Indie Music From Japan

A while ago a friend gave me a few of these Sony Japanese Rock Compilations called Japan Not For Sale 1 2 & 3 . They really turned me on to Japanese Indie rock. Favorites from this series were Puffy, Supercar, Tomovsky, Boom Boom Satellites (I got to interview them in my zine, Fam. (LINK PENDING))I recently stumbled on this list of indie music from Japan that took me down a rabbit hole of indie and shoegaze. Check out

I made a Spotify playlist that includes a bunch of bands mentioned in  the Reddit thread.

Throwing this fine piece of craftsmanship out there…

Hartfield- “Reason”, True Color True Lie
Walrus- Figment of Light
Coaltar of the Deepers- No Thank You LP, “Good Morning”, “Harv No…”
Tokyo Shoegazer- Crystallize LP, “Just Alright”
Kinoko Teikoku- Eureka LP
My Dead Girlfriend- Hades LP, “Hakuiki”, Rebirth & Karma”, Hades in the dead of winter, prologue to the Nine…
Cruyff In The Bedroom “Carillon Blue”
Broken Little Sister “Silence”
Plastic Girl In The Closet “Heart & Soul”
Burrrn, Supercar, Honeydrip, Clams

History of shoegaze

Pitchfork’s 50 Best Shoegaze Albums Of All Time

Southeast Of Saturn– Third Man Records Shoegaze Compilation Vol 1 , 2

Beach House 7

7 is of course the seventh album by the Baltimore duo. They sonically remind me of Julie Cruise from the Twin Peaks soundtracks with vocals whispered sweetly in headphones in a Cocteau Twins ambient floor gaze haze. Slow grooves, synths and beats are punctuated with guitar twangs for good measure. Some of my favorite tracks are “Woo” and “Girl of the Year”.

Moog Werkstatt 01

The Moog Werkstatt-01 can be found for $200 or less.  Introduced in 2014, it comes disassembled as a kit that just requires a screwdriver for assembly. The components pretty much just snap into the board without soldering. It is a patchable analog synth that can be sonically modified with jumper cables, a CV Expander, even an Arduino microprocessor. Small round buttons on the bottom row of the device act as a keyboard.

Ambient Project

Working on a life sounds and noise ambient project.
20151027-201927_ambient show_live_studio-demo_01

bileebob-seerush_200701

piezo-piano — played with a handmade tactile-button keyboard. 201601

Song Discoveries From Netflix

I discovered two songs that took my down the rabbit hole of music discovery and exploration. I just started watching Black Mirror. Episode 2 features a song called “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is” by Irma Thomas.

The end credits of Aziz Ansari Live At Madison Square Garden features “Hippie Hippie Hourrah” by Jacques Dutronic. He was married to Francoise Hardy.  I added him to my short list of French pop music ( which only includes Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot).

Irma Thomas- “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is”

Francoise Hardy – Comment te dire adieu