Within the populated stretches of Tokyo, Japan, lies the flood of acts and bands that start by crafting music, pursuing their own identity that continues to grow year by year. Coming from such a place is a band named Asunojokei, a four-piece blackgaze band that was formed back in 2014. Takuya Seki (bassist), Kei Toriki (guitarist), and Seiya Saito (drummer) were close friends since their teenage years, only meeting up with their vocalist, Daiki Nuno, through social media after watching a video of him covering a Converge song. Since then, they stuck together, starting their musical journey that will continue to break their limits. While they started with a two-track demo release back in 2015, it is through their first EP in 2016, ‘A Bird in the Fault,’ that informs the start of what soundscape, melodic tone, and writing style they’ll keep building up into. Howling screams; pummeling streaks of blackgaze, post-hardcore, and other metal stripes; and numbed melancholic poetry are immediately attached to this band’s palette. Songs like “Silent Tears” go through their post-metal motions with these solemn guitars, just before Nuno starts shrieking and the wail of blast beats and stormy riffs that come afterward. And “Easy” tips the line within depressive black metal, most notably with the gloomy first few minutes, cultivating this downbeat atmosphere that continues getting more cavernous and stinging. Two years later, their 2018 debut album, ‘Awakening’, amplifies what the band showcased beforehand and expands upon melodic prowess that caters to more potent songcrafting, with writing that consists of pushing past dour emotions despite feeling hopeless and lonely within a momentous city. Leaner cuts like “Double Quotation Mark” and “Ugly Mask” indulge within thunderous black metal passages on the former and shimmering rock tones on the latter, carving out Nuno’s ability towards spoken word, singing, and screaming. “Bashfulness of the Moon” and “Thin Ice” maximize their post-rock structures to a different level, where lilting cooldowns lead to explosive blackgaze turmaturges, with Nuno sounding guttural and snappy in his wails. After releasing a couple of EPs throughout 2019 and 2020, they eventually took a bit more time before putting together ‘Island’, their sophomore record, which took a different direction in the way they compose their tunes. Said direction comes in the manner of implementing J-rock progressions to their post-hardcore and blackgaze roots, a blend of sound that this band manages to synergize in a big way. “Chimera” and “Diva Under The Blue Sky” simultaneously sound harrowing and magnetic all at once, bleary riffs and crushing screams become a bit brighter amid the accompanying J-rock melodies. There is happiness and company that’s worth looking forward to: A sign of forward momentum that is essential to the album’s songwriting, gently realizing that, despite the internal gloom that the protagonist is overwhelmed by. That is not to say the straightforward blackgaze tones are left behind, as cuts like “The Forgotten Ones” and “The Sweet Smile of Vortex” sound more ferocious with the band’s refinement across production and songcrafting. Nuno’s howls and spoken word are crushing and emotive as ever, clawing across frigid blast beats and melodic crescendos that kept building up into a punchy resolution. A characteristic that carries the momentum of this album from front to back, allowing compositions to sound heftier and stickier than ever. The seeds that came from that specific direction paved the path to their recent record this year, ‘Think of You’. Even moving further into that J-rock and J-Pop influences and leaning more into concise melodic structures, formulating a shorter, winter-themed album where the production and composition refinements are on full display. Said influences overall strengthen their signature blackgaze and post-hardcore bread-and-butter, crystallizing phenomenal melodic earworms that this band lands with gusto. “Magic Hour,” “Angel,” and “Stella” are invigorating as it is showstopping, with Nuno pulling out all the power into screams and the rest of the band pulling off dazzling melodic throughlines. “Dogma” still shows that, despite going in this direction, the band doesn’t forget their roots, with that blackgaze wall of sound combusts through its roaring riffs. So does the rampant rhythms of “In The City Where Cobalt Falls” with the soaring guitar passages and blast beats piercing through the skies. This level of vigor proceeds to how frosty and brighter the album sounds, a tone that complements the yearning, thoughtful sensibilities that are plastered on its songwriting. Always finding hope and confidence, an uplifting energy that echoes through “The Farewell Frost” and “Tomorrow is Your Day”. Utilizing gleaming atmospherics, cavernous vocals, and fiery compositions to drive that tender optimism higher. With each passing record, Asunojokei keeps flapping their wings and gradually crafting their own unique identity amidst Japan’s historic background towards its circulation of black metal and post-hardcore bands. Never leaving behind what they used to be in the past, just taking new steps to find a space that is their own. With an optimistic thoughtfulness being embraced that keeps shining brighter, the way that they’re going is up, flooding the skies with howls that put everyone awake.
