The J-Music Advance Party (March 2024)

Marching out to some new arrivals this month.

Heey! How are ya! Good to see you again here at the J-Music Advance Party! Please head on over to your assigned seats. Complementary drinks will be served shortly after a quick word to our new Party attendants who will be joining us this evening.

Now, if you think that’s you and you’re wondering to yourself ー

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 a an album “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!

Now that we’re all set; it’s party time!

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▸ ゆいにしお (yuinishio)

Kicking things off for this month’s Advance Party is singer-songwriter yuinishio.

yuinishio first broke into the scene after a successful anison debut, with her song Iki wo suu koko de suu ikite ku, used as the ending theme for the show, Shin no Nakama ja Nai to Yuusha no Party wo Oidasareta node, Henkyou de Slow Life suru Koto ni Shimashita (… yes, that’s the title). Now, wordy title aside (the norm nowadays anyway, especially for “isekai”/isekai-adjacent-themed shows), I do want to home in on a couple of words in there that I think incidentally shaped yuinishio’s immediate future and where she found somewhat of a niche in.

Specifically the words “slow life”, which, in hindsight perfectly describes yuinishio’s more chill and laid back style music style. It would end up being a calling card of sorts for her, considering how her subsequent offerings would find further success by continuing to imbibe this warm and home-y kind of feeling (compared to her earlier work which feels more J-Pop-leaning). yuinishio would later go on to describe her music as one that “colors life”, while also specifically noting women in their 20’s to be the ones who resonate with her music the most, seeing as how she herself is in her 20’s and how she’s mostly singing about life from her perspective. As you might note with TWO HANDS here however, yuinishio isn’t looking to *just* implore that style and that she’s tonally capable of much more.

yuinishio is set to release her second full album weekday on March 6, 2024, which includes the two songs featured here, along with the full English version of routine life which I’m really looking forward to hearing.

▸ サバシスター (saba sister)

Our next feature for this month’s Party is Saba Sister: a band that I’ve been low key excited for ever since I first came across their song Jersey in the middle of last year, and not without good reason.

The current state of “Girls Rock” is something that I like musing about in my own time, albeit now more than ever before. A lot of that is because the genre, if you will, is arguably only still best represented by its stalwarts from well over a decade ago; namely the likes of SCANDAL, SHISHAMO, and BAND-MAID). Granted, the aforementioned bands are still pretty much killing it with no signs of slowing down anytime soon, but it *is* interesting to think about how within the last ten years there’s just been this dearth, at least by my own observation, of Girls Rock bands who have been able to reach the same kind of notoriety.

There could be more than just one reason as to why that is, but a personal theory I have as to what might have happened (and as it relates to Japanese “Media Mix”) is that the initial wave of Japan’s “(girl) band boom”, brought about by the iconic K-On! around 2010, simply just… wore off, and in its place saw the rise of 2.5D media (specifically “2.5D idol media”) which in turn ushered in a “2.5D boom” in the years that followed. Why I think all of that matters here is because for a time the 2.5D space became the new home for Girls Rock (as both a genre as well as an aesthetic), particularly with the launch of the BanG Dream! multimedia project.

However, a new wave of “band boom” appear to be in out midst; one that I and many others would attribute to the market success of Bocchi the Rock!, where shortly thereafter we were introduced to bands like Chilli Beans., Conton Candy, Chakura, and a bunch more band hopefuls imbibing that Girls Rock spirit. Saba Sister belongs to this new class, and for what it’s worth, I think they have what it takes. Now having recently signed under PONY CANYON, what ultimately made me a believer was their major record label debut single Kakugo wo Kimero! here, which just has this spunky, infectious kind of energy to it that I honestly haven’t heard in quite a while (at least not since maybe like, SCANDAL’s DOLL or SHISHAMO’s Boku ni Kanojo ga Dekitanda). Very promising.

Saba Sister will be coming out with their full album debut, which will also be titled 覚悟を決めろ！(kakugo wo kimero!) on March 8, 2024.

▸ SCANDAL

Oh, hey, speaking of SCANDAL.

Perhaps not needing nearly *as* much of an introduction, the legendary Japanese Girls Rock band (recently acknowledged too as the longest running active female rock band by the Guinness Book of World Records at an remarkable sixteen years of activity) are set to come out with what will now be the third album under their own subsidiary label, which is also their eleventh full album over all.

