Nice to see Brave Wave getting coverage for their Ninja Gaiden: The Definitive Soundtrack release over at Time Out Tokyo.
Category: Music
Brand New Emo
I’m so in love with the video for Towa Tei‘s “Brand New Emo” track, featuring the Mizuhara Sisters. Found via Tokyo’s Coolest Sound.
New Cornelius Single
Today (Saturday, April 22) is Record Store Day, and as you’d expect, over at Tokyo’s Coolest Sound, Patrick has put together a massive post highlighting all of the best releases you should be on the lookout for in Japan.
Vacances Shibuya-kei
Maki Nomiya is releasing a new record in her “Shibuya-kei Standards” series, in which she covers classics of the era — including some new renditions of Pizzicato Five track — and this one is perfectly timed for the summer. Vacances Shibuya-kei o utau – Wonderful Summer is set for release on May 3, and you’ll find more details, including a trailer video, in this Tokyo’s Coolest Sound post.
You Make Shibuya
Maki Nomiya and Hideki Kaji are turning into ambassadors for Shibuya — you’ll remember that they’re doing a weekly Shibuya-kei radio show together these days — and on this official Shibuya-ku website, promoting a “You Make Shibuya” campaign, you can listen to a song they made together. Below (photo by Patrick Benny), you can see them on the cover of the Shibuya-ku News free paper (love that Shibuya-ku News logo).
Need some music guidance? This Open Culture post shares a Spotify playlist made up of 3350 tracks form Haruki Murakami‘s record collection — which you can partially see in this post’s photo (taken from his website).
The Japan 80s on Vinyl
I think this Japan Times piece makes a nice follow-up to what I had recently shared about the resurgence of “city pop” — here, we look at the resurgence of the physical vinyls themselves, as well as re-issues.
Are Euphoria
What’s Takako Minekawa up to these days? She’s about to release yet another collaboration record with Dustin Wong, entitled Are Euphoria — the track “Zaaab” is pretty fantastic. More details in this Tokyo’s Coolest Sound listing.
Superworker
I was relieved to see the other day that my friends Rekka and Devine (Hundred Rabbits) made it through the 28-day journey of sailing over the Pacific Ocean, from Mexico to French Polynesia — the goal is to reach Japan. Now that they’re back on land, they’ve been updating us on what they’ve been up to, and on top of the video they’re about to release to share the tale of their month-long journey, Devine has just released a new 3-track album called Superworker.