with Whisper Voice Riot

By 1996 the shoegaze genre had sort of peaked in terms of popularity in its first go-round and made way for grunge and Britpop, while slipping away into relative obscurity.  In Japan the so-called ‘first wave’ of shoegaze had already come and gone with the country’s founding fathers of the genre long disbanded or still working out a release.  1996 would be the year that Luminous Orange released its debut album Vivid Short Trip, and a mere two years before Supercar would release Three Out Change and effectively kick off a new wave of shoegaze bands in Japan.  That’s a very brief glimpse back at the year 1996, but one to just put things in perspective.

By 1996 the shoegaze genre had sort of peaked in terms of popularity in its first go-round and made way for grunge and Britpop, while slipping away into relative obscurity.  In Japan the so-called ‘first wave’ of shoegaze had already come and gone with the country’s founding fathers of the genre long disbanded or still working out a release.  1996 would be the year that Luminous Orange released its debut album Vivid Short Trip, and a mere two years before Supercar would release Three Out Change and effectively kick off a new wave of shoegaze bands in Japan.  That’s a very brief glimpse back at the year 1996, but one to just put things in perspective.

1996 was also the year that the first of Whisper Voice Riot’s members were born.  The Osaka shoegaze band’s lineup consists of members born in ’96 and ’97, prompting comments about how they’re the future of the Japanese scene and whatnot.  The concept isn’t just based on the fact that they’re all still in high school, though.  They’re actually really, really good.  Right around the end of last year they put out their first track “Stargaze” and prompted a whole bunch of Tweets by people who were surprised that it was made by teenagers.  Admittedly, I was a little curious, if not skeptical, about how things would go from there.  Having witnessed first-hand how little free time high schoolers have and experiencing how tedious arranging band practices can be, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they just fell victim to the pressures of university entrance exams and disappeared entirely.  

That wasn’t at all the case, however, and Whisper Voice Riot has had a great 2015, during which the band been a part of some pretty good gigs and put out some new material – the first of which was a danceable follow up single aptly titled “Let’s Dance and Sink Down”.  Their songwriting ability once again grabbed a lot of attention, resulting in an invitation to perform at Hata Yusuke’s monthly Total Feedback event at Koenji HIGH in Tokyo – something of a rite of passage for Japanese shoegaze bands.  However, it’s in the Kansai-area shoegaze scene that Whisper Voice Riot has quickly become a mainstay.  Their emphatic performance at the Kyoto Shoegazer vol. 3 event at Annie’s Cafe this summer showed a level of confidence and poise beyond their years that impressed the hell out of me and just about everyone else at the show.  

The highlight of the year for Whisper Voice Riot was undoubtedly this past weekend in Osaka where the band had a supporting slot at the Tokenai Namae album release party.  They had teased a release of their very own with a new track on their Soundcloud page, but the show in Osaka was where they officially put out their debut 3-track EP Before the Morning Cleaves Our Night.  As a further testament to their increased standing in the Osaka music scene, the maiden release was produced by Post Modern Team’s Kishida-san.  

With their first two singles being pretty different, I was a little curious whether Whisper Voice Riot would go the way of the first and choose the indie pop/shoegaze path or if they might just choose the pop route.  Naturally, as a fan of the former I had my own hopes, especially seeing how their aggressive live show would be an asset to a Japanese shoegaze landscape that could use a bit of a jolt.  Needless to say, I am pleased with the balance of the EP and the fact that they, along with Kishida-san, did not shy away from the loud side of things while still keeping the catchy pop melodies in tact.

There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said in terms of Whisper Voice Riot’s potential.  There’s still room for growth, but they’ve shown that they should be capable of filling out their sound even more as time goes by.  I still wonder about the effect that their formal education may have on their creative passion, but to this point it’s done nothing to slow them down.  I had them on my list of bands to keep an eye on in 2015, and it’s reasonable to extend that claim for the foreseeable future.

At the moment Whisper Voice Riot’s EP is only available at shows, but they’ve announced that it will be available via mail order in the near future.  Stay tuned by following the band on Facebook and Twitter.