Skydive right into this week’s issue of Shibuya’s Scrambled Sounds !

Lesson of the week: If you start slipping and sliding in the rain because of your sneakers, it’s time to buy new shoes.

^{Reviews of the best new-ish albums}

Genre: Jazz Rock, Art Rock
Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube

Y’all ever been inside a smoky dive bar? As someone who doesn’t smoke, I can’t stand the smell of it, but you have to admit there’s something very “cool” and “mystique” about it. I believe these traits are what makes so many people (including myself) keep returning to the musical styles of Tom Waits.

betcover!! are the perfect embodiment of this aesthetical choice. The solo project of Jiro Yanase, betcover!! has a unique styling that sounds like he’s traveled the 7 seas and seen some stuff no one has even imagined, despite Yanase only being 26 years old. Claiming that a couple of his big influences are Jack White and The Mars Volta, it’s apparent that Yanase knows his way around musical styles from both Japan and abroad.

From the opening sleek guitar riff, to the chorus where both vocals and drums simultaneous harmonize and syncopate, you know you’re in for a wild ride just from the first track alone. For me, the peak of this album is 野猿 (Track 5), which I can confidently say is my favorite track of the year so far. It features an ambitious, stunningly EPIC structure with lyrics comparing humans to wild monkeys. He describes the end of our lives with allegories of going to meet both a dead famous Japanese celebrity (Ken Shimura, a comedic legend), and a fictional character (Mondo Nakamura from Hissatsu Series).

I also just want to say the drumming and playing in general on this album is extremely tight, with a nice mix that highlights everyone’s technical ability.

Despite how amazing I think this album is, the pacing of the last couple of tracks makes this a very front heavy record. However, I will say that this is the closest an album has gotten to 4 pies since the only actual 4 pie album I’ve talked about. 3 beautifully made smoky pies.

Rating: 🥧🥧🥧 We gonna need oven mitts - potential classic, highly suggested listen
Favorite Tracks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Genre: Indie Rock, A little Psyche Rock and Shoegaze here and there
Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube
*This actually a Virtual Singer/V-Tuber, but a group of Indie Rock artists helped make it and it’s way better than it should be (I didn’t even know until I Googled this album!).

Genre: Art Rock, Indie Pop
Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube

^{An older album you should check out}

Genre: Exotica, Tropical Rock
Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube

I believe this might be the first time I’ve actually written about a Hosono album on here (other than the YMO ranking). If you don’t know who Haruomi Hosono is, I’m jealous you get to experience one of the most amazing, curveball throwing discographies out there for the first time.

While I wouldn’t quite recommend this as the first Hosono album to start off with, if you’ve happened to heard his more tropical style tracks before and loved it, this would actually be a good starting point. Why you may ask? This is first album in the “Tropical Trilogy”, where he really explored the kitsche, kinda goofy world of “exotica” tropical music, basically a musical styling where white American musicians imagined what tropical “Asia” sounded like. He reimagined this sound, sometimes using Okinawan culture as a basis, and created an amazing set of albums that blended this sound together with Rock and Pop from the 70s.

All 8 non-instrumental tracks are amazing. From the beautiful maybe even slightly out of tune “HONEY MOON” to the slightly funky track 3 (絹街道), there is no skippable track. That is until the end, I think the only flaw of this album are the slightly unnecessary instrumental tracks at the end. If that’s the worst aspect of this album, you know you’re in for the time of your life.

Favorite Tracks: Tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 7

_{Some good EPs that recently came out}

Genre: Art Pop, Synth Pop, Soul, Electronic Dance Music
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube
*I didn’t like EP2 that much, but HOME really stepped up with this one!

^{The hottest Japanese music playlists around.}

Shibuya’s Scrambled Sounds official Spotify and Apple Music playlists below! Freshly updated!

Playlist Links:
Spotify
Apple Music

As always, thank you thank you sooooo much for reading this issue of Shibuya’s Scrambled Sounds! 🥹

Want to support this project? You can do one of the following:

See ya next time! Breakfast is ready.

All SS Sounds logos and images were created by local Tokyo artist Mai Moroe.
https://www.instagram.com/maimoroe/
https://www.moroemai.com/