DYGL

DYGL has won the coveted GB Times Best Japanese Music of 2015 award. Another title could be the Japanese music that sounds most like the music I was listening to when I was 20. Congratulations the winners.

Kikagaku Moyo

Kikagaku Moyo (meaning "Geometric Patterns") is a Japanese band. In an interview for the Austin Psych Fest, their drummer claims they don't fit into one genre of music. On the other hand, they have a sitar player in the band. Not a dude that can play the sitar but usually plays guitar... A sitar player. In the same interview, he says the name comes from one of the first nights they were playing together. They jammed all night in the dark, and he could see geometric patterns behind his eyelids. "We were between sleep and awake..." Anyway, I think it's safe to say they're a 60s psychedelic revivalist band... or something.

They came out with their first EP in 2013 and have two out this year. This is from the latest, Forest of Lost Children. It's worth listening to the whole thing.

Ventla

Japanese Indie Music Sundays

Ventla is a guy (or humans?) out of Tokyo. The most notable thing about them is that they plan to release 100 digital albums for free. They started in 2010 and already have 25 available. Even if you hate these songs, they've probably made something you'll like. Or perhaps you'll spend roughly 24 hours learning that you dislike all their works, and then you could make a post about that on Facebook, and some other humans will say they like that that happened. It's win-win. Here's a song:


Some of their other songs sound like they are trying to make the soundtrack to the next 8-bit Mega Man game to come out:


It should be pointed out that they sometimes sing:

Hearsays

Japanese Indie Music Sundays

This is another band on Dead Funny Records. They're two guys and two music gals from Fukuoka. Their label says they sound like Liz Phair or the Breeders. I probably only know the singles, but I'm pretty sure they don't sound like Liz Phair. They definitely have an American 90s indies sound, though. Three of them have normal Japanese names, and the lead singer goes by Zebra. Zebra's English pronunciation is actually okay. Here's a song about blind people.

Old Lacy Bed

Japanese Indie Music Sundays

This band hails from Nagoya (a huge shout out to my Na-town peeps). All four members are women, so they're kind of like the Spice Girls minus maybe Sporty Spice or something. Also, unlike the Spice  Girls, they're Japanese, can play instruments, and don't really, really, really wanna zigazig ha. Nonetheless, there seems to be some real "girl power" present with this foursome. The songs of theirs I've heard are pretty simple, but there's some uniqueness to them that makes them interesting. Here's their song Little Girl.

nicoflash

Japanse Indie Music Sundays

As far as I can tell, there's no information at all about nicoflash on the internet.  They (or he) seems to be related to the Osaka punk band, ladyflash. Nicoflash has only two songs on their soundcloud page. The first is a cover of a The Jesus and Mary Chain song, and the second is the song below, which sounds like a 60s song but isn't listed as a cover.

Fancy Books

Japanese Indie Music Sundays

Fancy Books is a guy and a girl duo from Saitama. They're the second indie band with "fancy" in their title to be looked at here at The Times (the first being Fancy Numnum). They say they've tried to combine the cute sound of Au Revoir Simone with the romantic sound of Memory Tapes. I don't know what the hell they're talking about, but they've made some weird electronic music. This track is taken from their 2012 EP "Wisteria" put out by Dead Funny Records (the same label that put out a The Paellas record).
I don't know. It seems like the perfect music to make out with that mannequin you've been eyeing. Check out the rest of the EP if you please.

SUPER VHS

Japanese Indie Music Sundays

SUPER VHS is another band that sings in English that is difficult decipher, perhaps intentionally so. They are from Kanagawa, Japan. Other than that, there's very little information about them on the internet. I think they've only come out with one song in the last year. Here's a video from 2011. The video isn't that good, but the song is lovely.


 A lot of their music sounds a bit like Ween's Pure Guava. Here's another good track from 2011.



Here's another from 2012 that's just fun pop.


By the way, I'm not sure about this, but I may have discovered this band on the blog Gay Vegan Vinyl Cassette. Not only is it the best named blog in the world, it's also a good place to learn about more Japanese indie music.

The Paellas

Japanese Indie Music Sundays

I've decided that I waste a lot of time looking for Japanese indie bands, so I may as well make it a weekly article. I would guess the majority of The Times' six readers don't really care about this, but it will probably only last 3 or 4 weeks. First up... The Paellas. They're a four member band from Osaka. They say they have two original members (the bass player and the singer). I assume there were previous members, or else it was just some rad bass action. I could try to tell you more, but I think the  band put it best when they said, "we are indie LO-Fi guiter 'NITETIME SURF POP' band in Japan,Osaka! please checking our sound!!" 

I think that's everything you need to know. You probably don't even need to listen, but if you want to, here's a video they made for their song "Following." (The real music doesn't start until around 0:54).


This song was put out by Dead Funny Records. You can hear the whole album on bandcamp.

If you want to listen to another song, why not check out #9 "Fall Even Further" or #5 "Distance"?

Boys Age

I've been listening to a lot of Japanese indie rock. Many of the bands sing all their songs in English, but I usually can't understand more than a few words. Boys Age is one of these bands. They have a weird sound (which I think is really good) and seem to be intentionally mumbling on top of having a strong accent. This song is called "I Wish for God's Sake."


Also, this is their latest song:

You can see the lyrics here. Theoretically the first line is, "Her two eyes will sucked me then I felt hard-pain." Have fun trying to follow along.

Fancy Numnum

I can't believe rockcember is already almost over. I've barely celebrated. This band is pretty rad. They kind of remind me of BJM if BJM was a group of three girls that didn't do much heroin (I assume) and more electronic. This song is called マリーノの夜明け (Dawn of Marino). Anyway, enjoy:

They've got a myspace page if you want to hear more.