Eccentric Japanese synthpop artist ZOMBIE-CHANG (Meirin Yung) has perfected the wonky pop song. After stunning us last year with her idiosyncratic third album PETIT PETIT PETIT, Yung returns with her joyous follow-up, “Saredo Shiawase.” Along with it, she’s also included two tracks–“NEW ZOMBIE-CHANGE 2019,” a teaser for what’s to come this year and “I CAN’T […]
Hong Kong-based rock group Prune Deer (話梅鹿) made their return last week with their brash single “Return,” featuring a very familiar voice in the Asian indie scene: Japanese experimental musician harunemuri 春ねむり (Haruna Kimishima). Though the two up-and-coming groups come from very different countries, “Return” manages to find the best of both genres, creating a […]
In early 2015, San Francisco indie-pop band No Vacation quickly received attention for the nostalgic bedroom-pop sounds off of their debut mixtape, Amo XO and their surf-rock single, “Dræm Girl”. They followed that up with 2017’s similarly hazy EP Intermission. But an Audiotree session and a year-long hiatus later, No Vacation re-emerged from their hibernation […]
Grainy film. Stark blue skies contrasted with grey concrete. Vintage camcorders and 90s headphones that have been dusted off just to be put in front of the camera once again. These are just a few motifs that indie artists from all over the Japanese music scene are embracing. It’s a new aesthetic that evokes […]
If there’s one song that spoke to the power of YouTube algorithms in 2018, it would have to be Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love”. Almost out of nowhere, this decades-old Japanese pop song which had once dominated the charts in its native Japan found second life as one of 2018’s surprise Internet hits. Takeuchi’s song, which […]