Tag: spool

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.

The Best Japanese Shoegaze and Dream Pop Releases of 2019

The past few years have seen a steady flow of new and upcoming artists in the Japanese scene.  In 2019, however, the story was more about big name returns and the domestic scene really holding steady with really strong releases from some of its best-known artists.  Tokyo Shoegazer and Coaltar of the Deepers dominated the buzz, we saw a very consistent flow of releases, and the final year of the 2010s felt like a confirmation that few if any genres have been as consistently well-represented as shoegaze in Japanese indie music over the past decade.  It was a really strong year.

Before getting into the best of 2019 lists, there are a couple notes.  First off, once again, this was a really tough year to break down.  Since I crunched the format of these lists into a “best 5” style, it’s been a real challenge.  Sometimes that only applies to the EP portion, but this year all of them gave me trouble.  Also, Tokyo Shoegazer had a massive year, and while their Crystallize reissue deserves all the love it got all over the world, it doesn’t qualify for the list.  Nor does their stealthily released Moondiver album, which was sold on their China tour, but which will likely receive a proper release in 2020.

That about does it.  Here are my best releases of 2019.

 ☆ ★ BEST SINGLE ★ ☆

“Revive” by Tokyo Shoegazer

As I mentioned in the intro, the sudden and surprising return of Tokyo Shoegazer was pretty much the biggest story in Japanese shoegaze in 2019.  Though the Crystallize reissue and Moondiver releases generated more buzz, their “Revive” single featured the band’s first new music in years.  It was an emphatic announcement of their return to activity, highlighted by the epic seven-and-a-half-minute lead track, “Light”.

Indie legends Coaltar of the Deepers had a similar comeback in 2019, which marked the 25th anniversary of the band’s debut The Visitors from Deepspace album.  Having released two new singles in 2018, Deepers’ return wasn’t as big a surprise, but the band teased a new single over the course of their anniversary tour.  The track, titled “HALFLIFE” dropped on digital platforms in early December, and is very much a throwback to the band’s genre-bending shoegaze prime.

From two long-standing veterans of Japanese shoegaze to one of the finest of the latest crop of indie bands to pop up this decade, Luby Sparks followed up a fantastic 2018 with a brand new single in 2019.  “Somewhere” is a gorgeous 4AD-style dream pop tune that jangles along into a super catchy, emotional chorus.  It’s romantic, teenage nostalgia and it’s beautiful.  The single’s B-side is a remix by Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie that really piles on the feels.

Lost in all the big comeback announcements was maybe my personal highlight of 2019, which was Osaka’s Ether Feels getting back together two years after splitting.  With a mostly fresh lineup around band leader Tomo Iwashita, Ether Feels put out its latest single titled “Kowloon Sunset” and got back to gigging.  The band picked up right where it left off with its heart-wrenching brand of melancholic shoegaze pop.

The Earth Earth has been pretty quiet since releasing a single in 2016, gigging sporadically around their home base in Aomori, so their latest single was another pleasant surprise this past year.  While nods to early My Bloody Valentine aren’t exactly rare among shoegaze bands around the world, The Earth Earth is one of the few Japanese bands to have consistently gone that route over the years and the results have been excellent.  “Story is Wrong” is nothing new, but it hits the spot.

I’m taking liberties here by adding one more entry to my singles list.  COLLAPSE‘s latest three-track release, “ENDOGENIC REBIRTHDAY”, was actually at the top of my EP list before I realized the band had labeled it a single.  Their sound continues to sit at the heavier end of the Japanese shoegaze spectrum, and on “RITUAL”, they show off a nice blend of contrasting styles in hardcore and shoegaze that isn’t all that common in Japan.

★ ☆ ★ BEST EP ★ ☆ ★

“EASTOKLAB” by EASTOKLAB

As usual there were a number of EPs vying for the top spot on my year end list, but the one that I listened to and enjoyed the most was the self-titled debut EP from Nagoya’s EASTOKLAB.  Their brand of dream pop is some of the most unique in a scene that has a lot of creative takes on the genre.  From dreamy atmospheres, tight grooves, and the ability to seamlessly transition to big blurry guitar walls, EASTOKLAB possesses a diverse sonic arsenal, and frontman Hayato Hioki’s vocal style is uniquely his.

The Waterfalls’ 2016 self-titled release garnered a lot of attention in the Japanese indie scene, and this past year they put out a double EP release consisting of “In the Blue Lagoon” and “Youthlight”.  There are some subtle differences in style between the two EPs, but overall over the eight tracks that they released they showed more of the outstanding songwriting that we saw on the debut.

My troubled relationship with idol music has been well-documented to this point, but I really enjoyed “Blue”, the debut EP from RAY.  Shortly after ・・・・・・・・・ disbanded, RAY emerged as the new face of shoegaze idol music (under the same management as their predecessors) and promised a highly-anticipated collaboration with Ringo Deathstarr.  They delivered just that on the new EP, the lead single of which, titled “Meteor”, was composed by the Austin shoegaze trio’s Elliot Frazier.  With two more tracks composed by Azusa Suga of For Tracy Hyde and Yusuke Hata of cruyff in the bedroom, RAY’s focus on quality songwriting over gimmicks is a positive sign.

