Patrick St. Michel - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

Meta

Twitter

Patrick St. Michel

Patrick St. Michel is a Tokyo-based writer with a focus on Japanese music. He runs the blog Make Believe Melodies, which has focused on Japanese independent music since 2009. Besides The Japan Times, he also contributes to MTV 81 and The Atlantic.

For Patrick St. Michel's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Feb 23, 2012

Salyu "Photogenic"

"Photogenic" is the sound of a wrongfully imprisoned inmate who was cleared of all charges being sent back to prison for no good reason. J-pop siren Salyu (born Ayako Mori) has spent the majority of her decade-plus career singing over generic instrumentals, her voice wasted on sounds better suited for a TV drama's end credits. Last year, though, she collaborated with braniac producer Cornelius on a project called salyu × salyu. He created the best backdrops for her to sing over, slicing up Salyu's voice to create little Salyu orchestras brimming with joy. On "Photogenic," she's hurried back into her cell, now decorated with lukewarm bells and "Sussudio"-level horns.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Feb 9, 2012

Galileo Galilei "Portal"

Galileo Galilei's sophomore album, "Portal," manages to both document everything that's wrong with contemporary mainstream Japanese rock music and offer a better way for guitar-centric pop in this county. This Hokkaido group falls through many of the same trapdoors as artists dotting the Oricon Charts, highlighted by a bloated runtime and emotional clichés worthy of a Hallmark card. Yet it also adds enough interesting sonic wrinkles and delivers those clichés with Brando-like sincerity to make "Portal" a step ahead of bands who suffer the same flaws.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Feb 2, 2012

Tokyo Jihen "Color Bars"

Tokyo Jihen's first five albums have titles relating to types of television programming, "Sports" or "Variety" or "Adult." The Shiina-Ringo-led group's sixth album, though, is titled "Color Bars," after the rainbow lines that grace the TV screen during technical difficulties or dead-air time. It's a fitting title, as the band announced in early January they would be breaking up after a nearly nine-year-long career following a farewell tour that concludes in Tokyo on Feb. 29.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 26, 2012

Seiho launches Day Tripper label with 'Mercury'

Seiho Hayakawa started making music the way a lot of curious kids growing up in the digital age did — by fiddling with his cell-phone ringer. But he eventually plunged headfirst into the world of jazz as a high school student, with a trumpet at his side.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 26, 2012

The Creams "Panache"

Osaka's The Creams put on one of the better live sets in the Kansai region today, playing the sort of dance-rock that seems like it was plotted out on graph paper in the vein of 1980's cool kids such as Liquid Liquid or ESG. Yet on stage, The Creams round out their music with a sense of menace and unpredictability, bringing to mind Japanese peer Miila And The Geeks (who they have appropriately opened for).

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Dec 22, 2011

Best of 2011: Miila and the Geeks "New Age"

Miila and the Geek's debut album, "New Age," would be my favorite Japanese album of 2011 even without the postquake context into which it was released.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Dec 1, 2011

Friends "Let's Get Together Again"

In an interview with The Japan Times in May, Friends frontman Syouta Kaneko put forth U.S. band The Beach Boys as one of their influences. A glance at the artwork for "Let's Get Together Again" — found photos of people enjoying the summer — or any blog writeup of Friends' sound ("beach," "surf" and "bikini" pop up a lot) would paint Kaneko's band as just another set of Brian Wilson worshippers. Yet Friends doesn't sound like other contemporary groups mimicking "Pet Sounds." On their debut, the band submerges 1960s-inspired surf melodies in feedback — perhaps the sound of kids born circa "Kokomo" rather than "Wouldn't It Be Nice" trying to capture the sounds of a bygone age with fuzzy results.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 10, 2011

Sapphire Slows "True Breath"

The music Sapphire Slows conjures up on her debut EP, "True Breath," floats between genres: dance music, dream pop and ambient are just a few. However, the element uniting these five songs is really how unsettling they can sound — even at their most danceable.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 10, 2011

At Innit's Osaka parties it's bring your own beats

Osaka's Innit crew don't hold your typical club event. Though their parties feature a mix of live performers and DJs, founder Masayuki Kubo wants to attract a particular type of reveler — aspiring artists. The Osaka native offers a ¥500 discount for anyone who brings along electronic music that they themselves have made, with the promise that their sonic-coupon could be played during the night.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 3, 2011

Canopies and Drapes "Violet, Lilly, Rose, Daisy" (Love Action)

