Good indie music in Asia✨
The first word that came to mind when I heard Penelope Isles for the first time was “pure.” But by “pure,” I don’t mean innocent or youthful. Nor do I mean something untouched or free from outside influences. In Penelope Isles’ music, shimmering sounds move through waves of shoegaze, while slightly bittersweet melodies that tug […]
Looking straight into his eyes, I found myself wondering how many different landscapes he had witnessed throughout his life, and how many things he had encountered that were “real,” and how many that were not. The Guest List is a rising guitar band from Manchester, England. Formed in 2021 by five schoolmates, the young band […]
South London six-piece rock band Man/Woman/Chainsaw have released their debut album, 『Cannonball』. As their Instagram posts make clear, this is a band that simply gets along. This debut comes via Fiction Records, the label behind The Cure and The Horrors, though when the band first formed, every member was still a teenager. Their 2024 EP『Eazy […]
I still remember exactly how it felt the first time I heard Whitney’s debut album, 『Light Upon The Lake』. If I had to sum it up in one word: overwhelmingly nostalgic. What is nostalgia, really? It isn’t simply about feeling nostalgic. It’s an affection for, and longing toward, a past that has slipped away, tinged […]
June 9, 2026, FEVER in Shindaita. Maisie Everett of The Belair Lip Bombs, hailing from Frankston, Australia, sat down together with Nobuki Akiyama and Yosuke Shimonaka of the Japanese rock band DYGL. This conversation brought together two acts who have delivered music from two island nations, Japan and Australia, speaking candidly about the hardships of […]
“Even if I die, I’ll live forever.” The fate of everything around us, that it will one day meet a certain death, is an ever-present truth. The mere remembrance of it is enough to send a subtle cold breeze down the space between the cloth and the neck’s skin. Noguchi Bun is a 24-year-old Japanese […]
Where Does “Thee” Come From? — The Journey of One Word Connecting Surabaya, Tokyo, and East Los Angeles For many Japanese listeners, “Thee” immediately brings to mind THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT. That band dominated Japan’s rock scene in the 1990s, and their name carried the word “Thee” — but where did it actually come from? […]
Why the Word “Soulrabaya” Was Born — Thee Marloes on Their Second Album “We just do what feels natural to us” — so why did a band that says this end up being discovered by a prestigious New York label, and how did their music reach listeners around the world? Thee Marloes, a trio from […]
Stella Donnelly has just wrapped her first Japan tour in three years, visiting Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo in April 2026 to support her third album 『Love and Fortune』, released in November 2025. Before arriving in Japan, she toured Australia, the UK, and Europe, carrying songs that are quieter and more introspective than anything she has […]
After years of writing about music, you develop an instinct. Tap play, wait a few seconds, and you know whether an album is merely good or whether it promises something genuinely rare. Of course, that instinct can be wrong in either direction. But with Gia Margaret’s new album 『Singing』, the verdict arrived the moment 「Everyone […]