RYOKO2000 — Slapping Flamingo
Wild things happen at Summer Sonic’s Beach Stage as the sun starts to set, and this past Sunday still feel particularly dizzying. Night Tempo leaning hard into Eurobeat en route to bringing out Maki Goto for a ludicrous rendition of “Love Machine” made me realize this might be the place to be before the headliners. I instantly realized I was right after diverting from my heart to see half of LE SSERAFIM…walking into the stadium, they were doing the dumb “Macarena” song, an ominous sign…before dashing back to get swept up in dance-pop theatrics of Real McCoy. Buzzing on that and perhaps one too many Suntory paper cups, I spent an additional 20 minutes just losing myself at the nearby “Red Bull Summer Vibes” space.
This energy carried over into my post-festival Monday and, despite a huge pile of new releases to sift through, I spent the day keeping the flow going with duo RYOKO2000’s Slapping Flamingo, via Maltine Records. Need a delirious dose of club energy with a wonky edge? They’ve got you.
The pair are digging into the “J-dance” underground, pulling from various strains of house and electro to create a set of high-energy tracks that wow as anthems but reveal wild touches when put under a microscope. Check the ecstatic rumble of “Slapping Slapper” and allow yourself to get swept up in the barrage of sounds…but also step back to pick up on how the actual fabric of the song is made up of a twisted Michael Jackson vocals, turning pristine pop into night-out hallucinations. “Disc Train” stomps ahead before introducing mutant “woo woos!” into the mix, fun to bob to but also reminding me of some bizarro-dimension version of the TV show Disco Train which…maybe hinted at by the title?
The premise of Slapping Flamingo reminds me a bit of tofubeats’ recent exploration of the concept of “J-club” — which seems especially apt as he himself pops up on closer “Get It!” a slightly ridiculous bit of funk-house punctuated by the Maltine staple’s cries of “free download” as he seemingly celebrates the nature of a netlabel alongside what sounds like synthesized horse neighs. Wild stuff…but keeps me moving at least. Get it here, or listen above.
nerdneko — still mind
I touched on nerdneko’s blue web. project last week, and now we get a peek into how they operate alone. The key difference on still mind is on length — whereas blue web. approaches the intersection of Vocaloid and shoegaze with an experimental bend adding in breakbeats and other club (though…dare I say “internet” given how prominent they are in SoundCloud and netlabel spaces in Japan) touches, nerdneko themselves is approaching this purely from a place of “how does the syntheiszed voice of Hatsune Miku meld with guitar-born sound?” This almost serves as a sketchbook of ideas, with fist-up emo on the title track or the more slippery riffs of “Traces,” both dotted by the sound of computer-born singing delivering tear-soaked longing. That builds to more slow-burning catharsis on “My song is Your Cocoon?” and “Like That Blue Sky,” showing how well Vocaloid fits into the big-ol-closer space. Get it here, or listen above.
Friday Night Plans And The Bug — Ladybug 2
English electronic artist Kevin Richard Martin aka The Bug loved Friday Night Plans’ 2023 album Visitors, so much so that the two worked together on this, part of a series Martin has been doing lately. The release proper features a variety of mutations on the song “Miss U” but as someone mostly drawn to Friday Night Plans, it’s the original track — shadowy, mysterious, voices coming from down an alley as to be both unsettling and inviting — that works best. Get it here, or listen above.
Gyaru Gaoka Danchi — Gyaru, Soshite Ota
The more the merrier, yeah? Gyaru Gaoka Danchi boasts 15 (!?) members, each one of them a Vocaloid producer dabbling in a different corner of sound, but brought together to create music for a single fictional “gyaru” at the center of the project. You think that might be overkill…but listen to the debut EP, which loads up on sonic ideas, often to the point of songs turning into SoundCloud fever dreams of guitars, warped vocals and distorted electronics. Part of me is drawn to this project as it is another example of a kind of indie-level supergroup — a Nico Nico Douga PAS TASTA, or a conceptually weirder version of Kimiga Shikakuku Narumaeni — but I do love the wild ideas playing out in each song here, which really does sound like over a dozen people trying to shape a solitary version of “internet music.” Listen above.
Gliiico — The Veil
Another dispatch from the ever-elusive, always hard to pin down trio that once again makes me wonder how they ended up in the position they are, so I won’t dwell on the alchemy at play where a group existing out of step with anything else in the country ends up working with Chaeyoung or being tagged “sensations” by media with passing interest in Japan at this point. But again, that “cool” veneer is kind of a smoke screen at this point distracting from the actual songs on new EP The Veil, which are very solid distillations of a certain era of indie-rock cool. Multiple songs here carry the slightly hazy chug of Ariel Pink, a kind of craggy roughness working best when hallucinogenic electronics enter to spin “Secret Water” around. Forget any of the positioning…here’s a reminder of why Gliiico should be on a music lover’s radar. Listen above.
kurayamisaka — “summer film”
It’s potentially too on point for kyrayamisaka to have a song called “summer film” given how the band’s music up to this point has been both built for that specific season (listen to that album from last year again right now while it’s warm out, it’s perfect) and always takes a cinematic bend. Like…is this your calling card?