Tag: Japan
SOUNDS OF THE SEA: Hakushi Hasegawa (Japan)
Within the spaces of Jazzy and glitchy art pop that has spurred within the deeper subsections in Japan, there have been artists that are willing to become enigmatic in breaking apart usual melodic structures and getting ballsy in experimenting beyond usual musical instincts and embracing extremities between the chaotic and the orderly. Nowadays, there are more of those acts seen and heard than ever, creating music that dares to change expectations in a way that’s simultaneously playful and joyous. Hakushi Hasegawa has shown to embrace this, with a discography that spills into the distorted and the comforted. Starting off in the late 2010s, their two EPS, IPhone 6 and Somoku Hodo EP immediately display the musical prowess that Hakushi Hasegawa puts into their work: playful jazz and IDM instrumentations careening to-and-fro, vocal work spilling through the mix with their bare delivery, and song structures that either spelunker into its wild adventure or stick into its linear path with efficiency. ‘Somoku’ and ‘Ta hui xiaoxi’ from the latter EP show these elements in spades, with the former song thrumming along the shifting grooves yet always coming back altogether on the striking hook. The latter song takes its 7-minute runtime for the drums, pianos, and synths to rattle off in various directions, just before it goes into spirals into a blissful tune past the 5-minute mark. This, however, only starts where Hakushi Hasegawa directs their sound to its present stasis, as their debut album in 2019, Air Ni Ni, expands upon what they’ve showcased on their past EPs. The overall compositions get more wilder and fractious, textures burrow more towards glitchy electronica more than ever, and Hakushi Hasegawa’s control of their song structures have more dynamic swells that can build up from rapid fast rhythms to settling melodic exhales. Overall amplifying Hakushi Hasegawa’s compositions into exciting experiments, such as the overwhelmingly stuffy drum layers of ‘Evil Things’ and especially ‘Itsukushii Hibi’ that soon goes to its grand solos on the back half, the slumbering grooves of ‘Stamens, Pistils, Parties’ that don’t go away from its tempo, and the generally windswept wildness of ‘o(__*)’ and ‘Desert’. Things changed drastically for Hakushi Hasegawa for the next couple of years. Releasing the cover-heavy Bones of Dreams Attacked! that features Hakushi Hasegawa’s prominently plaintive yet wondrous skill as a pianist and being part of Porter Robinson’s Secret Sky DJ Set in 2020; performing for Flying Lotus’ THE HIT back in 2021; joining the Brainfeeder roster, performing on Fuji Rock Festival, and soundtracking a TV Drama and a Fashion Show in 2023. Yet, the most noteworthy shift comes through with them showing their appearance as a way to redefine their identity – an aspect that Hakushi Hasegawa has also rummaged over in their past interviews as well as their overall songwriting, painting imageries of natural landscapes amidst details of the body shifting into an amorphous form. That recent redefinition spills forth to their recent album, Mahogakko. Showcasing a redefinition of Hakushi Hasegawa’s familiar musical sensibilities as they take their compositions into a balancing act of pretty tones and blasting rhythms amidst songwriting that has a much eccentric and curious texture towards motifs of love, the outside world, and the body. It merges the intimate with the frenzy that gives many of the songs a defined momentum as they glide from gleaming piano sections to spontaneously ragged segments. For a project that runs just over 34 minutes – their tightest album to date – Hakushi Hasegawa provides just enough time and attention for these songs to veer off into their distinctive melodic pockets. ‘Mouth Flash (Kuchinohanabi)’ has its glitchy rhythms shake asunder as the bass lines are tossed around, with Hakushi Hasegawa’s huskier singing makes for an enticing track. The punchy percussion of ‘Boy’s Texture’ adds a destabilizing tone to the otherwise remotely gorgeous vocal swells and gentle acoustic spills. ‘The Blossom and the Thunder’ fits its title as it provides a clear picture of its two contrasting sound palettes: the hushed beauty coming from the vocals and muted sonic backdrop from the first half, slowly transitioning into the jittery synthetic breakdown of the second half that softens down for its sullen ending. And ‘KYOFUNOHOSHI’ brings back the wilder jazzy spark of their past projects as the horns and drums rapidly stomp along, gradually getting overwhelming over time. While those spontaneous chaos is fun to listen to, the more solemn and constrained songs reveal a softness that Hakushi Hasegawa has opened up to in clear sight, exposing more beauty and variety in its relaxing state. ‘Repeal (Tekkai)’ and its bare soundscape allow their voice to seep through, their singing expressing a weary mood to their timbre. ‘Forbidden Thing (Kimmotsu)’ and ‘Outside (Soto)’ continue for their voice to flexibly express freely, as the former song’s gorgeous piano cascades them conveying a fleeting, yet yearning tone to their singing that’s elevated through the panting drums and layers of harmonies on the vocal melodies, and the former song modulates their voice to a heavier delivery, matching the song’s grand scale. Piling upon spikier effects and samples to complement the confident piano and vocal melodies, ending the album with a heap of strident confidence slipping through Hakushi Hasegawa. Like the album cover of Mahogakko – alongside the rest of their projects – there is a shifting nature to Hakushi Hasegawa’s entire work that never stays in one place. Constantly expanding off their jazz and glitch niches, a facet that allowed them to break through into a bigger net of musicians who have experimented in the general jazzy and electronic scenes. This release, it reveals Hakushi Hasegawa shedding away from the familiar into the new, redefining themselves and taking new avenues for their sound to other flexible tangents. Their overall discography may carry a constantly flashy and chaotic mood at first, but pay close attention to the details, and their magical wonder will reveal itself to you.