JaccaPop is yet another indie techno-pop group from Japan. What amazes me so much about the Japanese music scene is that unlike American music (at least to my knowledge), you have groups making pop music equivalent to that of the mainstream who are still very much set in the indie scene and playing small clubs. I think one of the biggest misconceptions about Japanese pop is that people lump all forms of pop music together and one assumes that just because one is making pop, you're some mainstream star, but that's far from the case (especially when you have great artists like Mizca who supposedly only sold around 100 copies of her 1st CD during her first week, not to mention the hundreds of Doujin musicians out there who have strong underground followings). But I digress.

JaccaPop's sound is very naive, bedroom techno-pop, if you will. Their sound is a bit under-produced in comparison to other groups, but that's where the charm and distinction in their sound lies. Even upon looking at the tracklisting you'll come across grammatically incorrect and misspelled song titles like "Majic Night" and "21th century girl." Singer Sun's voice isn't the strongest, but it fits the music perfectly and it feels endearing to listen to. Miru is the composer for the group, and while his production has little tricks and may not be flashy by any means, the songwriting shows lots of personality. Both members appear to be very young and I believe it shows, but as I mentioned, their lack of experience is what sets them apart, creating a sound that is innocent, playful and endearing. Parsley is only their 1st album and only the start of more amazing things to come.

Amu is described as an "indie/technopop" outfit and rightfully so. With their debut album, "Prism," the group combines the messy quirkiness of indie groups with the cuteness and refined production of bigger technopop acts out now. Imagine the energy of レコライド mixed with Hazel Nuts Chocolate and some very odd production on top of that and you come close to the sound of Amu. They are definitely one of the standout groups in the technopop scene right now and deserve your attention. They don't sound like a group produced by Nakata, nor one by Terukado, and while I do love that sound, it's nice to hear some originality for once and not just another group trying to sound like the next Perfume.

SAWA has been around since 2008 and has released 5 mini-albums to date. It was not until earlier this year that she released her 1st full length. Her first mini-album, Many Colors, was a small collection of clean-cut techno-pop songs, putting aside all the vocoder and autotune that has been highly present in practically all techno-pop groups now. However, to call SAWA simply a techno-pop artist isn't really fair. Her debut album, Welcome to Sa-World presents a large variety of pop songs which mostly throw back to the sounds of house music and shibuya-kei that were present in the late 90's/2000's in Japanese pop. Many of the songs on this album are actually produced by SAWA herself, along with producers like RAM RIDER, Nawata Hisashi, and Takeshi Hanzawa of FreeTEMPO.

Personally, I think this may one of my favorite Japanese pop albums of the year. Although this year has been really good for techno-pop (Sweet Vacation, Aira Mitsuki, Saori@destiny, capsule, etc.), SAWA not only busts out some very, very good techno-pop-esque songs, but stands out by throwing back to the sounds of pre-techno-pop crazy Japan, taking in the influence of the relaxed, summery sounds of shibuya-kei. SAWA explores the usual cute side of pop, while also creating some tracks that are slightly unnerving in a subtle way, notably with tracks like "Swimming Dancing" below. Although I love techno-pop, it's still refreshing to see an artist like SAWA who isn't a robot to her producer and is crafting her own tunes. The songs on the album seem to be approached more personally, and the fact that her voice isn't warped to death probably adds to that feeling. Also, "Swimming Dancing" may be my favorite bizarre techno-pop video since "Secret Secret" or maybe "I Can Fly" is stranger.... I can't decide yet. GOTTA LEARN THAT DANCE.

I would've asked the main Nagomu man here, Megane-kun, to write up about this album, but considering he's on vacation now and this album has been on constant rotation for me lately, I thought I would take a hand at writing up a little about this.

While 人生 were one of the more notorious groups of the Nagomu label, they are also relatively well known for spawning the talent of Pierre Taki (who donned a Doraemon costume during these days) and Takkyu Ishino, who both went on to later form Denki Groove. If you've listened to Denki Groove before you may know what kind of music to expect. Pierre and Takkyu's sense of humor is very much present within this album along with their overwhelming appreciation and undeniable love for groups like YMO, although in the form of 人生, this love for techno-pop is filtered through a very lo-fi, punk kind of approach. Swirling synths, aggressive drum machines, with some very unique vocal styling. While it may be pop to you and I, this may be a borderline headache to others.


Substance III to me is the techno-pop equivalent of Boredom's Pop Tatari, albeit it much more of a pop album, it still contains a significant amount of experimentation and complete disregard for the confinements of normal listening. This is, unfortunately, the only 人生 album I have heard, so perhaps these statements can possibly apply better to another album of theirs. Despite that, Substance III is an album that is truly worth noting for it's sense of self-awareness and it's bizarre approach to techno-pop, all of this is present while still retaining a relative amount of seriousness and a large amount of sincerity, and it never once comes off as something pretentious for the sake of being pretentious.

-Garrett

A fairly unknown gem of cute techno-pop produced primarily by Yasutaka Nakata (capsule) along with Hayashibe Tomonori (Plus-Tech Squeeze Box), Imai Kentaro (Aprils), and Okuda Hidetaka (Sucrette).

Originally released in 2005 as lollipop, it quickly went out of print and was recently re-released last year, remastered, re-arranged, and with brand new tracks. Don't bother searching for a download of the original album though, it's essentially the same but without tracks 1, 7, and 9 (which are pretty much interlude tracks at that).


Most of the sound can be categorized as purely shibuya-kei, comparable to much of capsule's earlier work. Despite so many different produces appearing on this album, the sound is fairly consistent. Track 8 is a cover of an Aprils song.