Select Frequency #8

2025 musts, J-emo, atmo-club minimix

All music sounds three times as good in early autumn, and I get a little obsessed over the fact every year. Is this an autumn playlist? Not quite — Select Frequency is too chaotic for such a simple brief, and I part-scratched that itch with the latest Marissa Nadler earlier this week – but it's certainly informed the picks on some level. The first half of this playlist is entirely devoted to current-decade Japanese takes of Midwest emo, which has always struck me as a fundamentally autumnal genre reluctantly wearing the high-energy trappings of summer (can a genre of music have a Cancer Sun and a Scorpio Moon? ja ja), while tracks #8 to #10 form a moody dance mix that ratchets up increments of introverted gloom for the benefit of your club sulk and/or bedroom stew! Lest those two events fail to satisfy you, I've thrown a couple of current-year highlights in between to keep everyone happy — enjoy!

1. Tiny Yawn - ‘‘花筏 (flower raft)’’

2. simsiis - ‘‘cycling’’

3. downt - ‘‘111511’’

4. ひとひら (Hitohira) - ‘‘つくる (tsukuru)’’

5. 水中スピカ (Suichu Spica) - ‘‘MIYAKO’’

6. CMAT - ‘‘Lord, Let That Tesla Crash’’

7. Bibi - ‘‘Real Man’’

8. Sofia Kourtesis - ‘‘By Your Side’’

9. Intense - ‘‘Natural Progression’’

10. Rhythm & Sound - ‘‘Carrier’’

    ---

2020s J-emo vs. Midwest tedium

Full disclosure: while these five songs will all slap you silly (and are mostly from dependable artists), recent Midwest releases have done little for me for a good decade now. Whoops. I more or less wrote off contemporary emo as a stale pity party by and for listless burnouts when Turnover became its landmark act in 2015 — and even if this was a generalised error, every passing year has given me more cause to eyeroll at Midwest emo in the actual US of A, be it The World is a Beautiful Place…'s conviction that ham-fisted political grandstanding can sustain a gargantuan fit of post-rock ennui in the absence of a single good hook, or Pitchfork & Co.'s crusade to make the fits, fits, fits and starts of Home is Where's 9/11 fixations the new #fetch. Don't call me.

In times of salt, make a 5th-wave emo record without using any real instruments and drop it on Bandcamp without a whiff of coherent promotion focus on the positives! It turns out all that was needed here was a bit of pep amidst those plunging serotonin levels, and to substitute the genre's most wearying trademark – tuneless boydisaster whinge – for airy female cleans! Both these spruce-ups are offered by more Japanese acts than I have the space to name here and often complemented by frazzled math-violence from long-established icons like The Cabs and early-days Tricot.

In case this framing smacks of false exceptionalism, it's only fair to state that Japan has plenty of emo-endebted twinkly math rock that I find as tedious and self-absorbed as anything from the actual Midwest, not to mention the occasional band that exemplifies every trope you might throw at the classic US mopers (though I do love this one). However, in the same way that Japanese shoegaze and garage-ready alt rock gave those genres a new lease on life in the '00s, even as they promptly wilted all over the West, the Japanese scene is very much the space keeping both Midwest emo and its inbred sister-genre math rock alive right now — so there’s plenty more where these five tracks come from! And with all that said, here's your blow by blow:

---

Tiny Yawn - ‘‘花筏 (flower raft)’’

from Paddle Ship // 2024 // indie pop - Midwest emo

This was one of my favourite tracks of last year and has hardly left my weekly rotation since I clocked onto it last autumn — that single first bar of guitar alone should pin down why (what a phenomenal motif), but with its easy groove, bouncy instrumental interplay and momentous structural development, this track just goes from strength to strength. Vocalist Megumi Takahashi sees off her snapshot of classic mono no aware wistfulness with rousing delivery and a nostalgic suite of images (comets, faraway towns, geographical coordinates; see the excellent KAON Music's lyrical breakdown for more), and the upshot is an impossibly lovely convergence of goodnesses that I am loathe to overanalyse but simply demand you get on repeat ASAP.

---

simsiis - ‘‘cycling’’

from White Hot // 2022 // Midwest emo - shoegaze

With just two EPs under their belt and nothing new since this track dropped three years ago, simsiis are perhaps the band here I'm most actively excited to hear more from. They do great work integrating shoegaze textures and incremental dynamic builds into their sound, but their trump card is the greatest of all powers: dropping a fuckoff supermassive chorus out of nowhere and making damn sure that it sticks every inch of available landing space like my back to the merch shirt that I would absolutely snag if I caught them live and refuse to remove until the hygienic implications of keeping it on verged on biohazard territory. You'll know exactly where it's at when that chorus barrels in, its roof-raising energy backed by an endearingly singsong vocal and every single one of those moody guitar flourishes the American Football ripoff brigade once convinced you should be dialled in with levels of enthusiasm otherwise reserved for cleaning a sink or renewing a sertraline prescription. None of that here! Energy conquers all, those leads are electrifying, and this song is simply massive.

---

downt - ‘‘111511’’

from Downt // 2021 // Midwest emo - math rock

Not to be confused with the (increasingly) experimental Japanese post-rock act downy, downt strike me as an upcoming act a little too sure of what they're about stylistically, and their output so far has been hit or miss as such; "111511" is the track that keeps me believing. (We're talking the original 2021 recording here, which in its turn is not to be confused with the underwhelming re-recorded version released on the band's sophomore Underlight & Aftertime last year.)

