Robyn Writes

J-Pop Sunday – The Telephones

Right, hello! It’s summer. That means it’s unbearably hot. Which means my motivation to do anything plummets to zero. Summer also means festivals. You know, live music? And these four guys from Saitama city have a sound and energy that would shine when played out in a field on a sunny day. Well, I think so anyway.

Wizards!

Quick Guide:
Act Name: The Telephones
Line-up:
Akira Ishige (石毛輝) – Vocals, guitar & keyboard
Ryohei Nagashima (長島涼平) – Bass & chorus. (He’s kind of cute…)
Nobuaki Okamoto (岡本伸明 ) – Keyboard & chorus
Seiji Matsumoto (松本誠治) – Drums
Years Active: 2005 – Present
Genre: Um…Slightly electronic, shouty Engrish new-wave indie rock? I don’t even know any more. We’re pretty far down the rabbit hole by this point.
Kaito’s Choice Tracks: “Love&DISCO” (2008) “Yeah Yeah Yeah” (2011), “Keep your DISCO!!!” (2013)
Favourite Word: “Disco”

The Telephones formed in 2005 and for their first few years performed at venues local to their hometown of Saitama and nearby Tokyo. Their sound took off and in 2007 they released their first mini album. By 2009 the band were known across the land having performed at major Japanese music festivals including “Rock in Japan” and “Summer Sonic” as well as television appearances.

Right, let’s dive into the music. One thing that I find quite novel about The Telephones is that – although it might not seem like it – a lot of their songs are English. (Wait… Does that mean I can’t class them as J-Pop?!) Although just because they’re in English it doesn’t mean that they make any sense. Take note of the opening line for “Yeah Yeah Yeah”.


Oh Japan! Stay Japan-y.

Yes, the opening lyric to “Yeah Yeah Yeah” was indeed “I want to be your shoe box.” It could be some kind of mad metaphor. Or a parody, the video for “Keep Your DISCO!!!” demonstrates the band’s fondness for parody. The video is nothing more than spoofs of Japanese television programmes and advert tropes. The song itself falls into the Japanese rock safe zone of “Head-nodding riffs and easy to learn and shout chorus.”


The [Well Known Chain of Japanese Electronics Shops]* parody is my favourite.

“Love&DISCO” is a much mellower track. Again with a silly video. And I like it. I’m sorry, that’s all I can think to say: The Telephones are very much a band that speak for themselves in their music and in their videos anything I could say would be somewhat redundant. So I ask you just to listen and enjoy.


The video for “Love&DISCO”

More from The Telephones:
Official website: http://thetelephones.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thetelephonesjp
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetelephonesjp
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/thetelephonesjapan

*I’ve given Yodabashi Camera more than enough free publicity over time. They’re not getting any today!

Review: Senile Crocodile – s/t [EP]

From England’s post-industrial chip shop heaven of Hull emerges a strange, multi-coloured beast sporting three equally frazzled heads to whom the concept of ‘bizarre’ is an end in itself. Through every abstract hook and outlandish riff, Senile Crocodile make it impeccably clear that weird is what they strive for. Citing influences as disparate and oddball as Captain Beefheart, White Denim and, um … Gong (who are up there with the likes of Yes etc. as one of the least cool bands ever) there seems little possibility that their debut E.P would turn out to be anything other than an eyebrow-raising curiosity.

Foremost, the record exists as a refreshing blast of unrestrained musical dexterity, unperturbed by any sense of self-consciousness and wrought with an abundance of humour. It exists as the antithesis to the warbling drivel and XX derivatives that spew unceasingly from Radio One – all striving for some degree of poignancy through a trite reverb inflicted minimalism that exudes all the carefree joviality of an accountancy conference in Kettering.

At the core of Senile Crocodile’s adventurous musicality lies a paradox, a conflict of interest that exists between the two sonic palettes the trio have flung together with wild abandon and a juvenile mischief. The foundations upon which the band build their wonky, unorthodox dirges are pure garage rock – the genre that celebrates rawness and simplicity, with pretension and overt-embellishment as subject of scorn. Meanwhile, Senile Crocodile’s ingrained oppositional stance melds the rough-hewn primal howl of garage rock with prog’s excess and penchant for fantasy. The jumbled array of reference points are further twisted resiliently into a pop context that ignores traditional song-structure in favour of a songwriting approach that seems to view any repeating motifs or outright choruses as a kind of weakness.

