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A graduate of Engineering Physics, but more importantly a secret lifetime fan of avant-garde, cutting edge and popular music.
Writer and editor for Overblown and contributing author to Drowned in Sound.
Lists
Original photo by Akira Sato With widely adored reissues of classic Japanese albums by artists like Haruomi Hosono, Mkwaju Ensemble, Kimio Kasai, Yasuaki Shimizu, Hiroshi Sato and High Rise, along with prominent news cycles around Ryuichi Sakamoto and Mac Demarco covers it might be easy to forget that Japanese music is also happening right now as we speak....
Perversion. Perversion. Take a form and make it vengeful. Flip meanings to be transgressive, and then pull at evil tendrils. Transcend. Transcend. Pull the form open and let the light come in. Give your medium the freedom to bleed and feel love. Japanese art is often presented to the foreigner as it's extremes.
It's been a funny year, hasn't it? And not just in music (as if Arcade Fire selling fidget spinners wasn't already enough to exhaust me for an entire year), it's like the whole world has gone and lost it's mind. For better or for worse, the world we live in is moving a mile a ...
Op-Eds
Lounge. Twee Pop. Tropicalia. Easy Listening. Jazz. Funk. Giallo. City Pop. Indie Pop. Baggy-Madchester. Ye-ye. 60's Soul. Video Game Music. Downtempo. House. Nu-jazz. Art Pop. Ambient Pop. Library Music. Beach Rock. 90's Alternative Rock. Electronica. Every one of the genres and ideas listed above were either initially, or eventually, incorporated into the sound of Shibuya-Kei.
Post-Hardcore, the red-headed stepchild of hardcore, was once the only space keeping aggressive indie-rock alive. Underneath the populist takeover of grunge and post-grunge throughout the 90's groups like At The Drive In, Refused, and Unwound kept the flame alive until post-punk and garage-rock revival could pick up the weight in the early noughts.
Injury Reserve are a hip-hop trio making waves from the incredibly unlikely Phoenix, Arizona, putting out a fresh, and innovative take on hip-hop. It's been a long decade of artists telling their fans that they're crooks for stealing their music, and music journalists telling kids they're fostering "throwaway culture".
Reviews/Band Features
"am i dreaming/ or am i scheming with these demons/ what's the reason?" Who: Tendai Joseph Chafa-Govha What: Alternative Hip-hop, Trap Rap, Alternative R&B Where: Pembroke Pines, FL Why: Salvador Dali, in the few moments before he fell asleep, would place a key in his hand and a metal plate below him.
It's been a huge week for the just-emerging-on-the-radar MC Octavian. In a few dimensions. From a huge pop culture cosign in the form of Drake, who quoted Octavian's new single on his Instagram, to a sort of "legitimizing" cosign from the ever infamous Pitchfork, who awarded him 'Best New Track' for the same song.
Interviews
In the short two months since the release of their first single for their debut album, Greatest Hits, Remo Drive have experienced a meteoric rise. From a staple of Minnesota's local scene to a band pushing hundreds of thousands of views in the blink of an eye, its undeniable...
Cokiyu's new album sidhe is out now. In the decade since her debut album Mirror Flake released, Cokiyu has been busy perfecting a very singular brand of music. A kind of music that managed to capture the ears of listeners not just in her native Tokyo, but the world over, as well as incredibly popular electronic musicians like Baths, who...