Hello! Fancy meeting you here (Jk XD)
To those that know me from the ‘Monthly Recommendation Roundup’ or from Leap250.Blog in general; yes, I am the very same Leap, and this is my Substack newsletter! If you are unfamiliar with me however, and/or if you’re a longtime Substack reader, I do ask to be in your guys’ care as I now try to start having a more regular presence around these parts (feel free check out my About page if you want to know a little bit more about me before proceeding)
I actually set up this Substack account early last year but I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it at the time. The most I ended up doing with it was having it redirect potential new readers to my blog where I exclusively do my writing on Japanese music. Doing that didn’t sit well with me though and not long after I stopped. I went back to the drawing board with how I wanted to go about with all this… and here’s what I came up with; welcome to The J-Music Advance Party.
What is The J-Music Advance Party?
The J-Music Advance Party is a monthly publication where I talk about bands and artists that I personally plan on listening to this month (and subsequently recommend that you too as well) in advance of their upcoming albums and releases in the style of a ‘pre’-launch party of sorts. These could be bands who have an album coming out that I’m excited for, or they could also be an artist whose discography I feel warrants further exploring starting with their new EP. Whatever the case may be, these are releases that I’m both looking forward to and that I hope to put on your guys’ radar if they weren’t there already.
Make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet by hitting the button underneath and save yourself a spot! (I mean, it never really fills up, but y’kno-)
Let’s get this party started!
▸ レトロリロン (retroriron)
First up on stage for the Advance Party is Tokyo-based “genre-less” four piece Retroriron. Retroriron is a band whose music I got acquainted with just recently and are themselves a relatively young band, having only officially begun their activities around mid-2020 in June with the release of their debut single Slow time lover.
I first came to know about Retroriron through Spotify randomly recommending me their first EP Inner Dialogue (2023) one fateful day, with the algorithm perhaps picking up on the fact that I’d been listening to more Jazz/Funk-infused Japanese Pop/Rock music thanks in part to bands like chilldspot who I listened to A LOT last year (their album Portrait being my favorite album of 2023 after all). Suffice for it to say, owing to the similarities that the two bands share, I was pleasantly surprised with what I heard in Inner Dialogue, with tracks like Don’t Stop in particular making me really appreciate Vo. Suzune’s vocal styling.
I feel like I associate their sound more to three-man vocal unit Dannie May, if only because I do think something like what you hear in DND here is the sound that I’ve always believed Dannie May should ultimately be shooting for (Dannie May being a group that I had had high hopes for in the past), but I digress. Retroriron’s the one doing their thing and I’m excited to hear more from ‘em this year.
Retroriron will be releasing their second EP ロンリーパラドックス (lonely paradox) on January 10, 2024, which features the above track DND, as well as prior releases Headliner and Tada Sayonara, Inochi Moetsukiru Made.
▸ Myuk
Next up is Myuk whose music career, in contrast to Retroriron, is one that I’ve been following for a decent while now; at least about as long as I started talking about Japanese music online, which would be around six or so years.
While in hindsight, that’s not *that* long of a period to be active as an artist, Myuk did already undergo a “rebranding” of sorts in that time. She first debuted under her real name 熊川みゆ (kumagawa miyu) back in 2018, releasing a decent handful of singles (and even an EP), before re-debuting as ‘Myuk’ in 2020. The decision to do so was supposedly made after an encounter with fellow artist Eve caused her to rethink her musical direction. I surmise that some of it too might actually have had to do with the fact that she was using her actual name the entire time and may have thought it to be too invasive of her personal life considering how she has since started making more public appearances than she has ever done in the past.
Myuk is set to release her *first* full album (titled Arcana) this month. A couple of things to note regarding this release is that the album (consisting of fifteen tracks in total) will only feature two new songs, with the rest of the album comprising of *all* of the singles she has released as Myuk along with their accompanying B-side tracks. Now, while I do feel a certain way about this kind of album where it ends up being more of a compilation of past singles (one of the main criticisms I had when I reviewed Kusunoki Tomori’s PRESENCE/ABSENCE album; funnily enough both of them are under the same record label), the bigger missed opportunity here is that she’s not re-recording any of her singles she released as Kumagawa Miyu.
It’s a bit of shame because: (1) she has two tracks (Grey Butterfly linked above as well as a Japanese version of it, Nibi-iro no Chou) that sort of got… lost in the ether with how little attention they ended up getting, being singles that came out *after* she released her first EP as Kumagawa Miyu but *before* she went and changed her name to Myuk; and (2) it would’ve just been nice to hear her do an updated version of Blue Bird at least for me personally.