The world Canopies And Drapes crafts on her debut EP "Violet, Lilly, Rose, Daisy" feels like a particularly woozy dream, albeit one undercut by the ever-lurking obstacles of reality. The project of Tokyo artist "Chick," her music hasn't always sounded like this — she used to sing for the under-appreciated and now defunct duo Nu Clear Classmate that made distortion-heavy tunes they dubbed "suicide pop," which either sounded delightfully happy or crushingly isolated. Whereas her Nu Clear Classmate material leaned toward extremes, Canopies And Drapes explores lusher territory while tackling more complicated emotions.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 13, 2011

Honeydew "Don't Know Where"

"Don't Know Where" lacks prerelease hype, sub-subgenre classification or needless gimmicks (unless consistant lyrical allusions to driving cars qualifies — autocore, anyone?). Honeydew's debut album is a simple collection of feedback-assisted indie pop reminiscent of U.S. group Yo La Tengo's catchier rock songs — and thank goodness for that. The Tokyo trio's straightforwardness feels like a much-needed oasis in a musical landscape that can sometimes demand Wikipedia-like levels of knowledge to keep up.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 13, 2011

Sakanaction "DocumentaLy"

"DocumentaLy," rock outfit Sakanaction's fifth full-length, stands as the group's best effort to date and one of the biggest mainstream triumphs in Japanese music this year. The Tokyo-based band didn't accomplish this through a sudden change in sound or any other grandiose moves often associated with breakthrough records. Rather, they did it via a mastery of the same style — driving J-rock tinged with dance music — they've been toying around with throughout their career. On this release, they've refined that approach to make an LP that's poised to please the masses while still being a great front-to-back artistic statement.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 6, 2011

Dance-music maker Paul Dolby, aka Seiji, has played with many electronic genres since he began DJing in the 1990s. The Seiji coming to Japan this weekend releases club-centric tracks for free on his website while also putting his personal spin on artists such as Erykah Badu and Gorillaz.

CULTURE / Music

Oct 6, 2011

Record label Second Royal won't just be putting on a concert this Sunday in their hometown of Kyoto, but rather a state-of-Japanese-indie-music address. The imprint's event at Club Metro features some of Japan's most buzzed (and blogged) about artists going today. Past gigs point to this being a great live event, but it will also be a chance to see a handful of Japanese artists who are poised to grab attention both domestically and overseas next year.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Sep 22, 2011

Mop Of Head praises recent past on debut

Mop Of Head founder Takashi "George" Wakamatsu had a pretty standard musical upbringing. He studied piano from the age of 3, and says he listened mostly to classical music and old jazz. Then he heard a track that changed his life ...British dance duo The KLF's "F-ck The Millennium."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Sep 15, 2011

Ogre You Asshole "Homely"

Ogre You Asshole's "Homely" practically begs to be considered as the band's artistic leap forward. The band has traded in the guitar-centric, 1990s-indie sound of its previous releases for a slower-moving vibe featuring an abundance of bongos and saxophone. It's a challenging LP to dive into: the catchy immediacy of the group's past is replaced by random vocal samples and soft-rock signifiers. Yet Ogre's shift in sonic direction on "Homely" comes off like giving a flophouse a fresh coat of paint — new sounds trying to distract from plodding, go-nowhere songs.

CULTURE / Music

Sep 1, 2011

Miila and the Geeks "New Age"

Miila and the Geeks show a great aptitude for the past on their debut album "New Age." The generally fuzzy atmosphere of the whole record evokes 1960s garage rock, with lead singer Moe Wadaka's sinisterly sexy vocals conjuring up early PJ Harvey. The inclusion of a mind-of-its-own saxophone winds up linking the group to the jittery no-wave movement. But this Tokyo trio rise above just being a history textbook, blending bits and pieces of yesteryear together into a sound all their own to create one of the best Japanese albums of 2011.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Aug 18, 2011

Chili Peppers dominate Summer Sonic

It was clear on the second day of Summer Sonic that this year's event belonged to the evening's headliners Red Hot Chili Peppers. A casual stroll around Chiba's Makuhari Messe complex revealed a noticeable uptick from the day before in the number of shirtless dudes sporting tribal-band tattoos.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jul 28, 2011

Various artists Style Band Tokyo Compilation Vol. 1

Existing mainly as a live-music event since 2007, Style Band Tokyo has gone the recording route and released a CD featuring artists associated with its gigs. The compilation is a collection of great, noisy rock.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jul 21, 2011

Beach House live out teen dream by coming to Japan

Earlier this year, indie-rock group Beach House found themselves in unfamiliar territory. Two of the Baltimore duo's older tracks were sampled by much buzzed-about R&B project The Weeknd on their hyped-up debut mixtape meaning once intimate dream-pop was now serving as the soundtrack for drug-powered sex jams. Beach House lead singer and organist Victoria Legrand says she's completely fine with that.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.

The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports