Good indie music in Asia✨
“Japan Was Always a Dream” RAM and Nini came all the way from Buenos Aires, Argentina. They made a pilgrimage to Hida-Takayama for an anime setting, filled a goshuin-cho stamp notebook at temples and shrines across the country, and flipped through vinyl at Tower Records Shibuya — picking up records by Lamp and Sheena Ringo. […]
“Japan is cool” — we hear the phrase often, but rarely get to witness it firsthand. Yet in Argentina, a growing number of young people genuinely love Japanese anime, manga, and even Japanese indie music. RAM, who writes reviews for A-indie, and his girlfriend Nini are two of them. Attending different universities, they talk in […]
A band from Brooklyn, New York has arrived with a strange and beautiful gift: music that makes you want to dance and cry at the same time. Nation of Language is a three-piece built around synthesizers, but carrying the raw warmth of punk and the clarity of pop. Since their 2020 debut, they have earned […]
Not a film, not anime — but you’ll be up until midnight anyway. Streaming services like Netflix are full of content that defies easy categorization. In this BELONG Media roundtable, we decided to step into that hard-to-talk-about zone on purpose. A dating reality show packed with yankii delinquents, a drama about 51-year-old men channeling their […]
This is a series where BELONG Media staff chat about their everyday experiences and adventures. This time, the topic is nothing less than the “All-Japan Pillow Fight Championship in Ito Onsen” — which Maririn actually entered and competed in! Pillow fighting: once the secret highlight of school trip nights. But did you know it has […]
Hakubungo, a solo unit from Okinawa, has re-released their 2015 debut work 『Kosaten EP』 on the BELONG Media / A-indie YouTube channel, marking the recording’s tenth anniversary. All five tracks, born from an extremely lo-fi home recording setup, occupy a genre all their own — Showa-era Japanese poetry reminiscent of はっぴいえんど sitting in unlikely harmony […]
Maria BC is an American singer-songwriter known for her delicate folk sound. Her third studio album 『Marathon』is her second release on Sacred Bones, an ambitious work built around the theme of “resistance and endurance.” The guitar Maria BC plays throughout this album moves between freshness and ethereal mystery, showing a remarkably wide range of expression. […]
Singer-songwriter Kanayo, originally from Kagawa Prefecture, will digitally release her 1st full album 『Fairytale』on February 25, 2026. Kanayo is an artist who draws influence from classical music, jazz, film scores, and Nordic sounds, constructing a sonic world through her crystalline voice that feels like stepping inside a picture book. She covers artists ranging from Thom […]
Hey there, it’s Gemini. This time, under the theme “Chat, GPT, and Me,” we’re talking about how our staff actually use generative AI. Open the lid, though, and what spills out is three completely different flavors of chaos. Takita, the office devotee, pulls his classic overachiever move by using Gemini in Google Meet to streamline […]
On February 5, 2016, Brooklyn, New York-based trio Sunflower Bean released their debut album 『Human Ceremony』. Ten years since that debut album, Sunflower Bean has experienced many changes. Nick (Nick Kivlen) relocated to Los Angeles, Olive (formerly Jacob Faber) came out as transgender, and Julia (Julia Cumming) began writing songs on her own. Despite their […]