Posts Tagged ‘Japan’

Shoegazer Sunday: Collapse’s “Path”

Sunday, September 17th, 2023

Collapse is another obscure Japanese Shoegaze band. Or maybe not so obscure, since they already have ten albums and EPs out. Their earlier songs seem more My Bloody Valentine-influenced, but their later stuff seems a bit more Dreampop with a noisebed base, maybe Tokyo Shoegazer by way of The Cherry Wave and Civic with a soupcon of Asobi Seksu thrown in. Here’s “Path.”

Shoegazer Sunday: Kinoko Teikoku’s Musician

Sunday, June 4th, 2023

Been a while since we did some Japanese Shoegaze, so here’s Kinoko Teikoku’s “Musician”:

It sounds a bit like Asobi Seksu crossed with Lemon’s Chair. It takes about 30 seconds to get beyond the initial noisy buzz.

Kinoko Teikoku evidently means “Mushroom Empire,” and they “suspended activity” in 2019.

Halloween Horrors: Know Your Yokai

Tuesday, October 20th, 2020

Yokai is a very broad category of Japanese supernatural entity that can include demons, ghosts, monsters, and just about any other creature from folklore, from microscopic monsters than infect your spleen to dragon-sized titanic snails. Many, but not all, are malevolent, and a goodly number are extremely specific, such as Karakasa kozo, the one-eyed, umbrella-shaped yokai that likes to sneak up on people and lick them with its long tongue.

Here’s a brief guide on identifying various yokai:

There’s also a live-action film featuring 100 of them:

Other Japanese Halloween topics:

  • Japanese Hell Temple:
  • Sokushinbutsu, the self-mummifying Japanese monks.
  • Halloween Horrors: Japanese Hell Temple

    Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019

    If you find yourself in east Osaka, Japan, you can visit Senkoji Temple, a shrine dedicated to giving you a glimpse of Hell, including hearing the voices of the damned:

    Shoegazer Sunday: Speaker Gain Teardrop’s Galveston

    Sunday, July 21st, 2019

    It’s been seven years since I last posted a Speaker Gain Teardrop song (damn, I’ve been doing these for that long?), so here’s the lushly beautiful “Galveston”:

    What a band from Hiroshima is doing naming a song after a Texas port I couldn’t tell you…

    Shoegazer Sunday: Broken Little Sister’s “Blue”

    Sunday, March 24th, 2019

    Enjoy Broken Little Sister, another obscure Japanese Shoegazer band, which supposedly includes members of Civic. “Blue,” off their Memories, Violet & Demons album, sounds a little bit like Presents for Sally’s “When We All Move Away.”

    Shoegazer Sunday: Pastel Blue’s “Sea Saw Song”

    Sunday, July 29th, 2018

    Been a while since I did some Pastel Blue, so here’s “See Saw Song.”

    Three Sentence Review of Tora! Tora! Tora!

    Wednesday, July 5th, 2017

    1st part: Slow, static and talky.
    2nd part: Slow, static and talky.
    3rd part: HOLY FUCK!!!!!

    Shoegazer Sunday: SPOOL’s “Sway, Fadeaway”

    Sunday, January 1st, 2017

    It’s been too long since we did an obscure Japanese band for our Sunday dose of Shoegaze, so enjoy SPOOL’s “Sway, Fadeaway.”

    Shoegazer Sunday: Pastel Blue’s “Low-Key”

    Sunday, June 12th, 2016

    It’s been three years since I did a song from Japan’s Pastel Blue as the Sunday Shoegazer selection, so here’s “Low-Key”: