scrmbl contributor Patrick St. Michel runs an email newsletter called Make Believe Mailer, an offshoot of his long-running blog Make Believe Melodies. Every week, he shares essays and round-ups of new Japanese music, from J-pop to independent releases, including albums that might have flown under listeners' radar. Here are some of the highlights from the past month, shared with readers of scrmbl.

killwiz — GENOME

Rising artist killwiz’ latest lasts only 11 minutes, but every second of GENOME sounds urgent. It’s a concept album of sorts, playing more like one big song shifting via beat switches rather than pure breaks in the action. The effect is of a single unified expression mutating and revealing new layers as it plays out, sometimes unwieldy and other times totally locked in. Yet it's killwiz herself serving as the throughline here, and she’s letting all her raw emotion out in this short amount of time.

It’s a personal journey in miniature, coming out of the gate with newfound drive to go forward on the vocal-overlapping fever dream “GOLDSHIP” before turning her rage to the past on “YMGMFUCK,” wherein killwiz lays in to a deadbeat dad and severs herself from past trauma. It’s the most point-blank earnest song released in Japan so far this year, and pure catharsis bleeding into the harder “TEKUTEKUWALK” (boasting a surprising flip of Charli XCX’s “1999”). It ends with skittering acceleration towards new purpose, a life-worth of pain reckoned with. It’s short, but as emotionally effective as anything released so far in 2026. Listen above

Kaeda Hirata — LAST GAME

There’s a delirious energy powering the latest set of songs from Kaeda Hirata. Whereas previous EPs found tension in space, LAST GAME finds the emerging artist operating in fragmented electro-pop mode fitting for a concept work based around a fictional video game, with cuts such as “Final” approaching the chug of late Aughts bloghouse albeit with a human sweetness pumping through the fuzz (which is to say…she sounds influenced by a different GAME). Synthesized voices and samples pop up throughout, while “SELECT MODE!” starts it all off with rumbling dance doubling as context. At its best though, it is Hirata offering up swift singing of energetic dance-pop with a slightly left field touch, cutting through any narrative and instead aiming straight for euphoria. Listen above.

N-FENI — tiered skirt

N-FENI is the solo project of a former member of underground idol outfits Bellring Shoujou Heart and Migma Shelter among others. Now she’s struck out on her own, embracing an indie-pop sound sometimes slipping into dreamy places Creation Records would have gone ga-ga over. Debut album tiered skirt works best when scuzzing up otherwise glossy melodies, whether that’s through the waves of feedback coating “Merry - band version -” or the slightly off-center guitar lines of the otherwise sunny-day skip “i’m so sorry.” Actually, it’s equally good when N-FENI lets her humor spike through, whether via the bleeped-out lyrics of “TOFU MENTAL” or the general zaniness of “Loud Ojichan,” a rocker about an equally volume-pushing grandpa. There’s a lot going on, but N-FENI corrals it into something her own. Listen above.

MANON — PINK NOISE

MANON leans “hyperpop” on first EP PINK NOISE, but in 2026 that means she’s spending the just-under-18-minute time here dabbling in internet-damaged pop-punk, radio-ready euphoria blurred by vocal twists and skeletal melancholy trips. If there’s a notable shift from previous versions of the Harajuku creator it’s one towards rock, albeit one filtered through SoundCloud-born distortion and bleary-eyed nights at GOLD DISC. She’s always been an artist curious in figuring out how she can slot into specific sounds, so her PINK NOISE is part her stretching out again, to sing shout-along choruses on opener “Chigau Type” or hover over club-skitter on “Monotarinai.” Largely, she works amidst it, delivering exuberance for the rockers and something more dynamic on floor-focused experiments…with any deficits glossed in feedback or digi-manipulation to turn her metallic (“Nobody Like Kyun”).

It’s also a snapshot of where greater Japanese underground-coming-up trends are heading. That J-rock / pop-punk turn on the first number comes courtesy of SATOH member Linna Figg, part of a group very much moving up the industry ladder, while the more electronic cuts (albeit still with a lot of guitar worked in) come from KOTONOHOUSE, similarly becoming more in demand. MANON brings those sides together to provide an update on where this Tokyo-centric community is going…and how she fits into it Listen above.

STUTS And Julia Wu — With U

Hip-hop staple STUTS takes the short flight over to Taipei to link up with artist Julia Wu for the sentimental bop that is With U. The long-running producer adds a bounce to Wu’s pop, whether it’s a hop-scotch pace on opener “Eyes” or a speedier beat on “Tokyo Lights.” Wu adapts to it all, thriving particularly when the mood gets a bit more mellow and she can play off of guests like Thailand’s Phum Viphurit or Tokyo’s own Daichi Yamamoto. Listen above.