The J-Music Advance Party (July 2025)
Coming to a local beach near you đ
Oh hey! Howâve you been?! Hope the heat hasnât been too rough on your side (if youâre in one of those sunnier parts of the world that is, otherwise, Iâm guessing youâre probably just as happy to have the sunshine as I am, lol) Stoked to have you here for this monthâs J-Music Advance Party! If youâve been around before, you probably know the drill, so go ahead and make yourself at home, grab your favorite seat, and Iâll be with you in just a sec đ
But if youâre new here (first off, nice, glad you made it!), let me quickly catch you up ăź
What is The J-Music Advance Party?
The J-Music Advance Party is a monthly publication where I quite simply 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 an album âpreâ-launch party of sorts.
These could be bands who have an album coming out that Iâm 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 Iâm both looking forward to and that I hope to put on your guysâ radar if they werenât there already.
Make sure to subscribe to the newsletter if you havenât yet by hitting the button underneath and secure your invite!
Our little crowd of Party-goers keeps growing every month since I first kicked off this newsletter. I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who's been spreading the word and bringing more folks along for the ride!
⸠reina
Here to get this Party started is none other than Japanese rapper/singer-songwriter reina!
If thereâs anything to take away from what almost feels like a surprise album drop, itâs that reina seems to have a real knack for releasing music out of the blue. Last yearâs A Million More EP and her debut album you were wrong the year before both landed with essentially no advance notice, so in that sense this feels par for the course. And, as sometimes happens here on the Advance Party stage, rather than previewing it âin advance,â I get to have the honor of doing a little retrospective of sorts for reinaâs second full-length album NICO, which just dropped earlier this week on July 2, 2025. Whatâs funny is that I even joked about it in my personal year-end awards post on the blog, saying reina was on track to go three for three in consecutive years of dropping bangers. Though, I guess Iâm giving away my general thoughts on the album a bit early with that comment (lol). That said, this isnât going to be a full-on album review, as Iâd much prefer you all go and experience this one for yourselves when youâre done reading here.
Instead, Iâll be talking a bit about these two songs right here that were released ahead of time and ended up making it onto the album, giving you a sense of what to expect based on those.
One thing fans mightâve noticed in the lead-up to this album is how reina has started leaning more into collaborations, something that was notably absent from her debut, which had zero features. Thatâs not to say collabs were entirely foreign to her sound though, as she did test those waters on her EP with Dogs featuring fellow w.a.u artist Lil Summer. NICO, however, really expands on that with three collab tracks: the already-released Risk Your and youth, which feature Bonbero and Skaai respectively, plus the album-original Close my eyes with salasa. It feels like a deliberate pivot, and one that might hint at even more team-ups in the future. Personally, I think reina has a real knack for playing off other performers, whether itâs with her rap or her singing, and Iâm really curious to see who else she might link up with next after. Of course, thatâs not to say she canât more than hold her own, far from it. If anything, sheâs only leveled up since her last release. Honestly, the rest of the tracks on here are some of her best work yet in my opinion.
NICO was released on July 2, 2025, and is available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, and other platforms. Check it out!
⸠ăŞăă㨠(nakigoto)
Next up, making their debut appearance here on the Advance Party stage, please give a warm welcome to the duo of Mizukami Emiru and Okada Ami; better known as nakigoto!
âOffer just a small bit of honest lament to your worn-out everyday life.â is what youâll see written on the X bio of Japanese rock duo nakigoto (lit. âto lamentâ). If you head on over to the bandâs profile on their official home page, youâll see that this is the last line to what appears to be a credo or a preamble of sorts that describe what they wish to provide to listeners with their music. It reads:
A whirlwind of days rushing by.
Part-time jobs, work, relationships, lovers; even if these were choices I made myself, living an ordinary life is still hard.When you let slip an âIâm tired,â
someone always chimes in with, âEveryoneâs tired. You need to keep going.â
But honestly, everyone already knows that.And the ones who are truly exhausted donât even say theyâre tired.
Because saying it doesnât change anything.
Because they donât even have the energy left to put it into words.Before you reach your breaking point.
Sometimes, itâs important to let your guard down and admit youâre struggling.
Let the bad stuff fade away.
Offer just a small bit of honest lament to your worn-out everyday life.
A brief escape from the daily grind. Thatâs what nakigoto has been offering their fans for the better part of six years now (fun fact: I actually wrote about their debut single on my blog back in the day, making this a pretty serendipitous moment). Since then, the duo has steadily built an impressive discography, releasing a solid string of singles, three EPs, and two full-length albums; their latest being Futari de itai., which dropped in July of last year.
That album in particular really left an impression on me. I was so taken with it that I made sure to pick up a physical copy during my trip to Japan. Honestly, it was so polished that I genuinely thought they might have signed with a major label by then.
Which is why I was honestly so surprised to hear that nakigoto will only now be making their official major-label debut with Sony, with the release of their upcoming third EP Magic Hour later this month. I absolutely love this for them. They've more than earned the opportunity with how great they've been sounding lately. Of course, signing with a big label isnât the only mark of quality (far from it, thereâs a whole world of incredible unsigned talent in the indie scene, with nakigoto themselves having been prime evidence of that for over half a decade). But it is a kind of validation for the duo, and now theyâll have the chance to reach an even wider audience and show everyone what they can do. Personally, Iâd love to see them land a tie-up with a Japanese drama. I think their sound would be perfect for it.
ăă¸ăăŻă˘ăŻăź (magic hour) is set to release on July 9, 2025!
⸠Peterparker69
Catch your breath, as this next set is gonna be a wild one. Please give it up for Jeter and Y ohtrixpointnever, also known as Peterparker69!