Somewhat predictably, everything sounds incredibly disjointed, with varying sections seemingly placed next to each other on a whim, riffs pasted together, lurching between ideas. ‘Five Year Plan’ mutates from up-tempo garage pop into a psychedelic haze, the apparent quirkiness of the intro dissolving into bleary-eyed noise-gasm via a detour into off-beat indie-dance drums. ‘Voyager’ and ‘Modem’ each seem to consist of two short songs that have been unwillingly joined together- the first section a squirming pop-infliction, the second an instrumental piece that descends into expansive psychedelia. The pattern recurs on ‘Terms and Conditions’, the first section amounting to a perfect little pop tune before being subjected to Senile Crocodile’s favoured method of splicing together disparate riffs, to questionable effect.

The trio seem to suffer from a serious case of ADHD, always fiddling away and unable to focus on a particular mood or motif for longer than twenty seconds before shooting in the opposite direction in recurring bursts of energy and incomplete ideas. Senile Crocodile are certainly an acquired taste, the group’s insistence to cram as many riffs into the songs sees most of the tracks beset by exhaustive fret-based tomfoolery that yearns for an ounce of self-control to be instilled. Yet Senile Crocodile manage to remain more than simply a sum of their influences – idiosyncrasies are certainly realised, but their overall impact, coupled with their disorientating song-layout is hard to latch on to. Ultimately, a curiosity that fails to hit a nerve.

2 out of 5 high fives!

Where did all the good comps go? – A lament for the CD compilation

The internet is brilliant, isn’t it? Almost everything is there at the touch of a button. Stores reside within programs, ready to cater to your every need. In this age, we are the media, and Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook tell you what to listen to. There’s sites like us, trying to do our best to showcase what we love! But sometimes, I don’t half miss a good Punk-o-Rama CD.

I grew up on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. We picked up the first game when I was ten and I dove into it with glee. And while it was extremely fun trying to get a mega high score in two minutes, the best part of the game was the soundtrack. Tunes from Goldfinger, The Suicide Machines, Rage Against The Machine and Powerman 5000 were unlike anything I’d ever heard before. Before then, I’d been a Steps fan, occasionally subjected to my dad playing The Offspring in the car. Combined with a certain AFI video hitting the airwaves in 2001, Tony Hawk’s provided the necessary impetus to throw me into the punk subculture. I haven’t ever looked back. Thanks to that carefully curated soundtrack, and further ones, kids like me found our way into a world unlike any other.

You might have forgotten that record stores exist. With the slow death of HMV (it’s clinging on but you know it won’t last) and more and more indies disappearing, some of you won’t truly know the thrill of going in and picking something up that you’ve never ever heard of before. Why would you go and buy it when you can download it (illegally) for free on the internet, or listen to it on Spotify? Throughout high school, I would save up my allowance and go into my local indie every month, choosing one record that I’d never heard of before. But being cheeky, that would inevitably turn into a compilation to maximise my chances of finding something good. I picked up plenty of label samplers, including Epitaph’s now legendary Punk-o-Rama comps. Label samplers still exist – but they’re online, and disappear as rapidly as they appear. Some labels are doing really sweet stuff to make sure you know their bands – Paper + Plastick, for one, offer a free digital subscription service in which they provide a few tracks from a release each week, and occasionally, a full release! But there was something about picking up those compilations, poring over the inserts to see which album each track originally appeared on and copying it for all your friends. Making a Spotify playlist just doesn’t quite cut it.

So now, we find out about bands in different ways. This can mean that our music tastes are far more eclectic – we’re exposed to so many different types of music online these days. This zine, which was strictly punk to begin with, has moved on to cover all kind of music in the alternative spectrum. Nevertheless, there was something magical at seeing what all those bands had in common. In Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, it was generally a disrespect for authority and a quick tempo that led to their inclusion. For Punk-o-Rama, especially in the latter comps, it was figuring out why From First To Last could be on the same record as Refused. In the few Drive-Thru comps I have knocking about, it was how each band could write songs about effectively the same things but in completely different ways. And I could always find something to relate to.

I suppose we curate our own soundtracks now. I’m really into NBC’s Hannibal at the moment, and I follow a few fan blogs on Tumblr. Every day, there’s at least one fan mix, based around a character’s emotional state, or the mood of a certain episode. I kept the mix CD tradition alive at university – as president of the punk society (yes, it was a real thing), I invited people to bring their own CDs and swap them with each other. But there’s no big communal influence any more, far less of a shared experience, or at least, so I’ve found. This isn’t something that I bemoan, but have learned to accept. Magazines like Rock Sound still put comps out every month and I still listen to them in my car, but now, word of mouth is more important than ever. So keep telling your friends about your favourite bands. We’ll keep telling you about our favourite newbies. And pray to the gaming deities that they release a new Tony Hawk game.