What doesn’t get talked about a whole lot I feel, out of everything that can and has been said about SCANDAL over the years, is their ability to stay relevant in the context of the broader Japanese music landscape which in turn is (in my opinion) at the heart of their longevity as a band and is directly attributable to how they’ve been able to stay at the top of their game for as long as they have. Like, there isn’t really a time you can point to, where you can say SCANDAL’s sound was ever passé or outdated. They’re always showing up with new looks and each time they set out to write a new song; constantly evolving and adding on to their repertoire. Even now, with songs like Line of sight or Highlight no naka de bokura zutto, which both fit tonally in place with today’s Japanese Rock where I reckon someone who didn’t know the first thing about the band wouldn’t even think that they had been around for nearly two decades now. The phrase “they get better every time I see them” feels like a throwaway line, but I do genuinely think that there’s no other sentiment that best describes undoubtedly one of the most astonishing careers to be witness to.

SCANDAL’s eleventh full album LUMINOUS is set to release on March 20, 2024.

▸ ExWHYZ

Next up is an idol group who I am very much excited for, and whose offerings I’ve enjoyed quite a fair bit last year, ExWHYZ.

Formerly known as EMPiRE, the WACK-produced six-member unit reintroduced themselves as ExWHYZ in 2022, concluding a five year run now-survived byt most of the group’s founding members. With the change in name came not only a change of record labels (from Avex to Universal Music Group subsidiary, EMI) but also a notable change in the overall direction of their sound; going from relatively brighter and faster tempo’d songs to something more subdued and with a clearer focus on leaning towards EDM primarily. I talk about this a great deal in Al’s review of ExWHYZ’s debut album xYZ as part of our Exchange/Rate series (which I do recommend you guys go and check out if you want to be even more familiar with the group and what they have to offer), but one of the things that personally fascinate me about ExWHYZ’s approach this time around compared to their earlier iteration is its subtle K-Pop adjacent-ness; wherein I find that a lot of what they’re doing now (both in their music and even their look and how they carry themselves) does take inspiration from the aforementioned genre.

Another interesting thing about the group is their willingness to work with a decent handful of producers, each with their own respective sounds; whether it’s Shin Sakiura’s Club-y DJ beat or a House track by LA-based producer Denny White. It appears ExWHYZ will be leaning further into this facet of their music this year, seeing as how they chose to start out 2024 with an absolutely beautiful rendition of Our Song by Shinichi Osawa of MONDO GROSSO fame. Along with it’s release was an announcement that the group will be coming out with their first “V.A (various artists) album” dubbed Dress to Kill, which will feature, as you may have already surmised, a whole plethora of producers doing remixes of some of ExWHYZ’s best songs. In what may have been set up as a taste of what’s to come, the group out the first of two *new* tracks that we’ll also be getting from the album in Unknown Sense here, which is arguably one of the group’s most aggressively produced tracks yet. So yeah, safe to say we might have to strap ourselves in for this one.

Dress to Kill will be releasing on March 20, 2024. All the songs they chose to do remixes of are already bangers, but I’m personally looking forward to the English version of Obsession the most.

▸ ヰ世界情緒 (isekaijoucho)

As our closing act for this month’s Advance Party we have none other than “the witch who sings of the world’s emotions”; virtual artist Isekaijoucho.

KAMITSUBAKI STUDIO plays home to a select roster of singing talent, each of whom seem all but primed to take over the scene at a moment’s notice. Leading the charge for the “Virtual Witch Phenomenon” artist collective is surging J-Pop sensation KAF who one of last year’s breakout stars, having collaborated with the likes of Hidefumi Kenmochi and MONDO GROSSO to name a few. Among their ranks too is the talented Harusaruhi, whose penchant for Japanese Rap has grown leaps and bounds in just the short amount of time that she has been active, and is already establishing herself as an undeniable presence in the genre with each new song. Isekaijoucho as you might already expect, also finds herself in her own artistic niche as being the group’s premier Chamber Pop performer, and much like her companions, she truly does shine doing what she does best.

Admittedly, it took me a decent while to learn to appreciate Isekaijoucho’s operatic approach to singing, particularly with regard to how I thought that particular style wasn’t otherwise a good fit for her. However it’s that same quality to her voice that has since drawn me in, as the disconnect between the style with which she sings in and the timbre of her voice is conversely what makes the execution of her singing technique, more than anything else, standout even more. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Isekaijoucho is in any way classically trained with how good of a command she has over the breadth and depth of her voice when she sings. Which, in turn, is also what makes listening to her songs that are *not* in that style fun too, as then you have an opera singer performing an Electro Pop song.

Isekaijoucho’s second full album 色彩 (shikisai) comes out on March 24, 2024.

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That’s gonna do it for The J-Music Advance Party for March!

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 April 6, 2024.
Are you looking forward to any releases next month?
Check back here to see if they get featured!

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