The answer might be “yes,” because this does serve as a gateway into the band as they continue gaining momentum and are discovered by types who weren’t there for the “is this shoegaze?” discourse of 2025. Here’s the chug of guitars and heart-felt vocals all over that debut album, alongside the short-worthy attention to detail. And at its core is the thematic pursuit of the band — moments of transition, of longing for once was even as everything plows forward. It’s only so obvious becuase it’s so on point. Listen above.
Koutei Camera Girl Fuenf — “Alpha Ha”
Gahhhh, OK sure…I’m ready to have my hopes ripped apart again.
Tapestok Inc. has been one of the most prolific and most unpredictable idol labels of the last decade, introducing a bunch of groups that could often be ahead of their time (Los An Jewels, we salute you) or simply great. Look, that ame to kanmuri album…in a just world, it will get celebrated down the line. Yet the group I think about most with them is Koutei Camera Girl…errr, more accurately, the many manifestations of that project, the best touching on rave to rap.
So now comes a new one! Or perhaps just a mutation on what was there…Koutei Camera Girl Fuenf carries on where Drei left off with “Alpha Ha,” a rumbling house track calling on constant collaborator Masayuki Kabo (aka AVV, someone I interviewed…15 years ago!?!?!) to give them a bouncy song to rap and sing-speak over. I love it, as it captures the unpredictable energy that has always defined whatever direction they take. I just hope they stick around. Listen above.
YOASOBI Burrito at Taco Bell out now…don’t miss out…especially because I did radio exercises to help prepare for this moment.
Make Believe Bonus: Radio Taiso
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Aug 16
I’m not a morning person. In recent years, staying up well past midnight to write has become the norm and I’ve largely made it work. The majority of posts you see here get finished well after 12 pm, which probably explains the surplus of spelling mistakes and general loopiness.
Back in the day, the Oricon Music Charts were the go-to path to music stardom in Japan. Acts of all sorts traversed these lands, trying to sell as many CDs as possible in order to land a good ranking on a chart choosing to only count physical sales, even as the Internet came to be and the number of versions offered for sale got ridiculous. Today, with the country finally in on digital, these roads are more barren and only looked at by the most fanatic of supporters needing something to celebrate. Yet every week, a new song sells enough plastic to take the top spot. So let’s take a trip down…the Oricon Trail.
≒JOY — “Summer Twin Tail” (308,148 Copies Sold)
Isolating to just the song itself…fun number! I was ready for a typical bit of summery idol bleh, but “Summer Twin Tail” zips ahead and refuses to let its nervous heart be silenced. The key for me are the little electronic trails following right behind the main melody, adding chirpy 8-bit texture to this one and helping it stand out.
Also…nearly every frame of this video is a work of art.
Let’s zoom out now…consider the success of “Summer Twin Tail” a preview for what will hold this spot next week (and which gets mentioned below), and another reminder of the upbeat, unstoppable return of J-pop idol energy to the center of the country’s pop space. This week saw something approaching a race between “Summer Twin Tail” and “Soda Soda” by HYBE project TWS. That one is fine and worth checking out below — nothing special but still more enjoyable than most contemporary male K-pop, offering light summer fun instead of incessant cling-clanging — but it is telling that it got outpaced on what amounts to a fandom chart by this female project…and, again, tune in next week to see what kind of men absolutely dominate this space to the tune of a million units moved.
OK, enough teasing…a special song released by Ebidan, the male outfits under Stardust Entertainment, titled “Yes! Tokyo” sold over a million units in its debut day, becoming the first single to do so since Snow Man’s “BREAKOUT” back in 2024. More on this one next week.
On the Creativeman front, two additional news items. Right before Summer Sonic (and right after my chat with Naoki Shimizu), Creativeman announced a strategic partnership with AEG Presents, implying further movement in the Japanese market and beyond. Talking about this at Summer Sonic this year, I was reminded that they did something similar with Live Nation back in 2012 that led to…nothing. So hey let’s see what happens, shall we?
Also from my interview with Shimiz, but cut for length…this year’s Summer Sonic Bangkok was put on hold to focus on Summer Sonic’s 25th gathering. Yet Shimizu says a fest like it will happen…somewhere in Asia next year.
Over at the maru mgmt. Substack, we looked at Cool Japan and what should be learned from it all.
Vocaloid producer Neru shared a new song…which they promptly took down owing to the line “I’m finna finna kill you,” which was met with criticism owing to its AAVE origins (don’t tell young Vocaloid fans about Vice!). Anyway, you can easily find like a dozen versions of the original on YouTube if you want for historical accuracy, similar to last year’s “Zako.”
Important moments in Japan - America relations.
After announcing an ambitious world tour, young J-pop act Akasaki cancelled it.
Look, we will talk about the Grimes Vocaloid song soon enough, for now just study it.
sasane on THE FIRST TAKE.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Check out the Best Of 2026 Spotify Playlist here!
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