Nothingheads – Jukebox
Genre: Post-Punk, Indie Rock
Similar artists: The Moonlandingz, The B-52s
Once in a while, you hear a band that seems have always been destined to create the kind of Music that they are making. And, you can’t help but feel sorry for them. All of the greatest artists are somewhat cursed. Most of them have the intelligence that could have helped them become lawyers, doctors, or accountants. But, really, they couldn’t have ever been that, could they?
Genius weirdos are hard to find. They are loved by a world that admires creativity, and they are unemployable by a world that also admires order. Discipline is rarely their strength. Time management is not a virtue that young artists are able to take up.
Nothingheads’ Jukebox takes inspiration from some of rock music’s greatest weirdos and stakes a claim for the band to also belong to this category. This is dissonant, bluesy post-punk music made for people that treat eccentricity as a badge of honor. It’s guitar music for those that are always in the market for something that wouldn’t get played on mainstream radio. Nothingheads make a weird sound and they want you to know it.
Pine Barons – ナイトクルージング (Night Cruising)
Genre: Indie Rock, Dream Pop
Similar artists: Fishmans, Deerhunter, The Killers, SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
In a world that is as globalized and homogenous as it ever has been, there is Japan and the rest of the world. A lot of foreigners fall madly in love or get troublingly obsessed with the Asian nation. If this were happening somewhere before the 1940s, this might be startling. In our day and age though it is an embrace of a spirit that seems to favor the greatest traits that lead to humanity’s development.
Japanese music, of course, mimics the rest of the country’s culture. It doesn’t resemble anything else. It is the equivalent of British blues traveling across the pond or 1970s Dutch progressive rock making an impression on the European charts. And, for Western musicians, Japanese music is one of the few otherworldly, incomparable things to be found on music playlists or YouTube videos.
Pine Barons’ ナイトクルージング (Night Cruising) is a nighttime excursion through Japan’s well-lit streets by way of the imagination. This is dreamy prog-rock made as a soundtrack to people that we all hope are very different from us. It’s the music of expectation. It’s hoped that there’s a better way to run the world that hasn’t been tried yet. This is a lethargic pop number that best represents what Westerners wish Japan remains and can be for the rest of the world. It’s a sound of hope.
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