Formerly known simply as kano, Tokyo-based bedroom producer azsakano put out another EP full of whimsical dreamy pop tunes in 2019.  Just like her previous works, “Romantics” features some really nice layering of textures and sweet vocal melodies soaked in reverb and sunken deep within the mix.  Azsakano is an expert at crafting lo-fi dream pop that is simple on the surface but gives the listener a lot to dive into.

On their latest EP, “square”, Nagoya’s mishca do a lot more texturally than they have in the past, while staying true to their very mellow, straightforward approach to songwriting.  If there was one knock on the band in the past it’s that they didn’t develop songs enough to really carry the slow, methodical backbone of their music.  Musically, “square” offers considerably more dynamic range, and the male-female vocals complement each other really well.

 

★ ☆ ★ BEST ALBUM ★ ☆ ★

“New Young City” by For Tracy Hyde

This can’t be much of a shock.  For Tracy Hyde had a lot of competition this year, but their third full length album, New Young City, sits atop this list.  Once again, For Tracy Hyde drew on western shoegaze and dream pop and Japanese pop influences and pieced together an album that is loaded with energy and emotion.  As a body of work, its structure is similar to that of their successful sophomore effort, but New Young City shows the band going even bigger with its sound.  It’s loaded with song of the year contenders.

SPOOL‘s self-titled full length debut seemed like a lock for the album of the year throughout most of 2019, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say it actually was.  It’s a powerful, well-produced album that demonstrates some really versatile songwriting.  SPOOL goes from deep and dreamy to dark and edge, infusing their shoegaze sound with elements of 90s US alternative rock and playful dream pop.  This was the breakout we were waiting for from the four-piece.

Monocism‘s Fukou album was the band’s first proper release since the end of the previous decade, and one of the most pleasant surprises of the year.  Over the past few years, frontman Tomoya Shiono has been working on some wonderful solo material under the moniker 宗凛 (Sourin), and monocism’s new album plays like an extension of that with its stuttering, mathy beats blanketed in thick, dreamy layers of noise and fluttering guitar leads.

Taffy once again had a quietly solid year, highlighted by their fifth studio album, Deep Dark Creep Love.  As is often the case with a Taffy release, there’s nothing groundbreaking about the album, but producing good shoegaze in 2019 is largely based on taking elements of the genre that have been done in the past and working them into something interesting.  That is what Taffy do so well and it’s why their new record is an excellent listen.  Their rendition of Bowie’s “Never Let Me Down” is gorgeous, too.

The final spot on this list was the hardest to decide on.  Cattle, Smokebees, NOAH, and a lot of other bands put out really good albums, and Kiiro Records’ FOREVER SHOEGAZE double release was probably the label’s best compilation to date.  But I’m going with Polly‘s latest release, Flowers.  Produced by The Novembers’ Yusuke Kobayashi, Polly’s third album is gorgeously dark and dreamy with tremendous depth thanks to a combination of airy guitars and synths.

Spool – “Spool”

For years now, Tokyo’s Spool has been readying itself for a breakout.  The all-female four-piece, which has become affectionately referred to as “Japan’s Warpaint”, has been a massive draw in its local scene, garnered attention from music fans overseas, and put out a handful of quality releases both in Japan and internationally.  The announcement late last year of its self-titled debut full-length felt like a statement that Spool was ready to establish itself among the elite of the Japanese indie scene.

The Warpaint comparison almost feels lazy, but it makes sense.  The shoegaze tag fits as well as the various comps to bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, and My Bloody Valentine, but each only to a certain extent.  On the album Spool pulls a bit from the edgier side of 90s US alternative music as well as the dreamy UK melancholy and fuzzy guitar walls that have the band seated comfortably in the Japanese shoegaze scene.  It’s a total throwback to everything that rules about 90s music.  Spool has really keyed in on that general concept and written exceptional songs around it.

There are some familiar songs on the record, with “Springpool” and fan favorite “Sway, fadeaway” joining the stunningly shoegazey lead single “Be My Valentine” in getting beefed up new versions courtesy of producer and magic love drummer Kazuaki Kondo.  Lead track “nightescape” is a dark, dreamy number turned absolute belter that, along with my personal favorite song on the album, “Let Me Down” really showcases frontwoman Ayumi Kobayashi’s range.  The deep, breathy vocals in the verses on the latter, in particular, are teeming with attitude and there’s something quietly powerful about them as they trade off with the sad, raw chorus line.

Overall, the shoegaze influence on the album is perhaps stronger than expected, highlighted by gloomy, thickly textured tracks like “Winter” and “Morphine”.  “Blooming in the Morning” adds a little dream pop into the mix as well, softening a bit of the album’s edge with some bouncy sweetness.  The closer, “No, thank you”, which is a more cleanly mixed version than the one that appeared on last year’s Total Feedback 2018, wraps up the album with a blistering guitar attack and distorted vocals.

Expectations were high coming into the full length debut, and the band delivered.  Though Spool’s influences are by no means unique in the current Japanese scene, the way in which they are able to put them together and really balance their sound over the course of the record is.  The ability for a band to wear its influences on its sleeve without bottle-necking itself and at the same time maintaining some cohesiveness over the course of an album is something to appreciate.  Spool has done it here.

You can pick up Spool’s self-titled album via Testcard Records’ Bandcamp page (overseas) or domestically from the label’s online store.  It’s also available for streaming on Apple Music, though there are some issues due to another band called Spool having released an album called Spool in 1998.

Below you can find the videos for “Be My Valentine” and “Blooming in the Morning”.