On the bright side though, one of the tracks that is getting re-released as part of Arcana is the B-side track Set me free which is another very underappreciated song of hers in my opinion. The album is set to release on January 10, 2024.
▸ 由薫 (YU-KA)
Coming up next is bilingual singer-songwriter YU-KA who, quite honestly, has since thrown me for a loop from when I first came across her music to what she’s been putting out as of late. Like, total 180, but also in the best way possible.
I first got introduced to YU-KA’s music through a YouTube recommendation of her song Fish early last year. The song is a vibe and a half, and I had it on indefinite loop for a while too. She had only released one EP at the time in Reveal (2022) and after having my fill of that my attention started to move on to different artists. It appears that the second I looked away, she got the attention instead of ONE OK ROCK’s Toru, who shortly thereafter became her producer. Now all of a sudden she went from having 40K+ views on her music videos (which is still respectable don’t get me wrong) to a consistent mil a pop, with her most viewed song (Hoshizukiyo) clocking in at a cool 14 million views and counting. The song was so popular in fact, that she even got on THE FIRST TAKE with it.
Something to note is that her music notably started to shift more towards Ballads rather than the Chill Pop/R&B kind of sound she had going on after Toru started producing for her. Might be a more welcome change for some, but I personally didn’t mind the way her songs were sounding prior, so part of me does hope she’s able to revisit some of that in the future. Another point of interest is that this techincally isn’t the first time Toru has picked out a seeming diamond in the rough and taken them under his wing (talking about milet here of course). Curiously enough it looks as if YU-KA and milet’s trajectories are looking to be fairly similar with the kind of projects they’re now taking on so who knows? YU-KA might just be the next milet.
YU-KA will be dropping her first full album Brighter on January 17, 2024. In addition to Hoshizukiyo, the album also includes Blueberry Pie which is a fun little number, as well as Blue Moment; the full version of which I’ve been dying to hear ever since I heard a snippet of it in one of her videos.
▸ Anna
As I mentioned, the Advance Party isn’t just going to be for artists who I already know, but it’s also gonna be for artists that I personally want to know more about, and whose discography I feel warrants a deeper look. At the very least that’s what I am looking to do this month for half-Japanese half-Russian singer-songwriter Anna.
Unlike the artists I just talked about, I don’t know a whole lot about Anna. I first came across one of her songs, Hana no you ni in one of Spotify’s auto-generated artist ‘mixes’ (can’t recall for which artist mix it was, though I’d imagine it’d be for someone like maybe Hinat(a)ya who I also only learned about last year and whose music I’d been playing a lot prior). I looked into Anna bit more after the fact, and I found out that she has a fairly active YouTube channel where she does vlogs and song covers.
Scrolling through her channel, it didn’t take me long to realize that she has been uploading videos for a decent while now. Not only that, she has already released two EPs and a good number of singles as well (even found a song by her from a couple of years ago in Shidarezakura that I forgot I had saved, possibly for a potential Roundup feature). That being said, it seems she only just started to hit her stride, now having a couple of anime themes under her belt with the aforementioned Hana no you ni as well as the above reversal. I do think both songs showcase what I find most enjoyable about Anna so far, which are her strong vocals and captivating singing style.
I feel like now’s as good of a time as any to get even more familiar with her work, as she’s set to make her first full album debut with アルストロメリア (alstroemeria) which comes out on January 22, 2024.
▸ milet
The last artist we have on the Advance Party for this month is… one that I don’t think I need to introduce to you guys as much as maybe some of the ones featured on here.
Though I say that, I have admittedly done a terrible job following milet despite absolutely being blown away by her debut album eyes back in 2020. Of course, that’s not to say that I think she fell off (rather, she has for sure gotten exponentially bigger since then), and if anything having her on here is honestly just me trying to rectify my shortcomings by easing myself back into her music. I do think Anytime Anywhere gets me there, in a track that I believe might have been a bit overshadowed considering it’s the ending theme for a show that also has YOASOBI performing its opener (and we all know how good of a year 2023 was for YOASOBI…)
Nevertheless, it’s a phenomenal song in its own right. It will also be the title track for milet’s ninth EP Anytime Anywhere set to release on January 31, 2024.
That’s gonna do it for The J-Music Advance Party for January!
Here’s a quick recap of all the releases featured for this month:
Which release are you most excited for this month? Likewise, which bands and artists are you looking to listen these next couple of weeks? Let me know all of that down in the comments!
The next Advance Party is gonna be on February 3, 2024. Are you looking forward to any releases next month? Check back here to see if they get featured!