Despite their independent roots, the electro-pop unit of Jeter and Y ohtrixpointnever made a major splash locally when their debut single Flight to Mumbai dropped in February 2022 and landed in an Apple commercial in Japan. Not long after, they released their first EP deadpool in February 2023 and even appeared on Boiler Room, a platform known for spotlighting DJ sets and live mixes, helping them catch the ears of listeners worldwide. This all happened right around the time hyperpop was starting to gain serious momentum, with acts like Peterparker69 putting both themselves and the broader Japanese hyperpop scene on the map at an incredible pace. Sure, a lot of that has to do with how viral these songs can get, but it also speaks to the vitality of Japanâs underground electronic music community. In that sense, Jeter and Y ohtrixpointnever are among the artists poised to help carry a new wave of youth culture from Japan onto the global stage.
To that end, the pair are already off to a roaring start this year. Back in February (which seems to be their lucky month, lol), they scored an even bigger breakout hit with Hey phone, a successful collab alongside none other than Noda Yojiro of RADWIMPS fame.
Looking to ride the wave of momentum from that aforementioned viral hit (which, to be fair, is ridiculously catchy), Peterparker69 are now gearing up to release their first full album. Honestly, what excites me most about this release is precisely not knowing what to expect (lol). Sure, you could broadly call their sound electronic pop like how I just did earlier, but thereâs always this added layer of quirkiness that feels novel and fresh, delivering some of the most effortlessly fun and imaginative soundscapes youâll hear. I think thatâs where a lot of the joy in listening to them really lies, and it had to do with how deceptively simple the melodies are. Whether itâs in the mixing, the layering, or the playful use of pitch correction, theyâre pretty close to being incapable of not having a good time.
Peterparker69âs first full album yo, will be coming out in July 16, 2025.
⸠ăăŚăłăăŞăź (boundary)
Next up, hailing from Osaka, please give a round of applause for Boundary!
To those of you who know me only through this publication, I actually run a separate blog over on Wordpress that I've been keeping up with for much longer than I've been writing here. Over there, I post a regular series called the âMonthly Recommendation Roundupâ, where at the end of every month I share and talk about songs Iâve been listening to. Itâs something Iâve been doing pretty religiously for going on seven or eight years now. Safe to say, in that time Iâve come across more bands and artists than I can count; some famous, some on their way up, and some still figuring things out. I mention all this just to give some context for what Iâm about to say next: purely from an objective standpoint (meaning exactly what it says, nothing more or less), this three-piece from Osaka isnât necessarily offering something I havenât heard before.
That is to say, and Iâm sure plenty of you reading this newsletter will know exactly what I mean, Boundary isnât the first band Iâve come across that started out as a group of high schoolers in a copy band before deciding to write and perform their own original songs.
Of course, I donât mean that as a knock on the band at all. If anything, and perhaps a bit ironically, the very fact that they are the way they are, and more importantly sound the way they do, is part of their appeal. In last monthâs Roundup, I touched on how Japanese all-female three-piece bands used to feel like a genre unto themselves for a while, with so much of their output feeling homogenized. But these days (at least from what Iâve noticed) thereâs a lot more variety in style and a stronger focus on individual character and identity. All of a sudden, Boundaryâs more simple and straightforward Japanese rock approach feels like itâs become the minority. Despite all that, and while theirs is definitely a classic story, itâs still an endearing one. No matter how trends shift or what becomes popular, I really do believe there will always be a place for this kind of earnest, no-frills rock.
Boundary second full album Miracle will be dropping on July 23, 2025!
⸠Ran
Here to close us out, please give it up for Ran!
Speaking of bands and artists Iâve highlighted in the Monthly Recommendation Roundup, 2000s-born singer-songwriter Ran is someone I had the pleasure of discovering back in 2022. I first stumbled upon her music thanks to my growing interest at the time in Eggs.mu, a distribution platform dedicated to indie bands and artists. For someone just starting to dive into that scene, Eggs felt like an absolute goldmine of unsigned talent waiting to be found. Browsing through their site and listening to what was on offer honestly made me feel like I was doing A&R work for a record label (lol), trying to spot the next big thing, or at the very least, uncovering artists Iâd want to add to my own library. That was exactly the case with this Fukuoka native. Her music immediately caught my ear, not just because of her fresh approach to pop rock, but also thanks to her distinctive singing voice, marked by that striking lower register that she has.
She also had a really active start, putting out singles at a steady clip and already having both an EP and an album under her belt by the time I first found her music. But by 2023, her pace seemed to slow down quite a bit.
You could chalk this slowdown up to a lot of things, maybe lingering effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on everyday life making it tough to get into a studio, or perhaps Ran just stepping back to focus on other aspects of life, like school. Whatever the reason, while her output has been sparser compared to those early days, sheâs still put out the occasional single. Along the way, she began revealing her face (something she hadn't done before), and sheâs also collaborated with fellow singer-songwriters like Niiyama Shiori (who was herself just coming off a hiatus), mihoro*, and perhaps most notably Ueda Marie (linked above). More recently, one of her songs was even picked up for a FujiTrans commercial. All in all, it feels like things are slowly but surely ramping back up for Ran, leading to the upcoming release of what will be her second full album.
Ranâs second full album, awkwardness will be released on July 20, 2025!
Thatâs gonna do it for the J-Music Advance Party for July!
Hereâs 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!
Before I let you all go, just a quick heads-up for anyone who didnât know: Iâm actually part of CD Japanâs affiliate program! So if youâre thinking of picking up or pre-ordering a physical copy of any of the albums listed below, Iâd really appreciate it if you used my CD Japan affiliate links đ
The next Advance Party is gonna be on August 9, 2025! Are you looking forward to any releases next month? Check back here to see if they get featured!