Review: The Here And Now – Born To Make Believe Part 1 [EP]

It’s refreshing and perception altering when a musicians reveal a different side to both themselves and their music, and that is exactly what we have got in the shape of The Here And Now’s debut Born to Make Believe Part 1. Alan Day, whose name you might recognise from his exploits within pop-punk outfit Four Year Strong, must have been building up a body of work for some time while believing that it never quite fit with the FYS sound. Day’s spare-time has seemingly been devoted to crafting a brand new entity, which has slowly found its own identity as the Here and Now. With influences spanning from Neil Young and The Beatles to bands like The Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana; Day creates a whirlwind of rock transcending several generations.

The opening (and title) track kicks into life with a guitar intro smoothed over Day’s crooning. Its shifting tempo and sound sets the tone for the whole EP, covering a wide range of rock and roll eras, but doing so with an original modern twist. Third track “Broken By You” holds a line which is more folk, with a sound showing a clear Neil Young influence, while the rocking track “Numb Again” hits home with a sound reminiscent of the Foos. Day manages to mix together 90’s grunge with folk rock and does so without butchering or rubbishing either. It is far from what FYS fans are accustomed to, but it demonstrates the diversity of an underappreciated musician. What this first EP shows is that Day is clearly a fantastic songsmith; the tracks that make up the EP show that he knows how to make melody central and that he is not afraid of variation, not just across the EP but across a single song. The music can go from a calm folk rock sea to a spontaneous storm of rock’n’roll. Heavy rock riffs spur to life in an instant, before calmly falling back towards the soothing sounds, as if there was no interruption to them at all.

The best part of the EP is that it is supposedly only the first instalment of three, each to be five songs long. It is to be released through Bandcamp as a name-your-price download because, Day said: “the idea is just to be able to let people get the music when they want it, and not ignore it because they don’t want to pay the $5 to buy a record”. A good way for new projects to battle against the spree of illegal downloads. Since you can get your digital hands on a copy of the EP for whatever price you see fit, you really have no excuse for not checking this gem out!

4 out of 5 high fives!

Review: Ivy League (TX) – Transparency

Transparency is the big contender for sure-fire underground punk rock hit of the year.  It comes armed to the teeth with pit-inducing riffs and a cross-over appeal that bridges the nasal tones of pop-punk and the focused aggression of hardcore.  The Boston-based punk trio of Ivy League have successfully melded together everyone’s favourite bits of two of punk’s most contemporarily popular sub-genres into one wholly unoriginal yet still enticingly visceral little gem of an album.  Crammed into its brief running time are eleven blistering punk exultations, each song a flurry of energy perfect for stage-dives with enough melody bleeding through the propulsive punk for some serious sing-along potential.

 

Gone are the band’s previous ramshackle tendencies accentuated by an endearingly rough-hewn production.  Now, bolstered by a fuller sound and pop-punk sheen courtesy of contemporary pop-punk’s go-to producer Paul Miner, Transparency showcases Ivy League as a ‘proper’ and fully rounded prospect.

 

Comparisons to acts such as The Story So Far as well as a host of American punk acts (Title Fight etc.) are inevitable, with Ivy League joining a swelling scene of sound-a-likes, each possessing a particular fondness for laying their emotional grievances on the table over fast-as-fuck tempos.  There’s little on Transparency to mark Ivy League as a fully unique act amongst a vast diaspora of bands who proliferate minute nuances on the same basic idea, yet the conviction instantly tangible in the vocalist’s quasi-melodic bite coupled with the sheer unadulterated energy that oozes from every pore of the record, marks it as one of the finest executions of the style in question.  The guitar lines such as that which make up the joyous instrumental nugget ‘Egress’ are daftly catchy whilst the intense power chord crunch that makes up the base of most tracks has enough volatility to garner the appeal of the pickiest of hardcore kids.  ‘All My Skeletons’ features a melodramatic yet interesting closing passage- hushed backing vocals offering a rare break from the group’s potent charging energy in.  What’s more, to top it all off, the lyrics are jostling to become the Tumblr fodder of many an awkward teen.

 

Ivy League have done nothing to advance the ageing sub-genre of pop-punk, they simply enact the tender lyric/hostile instrumentation juxtaposition with more finesse and intensity than most.  Despite Transparency being a thoroughly enjoyable listen, the three plucky lads will have to dig deep in future and discover musical pathways yet to be explored otherwise they are destined to remain as a second-tier act.

4 out of 5 high fives!