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.

hardnuts — Ark

“J-rock” as a term is easy to define in the macro — the “J” stands for “Japanese” — but much tougher to sort out in the micro. All kinds of corners of rock get pressed together in the nation’s scene, and settling on one sonic definition is near impossible. A new cohort of groups raised on Aughts-era acts from this space are fittingly continuing that tradition, with the outfit hardnuts being a recent highlight. 

You don’t even need to read an interview with them where they talk about the myriad Japanese rock groups shaping them to pick up on this…I’d argue by just looking at the album art for debut album Ark you can pick up on a vibe that’s very “catching your attention at the Tsutaya rental store in 2007.” Elements of bands such as ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION certainly come through…but what makes this full-length a highlight is the many ways they make it their own. 

Moments across Ark nail the adolescent-rallying power of rock, and it’s the energy pulsing through opener “morphium,” and adding a bittersweetness to the slightly more strolling “Kaitai.” Yet that’s only part of hardnuts’ sonic vocabulary, and right after the aforementioned intro they rip into “iv,” an urgent rush made more intense by vocals delivered with a screaming snarl. Midwestern emo and math rock seeps into Ark, as on the zig-zagging melancholy of “Blue Moon” or the start-stop rush of “Yohaku.” Yet hardnuts also explore acoustic intimacy (“room”), sparser experiments approaching balladry (“leise”) and slow-burn dramatics (“Hakobune”). The past ripples through it…but hardnuts aren’t recreating it, just using it as inspiration to build on it. Listen above.

4s4ki And DE DE MOUSE — Enmeishu

First, let’s note the continued rise of DE DE MOUSE as a kind of go-to producer for a new generation of artists in Japan. After helping establish a unique sample-driven sound in the late Aughts — and accidentally playing a huge role in defining a decade of sad boy rap globally — he’s now exploring a wider range of sounds while still using a sliced-up approach, helping to spotlight other voices along the way.

His work with 4s4ki on the brief-but-buoyant Enmeishu is some of his best collaborative work, in part because the two are kindred artistic spirits. DE DE has long poked and dissected sound to find new angles on it, while 4s4ki has done something similar with her voice and the general structure of pop over the last five years. Together they create dizzying songs powered by synth flurries and digi-mutated singing, with a few diversions into bass-heavy drops for extra tension. It can also be surprisingly sweet, as is the case on the twinkling party-starter of an opening number, doubling as a convergence of 2000s electro and 2020s internet core. Listen above.

Hitsujibungaku — Don’t Laugh It Off

Rock trio Hitsujibungaku exist in a tricky space. They came up within Tokyo’s indie-rock sphere, and its best music leans into more underground sounds. Yet it’s an outfit with enough skill to have become a mainstream concern, having recently played the Nippon Budokan, having provided a variety of big-time tie-ups for anime and capable of touring the world. It’s a band having to tightrope two very different places.

I find the tension of keeping that balance comes across on latest album Don’t Laugh It Off…and makes for the best work they’ve done to date, the outfit’s indie leanings (including a dollop of shoegaze influence) being balanced out by a need for sticky melodies and hooks. At its best, the group tightropes between the show on the driving “doll” and “Runner,” while finding room for the big pop moments (“Feel”) and some detours (“don’t laugh it off anymore”). Listen above.

Various Artists — ISOS five seasons: Choka

Neo-trance outfit Minna no Kimochi have become prominent ambassadors of Japan’s DJ culture in recent years…dudes are road warriors, going all over the world to help audiences bliss out. The next step for them — making a label to further showcase the more experimental side of club euphoria. This compilation is the first from its Mizuha imprint, and it gathers creators from across the electronic scene to create a set focused on “long summer,” part of what will be a conceptual run of releases reflecting all seasons. The music within features rippling vocal samples turned hypnotic, new-age jitters courtesy of T5UMUT5UMU and more shades of the sound reflecting the place Minna no Kimochi came from. Get it here, or listen above.

CRCK/LCKS — Manimani

The wait was well worth it for CRCK/LCKS second full-length album. It took six years and assorted EPs plus singles, but Manimani delivers the finest work the quintet has done to date, with an experimental and oftentimes trippy touch to otherwise mellow jazz-influenced rock songs. It’s made clear from the oft-kilter rhythms of the opening song, taken to even more exciting places on the warped midtempo zone-out “Psycho Sky” and the fidgety “Balalaika,” a song powered by the title repeated over and over in a silly voice under the main groove. Making these moments of left-field wonder hits all the better are the less mutated cuts like “Rental Kamisama,” which is just horn-assisted funk goodness. Listen above.