Emerging in March of this year promising to “challenge the limits of ‘independent,’ ” Kiwa Kiwa — a music website and promoter (and cafe, curiously) — launched in a flurry of activity including disc and live reviews as well as columns from a quartet ...

With Korean idol groups now saturating the Japanese pop market to the extent that the initial breath of fresh air and rush of slick, electropop energy is passing, it takes a more seasoned kind of fan to differentiate between the legions of immaculately rehearsed ...

Tokyo postpunk quartet Otori is an archetypal product of the city’s underground live-music scene. The band’s sets feature a machine-gun rattle of drums, slashes of guitar that explode in fierce climaxes, and bursts of scattershot vocals that teeter on the brink of hysteria — ...

While electronic duo capsule’s hit 2011 album “World of Fantasy” was undoubtedly a development of ideas introduced in earlier songs such as “The Music,” it was also a discrete (if frequently indiscreet) work in its own right: a near-concept album linked by a uniform ...

Shibuya-kei was one of the defining features of the music and fashion scenes of the 1990s, and it helped spawn the idea of “Cool Japan.” The genre’s sound was eclectic and openly embraced Western musical influences such as ’60s lounge music, bossa nova, French ...

Formed in April 2011, Hysteric Picnic could be set to make a splash in the Tokyo indie scene with a sound influenced by 1970s/’80s British new wave, echoing Joy Division and Young Marble Giants in their simple but memorable melodies and arrangements. On a ...

The year 2011 in Japan was undoubtedly defined by the triple disasters of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear crisis. The impact of those catastrophes was also felt across the entire entertainment world. The industry pretty much put itself on ...

Whatever else you might say about idol trio Perfume’s new album, “JPN” is a title fraught with possible meanings. Is it a postquake rallying cry? A doomed attempt to reach out to overseas audiences following the use of “Polyrhythm” in Pixar’s pointless “Cars 2″ ...

Nagoya is the biggest city in Aichi Prefecture and has a population of well over 2 million, so there is no way an article like this can hope to capture the full depth of its musical talent. However, here are a few bands that ...