Monthly Listening: Oct 2022

[adevyish]

As October is generally slower for new releases, this has been a bit of a back catalogue discovery month for me. Faves ★’d.

• Yukichikasaku/men — páː
  • Chill pop with fun instrumental flourishes.
• Mom / Tetsujin 28go ni Natte (CW: flashing)
  • Mom lulls you into thinking this is going to be folk pop with electronic notes but, as usual, he refuses to stick to a genre.
• MPC Girl Usagi / Dancing Womer feat. Yeye (CW: flashing) ★
  • Come for the Bob Ross tee, stay for the funky bass and obligatory sax solo.
• Koh-Gaku / Kagami yo Kagami (prod. SNJO, vocal: Utae)
  • I only got around to clearing out my Bandcamp wishlist this month. Procrastination! Koh-Gaku is a collective of producers making EPs with different vocalists; this EP with Utae is smoother than her solo fare but it’s still got bubbles of unease.
• RYUTist / Jikan da yo
  • Upbeat, sparkly neo city pop written by Kan Sano.
• Aile the Shota / Deep (prod. A.G.O)
  • Yes this vaguely sounds like an H&M dressing room track but it has its moments.
• Abao (Aljenljeng Tjaluvie) / Kinakaian
  • Abao is everywhere in Taiwanese pop rn. This earlier trance track, though, is very different from her more recent output.
• Louis Tomlinson / Out Of My System (CW: flashing)
  • Lol I swore I was going to skip Louis since the album is out next month, but I did listen to this song a lot. Gritty post-punk with cues from early Franz Ferdinand.
• Dear Rouge / Meet Me at the Rio (CW: flashing)
  • Might as well continue with the extremely specific Vancouver content this month.
• Batroica Metal Summer Jacket / Don’t forget to see your dream (Yume wo Mita Koto wo Wasurenai de)
  • Formed out of the dissolutions of Gozensanji to Taikutsu and The Taupe, they were slated to play NMFT as a brand-new band in 2020 but alas 😢 This particular song is a bit Asian Kung-Fu Generation meets Sakanaction.
• xiexie / sea bird
  • Fuzzy 70s-influenced pop rock.
• pod’z / Yasashii Uta
  • This starts off firmly in tropey piano pop power ballad land, and takes about two minutes to find its stride. Worth it for the piano breakdown at the very end though!
• Zukai / Forget It (Ki ni Tomenai de) ★
  • Dreamy shoegaze breakup song? Instant fave.