May is almost over and summer is about to kick into high-gear. Business people are slipping into their “cool-biz” outfits, and the air conditioners on the trains are coming on full blast now. Pretty soon you’ll be able to find us all at the beach fanning ourselves while slurping down the finest kakigori money can buy. And what better way is there to go into summer than with some sick new tunes?
That’s right, we’re back with more J-Tunes for you! And today we have one of Japan’s best electronic music producers, Kiyoshi Sugo. If you like dancing, lush melodies, fat basslines, or sick drops, you need to check this out.
Welcome to the latest edition of J-Tunes, RocketNews24′s in-house guide to the music from Japan that we think deserves your attention. Stay tuned for more!
Last week on J-Tunes, we introduced you to underground darlings Urbangarde and their bizarre-but-infectious brand of electonica-pop-rock. This week, we’ve decided to go in a very different direction with the contemporary Japanese dubstep of Kiyoshi Sugo.
Kiyoshi, who has seen a degree of international success and appeared on various remix compilations in addition to releasing full-length albums and EPs, has been marketed in Japan as “the Japanese Skrillex.” While we imagine anyone would be happy to be compared with a famous, rich musician, Kiyoshi’s music is quite a bit different from the heavy “brostep” dominating car commercials in the United States.
In the six short years since he started producing, Kiyoshi has already released two full albums and two EPs. The producer apparently grew up in a musical household, learning drums from his father, and started off playing in bands. But as anyone involved in the music business knows, artistic groups can be volatile, and after a great deal of frustration, Kiyoshi finally turned to EDM in 2008 and put out his first EP only a year later in 2009. It’s been a steady rise to awesomeness since then.
But enough history, let’s get started with the music!
Here’s the somewhat abstract video for “I’m With You” from the 2013 album All in Black. It perfectly captures Kiyoshi’s style, mixing haunting-but-catchy melodies with auto-tuned vocals and a solid, invigorating bass drop. It’s the perfect music for a Saturday night beach party, if you ask us.
Though our next video “Knocking On Your Door” wasn’t released until just this month, the song actually originally appeared on Kiyoshi’s first EP Knocking On Your Door in 2009. Featuring guest vocals by Amandah Wilkinson from Operator Please, this song perfectly captures Kiyoshi’s melody-driven brand of dubstep.
Our final video for you today is “Awakening,” featuring guest vocals by Singaporean/New York band I HATE THIS PLACE. A bit more somber than some of Kiyoshi’s other tracks, “Awakening” is perfect for a hung-over Sunday morning spent lying in bed pondering the meaning of life, truth, and waffles.
Kiyoshi’s newest EP, the cryptically named WIZMIZ, was released this January and sees him further honing his style of melodic dubstep. It’s a great start place for anyone interested in checking out his music, and you can listen to samples from the EP on his official website. The EP, along with all of Kiyoshi’s music, is available on both Amazon and iTunes.
▼And this is its cryptic abstract art cover.
Now, that you know what you’ll be listening to all weekend, all you need to do is find something do while enjoying it. Like gorging yourself on caramel banana sushi!
Sources: Kiyoshi Sugo, YouTube (YU-P), Clubberia
Images: Facebook (Kiyoshi Sugo), Kiyoshi Sugo