'Someday, something good will happen' — so says the translated title of Japanese composer Chino Yoshio's latest piece. These words form part of the poignant refrain sung by collaborator Michiru (Michiru Tamaki), whose vocals ring with far-off hope. Michiru, a lyricist and doujin singer, brings more than a hint of anime OST to the song, resulting in a decidedly J-pop aesthetic.
But Yoshio's ambient approach to composition results in something different to pure J-pop — something meditative and magical, with the warm silky tones of his synth creating a smooth texture that underpins everything, wrapping it in a gossamer veil. Particularly evocative are the strings provided by MIZ (Mizuho Mori) — a prolific composer and musician who with credits in the classical, pop and video game music (including Final Fantasy Record Keeper) worlds.
Lyrically and sonically, Yoshio pieces it together like a modern-day, minimalist passacaglia: sombre and somewhat serious, yes, but also an optimistic mantra for simple wishes.
'Exasperate' feels like a heist. It's the way cellist midori jaeger plays her instrument in a syncopated dance of pizzicato swirl, body-popping its way through a what might as well be a tangle of red lasers and tip-toeing through shadows. It's fitting, given that jaeger says the song is centred on the "overpowering urge to break away from old patterns, to so desperately want the new at any cost, but to feel overwhelming regret for things lost." It makes sense that we have this sense of minimal noir jazz, like a break-in, except this is a break-out — from the old and what no longer serves, but to what, and at what cost?
"I’ll leave this door wide open /
To remember how you filled my days, oh but now /
I want something unfamiliar, unpredictable" she sings, amidst a lyrical labyrinth delivered in jaeger's cool tones and tumbling vocal style.
On a broadly jazz-inflected canvas, the London-based composer paints a bristling blend of organic and artifial, with icy reverb on her woody cello lines and understated synth gently blooping alongside intricate clattering percussion (provided by co-producer Felix Higginbottom). It feels earthy yet augmented, an idiosyncracy that more or less reflects the song's raison d'etre: restlessness, the desire and constant push for newness. Though sonically harmonious, this cocktail of living instruments and the synthetic figuratively creates the tension inherent in an unnatural pairing, a desperation like a tree wanting to uproot and sprint off into the sunset.
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'Exasperate' is taken from (Un)planted (due out 9th March), the result of ten days of recording in Lisbon. It's the first in a pair of upcoming EPs by midori jaeger.
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Another track has already been released from the EP, namely 'dark green' — gentler and warmer than 'exasperate', but with a similar minimalism and that same characteristic stamp of living-and-breathing crossed with buttons-and-waveforms.
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The EP's confessional cover art (as seen above) is the work of Glasgow-based photographer Inigo Blake.
Italian producer savnko delivers a high-octane treat with 'whyufallin', a breakcore number that mixes the symphonic heights of Balearic-leaning dance music with the murk and crunch of various lofi-infused '-core' offshoots. The beat scampers and soars alternately, intricate yet destructed, providing the jet fuel that underpins the rising synths and glimmering syncopated chord stabs, the pitched vocals like rare polygonal birdsong. And, despite the variegated textures and vitality of the track, there's conscious attention to a minimal soundscape here.
Ultimately, and if the title is anything to go by, in this track the Milan-based producer illustrates troubled flight and hindered movement — the desire to ascend or push forward while weighed down by futility, fear, anything that anchors us. 'Why are you falling? What is holding you back?' Or to put it another way: it's the last lap on Rainbow Road and you're in 11th but still you push on to the finish.
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'whyufallin' by savnko is taken from his BIGTHINGS EP, which you can listen to via spotify or apple music if you like.
🔔 You also might like to check out savnko's previous work, such as his notgood@sports EP for Milan label 51beats, where he exhibits a decidedly more analogue approach and aesthetic.
There is some joy in Wet Leg titling this song 'pokemon' (or should I say Nurse Joy, right?). Mostly because, when 'Chaise Longue' popped into this material plane back in 2022, I never clocked them for a band that'd name a song after this mega-franchise. But that's just a small joy.
Lyrically, the 'pokemon' weaves a low-key less on-the-run Thelma and Louise love story. "Oh, to be yours, to be driving away..." sings frontwoman Rhian Teasdale, painting a poetic picture with cute couplets like
But nothing hits like you and me
"I love you, " I say casually
and
You taste so sweet, like grenadine
You are my favourite human being
There are a couple of references to partying, what with the grenadine (above) and getting "another round". Starting the song with "Get lost, get loose..." feels like an echo of famed rock hedonist Jim Morrison, who utters the words "Get loose!" in the intro for 'Changeling', the first track on L.A. Woman (1971), his final album with The Doors.
A more obscure reference can be found: "Giddy up, you want to go faster? / Call me the demon headmaster" — quite a throwback to a British TV series from the '90s called The Demon Headmaster (it was about a headmaster who was a demon). It is followed by the line that names the song (and another '90s reference): "You just gotta choose me, baby, yeah, I'll be your Pokémon."
Showing how far the Teasdale (and the band) has come, the chorus features a line about driving from Isle of Wight to Tokyo, which is really quite a long way culturally, population-wise, and geographically. Ultimately, it's a driving song, a mood evoked not only through the road-tripping lyrics but in the galloping rhythm of the track, the gleaming guitars like a half-setting sun glinting on the metallics of a car.
The video for the 'pokemon' basically illustrates the thoughts and feelings evoked within the song, except in place of another human being it's about a woman who's in a relationship with a giant egg. Which, incidentally, makes it feel a lot more Tamagotchi-coded than Pokémon related.
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The video for 'pokemon' by Wet Leg was directed by Elliott Arndt (from the band Faux Real, who often support Wet Leg on tour). The woman in the relationship with the giant egg is played by Alice Longyu Gao, who is a DJ, producer and all-round artist in her own right.
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'pokemon' is, of course, taken from Wet Leg's much-anticipated second album moisturizer, which was released in July 2025 via Domino. You may stream the album, purchase it in vinyl form or digitally by heading over to Bandcamp.
⌾ LISTEN TO HIDDEN FORT, DREAMS FROM THE ROLLER PALACE ⌾
It's new music time. As you may or may not (probably not) know, YES/NO MUSIC has launched a record label. Called Pleasant Place, it is dedicated to all manner of instrumental music that summons worlds, allows listeners to escape or relax, and provides an undemanding but imaginative sonic space. You can learn more about it on our dedicated page or you could even head over to http://pleasant.place yourself to check it out.
Our first release is an album called Dreams from the Roller Palace by Hidden Fort. This is a "musical tour" of Maida Vale Roller Skating Palace and Club, which was to all intents and purposes an Edwardian roller disco and pretty much London's top spot for skating between 1909 and 1912 (when it closed). Many years went by and it later became home to the BBC and is now best known as Maida Vale Studios. It was up for auction recently; thankfully composer Hanz Zimmer brought it in partnership with several others, sealing the fate of the iconic studios, but hopefully for the best.
Hidden Fort, a transcontinental duo (one in Tokyo, one in London) who would seemingly prefer to remain anonymous, have created a pretty gorgeous love letter to the heritage of the studios. It's new music, of course, but Dreams from the Roller Palace feels utterly timeless.
We are very happy to be the label home for this rather stunning debut release; yes, we're biased, and yes, it would be a conflict of interests of we were to write a long, gushing essay about how intriguing the concept is, or what wondeful flights of fancy are summoned by the smorgasbord of vintage instruments are used throughout, or comment on just how unusual their mix of ambient and postclassical structures is. But it's cool, and we hope you think so too.
