WAKON — TOKYO IS DYING

⌾ LISTEN TO WAKON, TOKYO IS DYING ⌾

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— Painting a picture of simultaneous fatigue and excitement —the shuffling fluorescent tunnels and dead-tired eyes of train-riders twinned with the entertainment, the frenetic streets of clothes, faces, skyscrapers, shopfronts lit with light — 'Tokyo Is Dying' by WAKON is an apt soundtrack for a city that is two cities: business and pleasure.

As the Tokyo duo's house-tinged track rattles on with a mechanical rattling industrious beat, looped samples warp in and out of earshot like a reflection of the Japanese capital's day-in-day-day out feeling. But more than this propulsive flow, there's a collage of colour in 'Tokyo Is Dying' that, despite the title, infuses optimism and vitality into the metropolitan malaise of the track.

Speaking about the track, WAKON put forward this mission statement:

"Tokyo is dying. Having gone through 30 years of economic stagnation, Tokyo is still fettered by commercialism and globalism, and repeatedly destroyed and created anew. Nature, culture, tradition, scenery, sentiment, humanity, affection, and laughter disappear day by day. Music is no exception."

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• 🔔 'Tokyo Is Dying' by WAKON arrives via Tokyo artist collective & label DENTO. Stream/download it variously from whichever digital music service is your favourite.

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📠
☟ WAKON Internet Presence ☟
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LUVIIA. – INTO THE VORTEX

This latest track from Luviia is just beautiful. But who, I hear you cry out, is Luviia? Well, let me tell you. He's a beatmaker (that's putting it lightly) from Tainan, Taiwan; I first stumbled across him since he created a beat for fellow Taiwanese artist, Aristophanes, a damn awesome female rapper whose flow is just magical, and whom you should certainly check out.

Well known by now for crafting effortlessly stunning beats, his latest, 'Into The Vortex', is a snapshot of particularly otherworldly bliss. The title is basically on the money, since – although only clocking in at 1 minute 35 seconds – it pulls you into this flood of soul-ripening hip-hop, fading in with this highly texturised waves-lapping-at-the-shore sound, with supreme ripples of guitar playing in laid-back lounge loveliness.

This is all topped off with this narcotically staggering beat marked by rain-stick snare sounds, arrhythmic hi-hat shuffling and gentle, depth-charge bloop kicks, whilst rumbling sub-bass creeps all around, fading out into oblivion towards the end – a timeless wonder.

Instrumental hip-hop can be polarising ("where's the rap?" some people question blankly), but when it's this good, this obviously atmospheric, lovingly crafted, there can be nothing better than kicking back and escaping for as long as the beat exists.

• This comes from Luviia's very recent Enigmatic Seed, highly recommended that you go download this over at his Bandcamp.
• Also, check out the awesome guest mix that Luviia created for YES/NO – a half-hour of inspired and inspiring beats

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Luviia. on • Facebook • Soundcloud • Bandcamp • Twitter • Tumblr

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NO ROME – HEAVEN

Been meaning to post something about this for a while now. Better late than never though. So here it is. It's by a guy who goes by the name of No Rome (irl: Rome Gomez) and he's from Manila – actually, he's the brother of Ulzzang Pistol: they're both part of the tight-knit, underground collective Youngliquidgang, or YLG to be brief, one of a few in the capital's bustling music scene (another being, for example, Buwan Buwan, headed up by Similar Objects).

Mastered by collective-mate SOUL_BRK, 'Heaven' is basically a beautiful song. I thought it was beautiful when I first listened to it, but it wasn't until I was in the shower a few days later when the vocal hook came back to me: I found myself humming it (and noticing, also, that it sounded a little like Rikrok's part in 'It Wasn't Me'). This two line fragment repeats throughout, lending the otherwise chill-hop-leaning track – itself awash with a fluid cascading koto-esque instrumental, chopped and looped, with sub-bass blasts – an R&B flavour. Punchy beats with satisfying sharp and shiny hi-hats drive this mantra forward, becoming deliciously rapid-fire and frenetic towards the end, with sampled punctuation in the form of "wow!" and another, wordless exclamation. It's difficult not to be drawn into its spiral of hypnotic repetition, which is to be fair dotted with dynamic breaks and additions along the way.

It's when you hear about the background, the context of this song when it becomes even more poignant and even moving. Within the space of a week Rome lost his grandfather, and his friend Guillo Cesar Servando, a fellow student at De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde, who was killed in a fraternity initiation. The lyrics take on a more poetic edge in this instance; every time I hear his voice singing it's easy to feel the emotion. On the other hand, they're neutral enough so that people hearing it for the first time can still vibe to it and sing along, as with any catchy pop song.

LYRICS:and i’m playing with the radio sound, i don’t wanna hear what’s going down
and i wish i was with you now, heaven probably told you to say goodbye

Yet another (but the greatest, I think) in a string of cool songs from No Rome, another URL-based J-culture-appreciating talent of Manila with big things ahead of him – it's almost guaranteed.

• Check out Ulzzang Pistol's Guest Mix for YES/NO, a showcase of the Youngliquidgang collective, including a song by No Rome.

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No Rome on • Facebook • Bandcamp • Twitter • Tumblr

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FINDSERENE – いつまでも、私と恋に落ちる

It's another short one, a looped beat that doesn't quite reach the 2-minute mark. However, it is also two other things simultaneously: the latest track from Bangladeshi beatmaker Findserene (as in "Find" and "Serene"), and also the perfect track to suit its creator.

As you can see, the title is in Japanese: roughly it means 'Forever, Fall In Love With Me' – for now, let's call it that. On the other hand, it reflects Findserene as an artist; one trip to her Tumblr will tell you about feeling like an outcast because of her interests (anime, Japanese culture), and how she one day decided to just make beats, despite what anybody might have said. And in this creative outlet we see and hear Findserene's interests surface, turning herself into a kind of cultural conduit, a nation-bridging spirit from Bangladesh's Faridpur District.

The track itself is delicate and dreamy, a hypnotic lo-fi sound with a thin mist of a beat adorned with shimmying shakers and popping electronic toms in place of kick-snare patterns. Glittering melody cascades through the low, sparse membrane of the drums, like old memories flooding into a heart full of longing. The fade-in & fade-out makes it seem like we have just been blessed with a brief opening into a very serene place indeed, like walking down a street and hearing the murmurs and sounds of living from windows up above; the heaven of now.

You don't necessarily need very long to tell how good someone is at making music, or how well they can inject their own emotion into their creative output – almost as if the two were one and the same – and 'Forever, Fall In Love With Me' is a perfect example of that. Let's hope there are more & even greater things to come from this musicmaker in the future!

• What you can do in the meantime is check out Findserene's debut EP 2202, released via Magic Yume Records.

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Like Findserene on Facebook
Listen to Findserene on SoundCloud
Hear more Findserene on Bandcamp
Follow Findserene on Twitter
Check Findserene on Tumblr

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