With its brittle mesh of arpeggios and back-and-forth dynamics, this track is probably the most template Midwest outing here, but the melodic progression that kicks in at its midway point is pure excellence and goes a long way towards setting it apart. The subject matter is standard enough – the narrator slinks off to a nostalgic rooftop to gaze down at her city and ponder a breakup, oy vey – but the mileage vocalist/guitarist Yui Togashi flogs from it could pave a marathon track for the aerobic heartbroken, and she flexes enough conviction in her performance that you'd suspect she'd run the whole damn thing twice over if this track's confines weren't so meticulously succinct. Moral of the story: don't let anyone tell you you're too depressed for a good chord progression!

---

ひとひら (Hitohira) - ‘‘つくる (tsukuru)’’

from つくる (tsukuru) // 2023 // Midwest emo

Guitars, guitars, guitars! And not in the sense of ye olde incorrigible wank-noodle; the tones and melodies on this track are just to die for, as is the wistful mood that should be instantly familiar to anyone who secretly enjoys the feeling of standing in a light rainshower and feeling distantly sorry for themselves (you're in the wrong genre if that ain't you.) This is comfortably the glossiest of my picks here, but it does more than coast on slickness. I love the pickup at the end — it's one of those wonderful "Little League" moments of haywire release where nothing is under control and everything makes perfect sense, and I would love nothing more than to ride a bike to it irresponsibly badly down backwater roads between fields of corn rice. The feeling is there, and it is also nice that the band attached a muy respectable album to it, mmhm!

---

水中スピカ (Suichu Spica) - ‘‘MIYAKO’’

from Lux // 2025 // math rock - Midwest emo

Here's one for you math rock nerds — this band generally (and on this track) toe the line for the level of instrumental spam I can abide in this sound, but they rarely fail to tie it to meaningful motifs and strong, vocal-led songwriting developments. Case-in-point, the way "MIYAKO" explodes from its first chorus into two successive powerhouse bridges is exactly the Newton's cradle effect we're after in this game, those wrecking balls of maximalist crash-smash (laudatory) smacking one another on to greater and greater lengths of emotional bullshit (laudatory). If the remainder of the track declines to build itself up to quite the same momentum, then it can be forgiven for bowing out gracefully: this band packs some neat noodles and an even neater delay/reverb configuration, go figure.

---

Intermezzo: the 2025 you need right now

CMAT - ‘‘Lord, Let That Tesla Crash’’

from EURO-COUNTRY // 2025 // EURO-COUNTRY

Turning from Japan to Ireland but continuing the theme of American genres having their bar raised in unlikely corners of the world, CMAT's latest album is called EURO-COUNTRY — and that, in all its excesses, be they sardonic or great-hearted, is exactly what it fecking is (see Zack's tight write-up in our latest Quick-fire Roundup if the pennies aren't quite dropping). The indie-country downer "Lord, Let That Tesla Crash" may be the album's single least yeehaw-prone moment, but it makes up for this by dishing out a deeply moving elegy to a dead friend and for validating that same fantasy I find myself glimpsing practically every time I see one of those fucking cars. (For clarity and wholesomeness, the owner invariably escapes and gets to watch the vehicle blow itself to pieces before their eyes rather than perish themselves.)

For CMAT, the Tesla is at once a literal car that serves as an unwelcome marker of lost time, parked as it is outside the flat she once shared with the song's addressee, and a synecdoche for another unwelcome change she skewers all over EURO-COUNTRY: Dublin's descent into a gentrified tech-hub, and the remorseless price-outs and insufferable corporate sheen that come with such things. The grief and anger she vents here elevates the song's primary impetus – the passing of her friend – into a candid and ultimately devastating mediation on loss, and as with all the most affecting meditations on loss, it's painfully full of life. CMAT's sardonic humour is at its best here, per her off-hand self-deprecation and that unforgettable opening verse…

I heard death comes in threes, I misheard, it bein' from Dublin
I thought "death's in the trees", which makes sense
'Cuz they're the saddest cunts of plants I have seen
Oh, the drama of them dying every year.

Woof. If there's any defensive function to this humour, it finds itself stripped bare by the wail that breaks out of her as she ties her friend to a flashback of emphatically past-tense happiness just before the second chorus; if I'm not crying, then you'd bloody well better be crying.

---

Bibi - ‘‘Real Man’’

from EVE: ROMANCE // 2025 // K-R&B - trip-hop

Keep it real, man
Real means no tough
I've been seeing you denying as a natural born human

So it be? As we read just the other day in GK!'s ultra-exciting first guest post, alternative K-pop luminary Bibi is all about piercing industry mores with a confident voice of authenticity, and this steamy highlight from her essential new album EVE: Romance is a perfect case-in-point. Riding a trip-hop groove amidst a feverous suite of lysergic brass samples, Bibi reels off a contradictory account of naked desire set against the hollow, self-deluding life-state that comes from burning that particular candle at both ends: the former is played straight and sensual, the latter is wrapped up in a heavily filtered bilingual rap verse. Hear it in the context of the album's concept (a psychodrama of clones with contrasting personalities), and it's a plea from one half of the Bibi-clone-persona to the other, lamenting her shallow ways and reinforcing her integrity as an individual, DNA be damned. But, artistic intentions and conceptual trappings be what they may, the track takes on a whole new life the moment you lean hard enough to the other side of the title lyric's double entendre to take it at face value and nix that comma from its midpoint.

Put an actual, genuine real man (!!?) in the crosshairs of this piece as a whole, rather than on the implied pillow of sultry-Bibi-persona, and the upshot is fascinating. Who is he? How does he escape phoniness, how does he become real? I am very much doubling down on my initial reaction to the track here (conceived without the faintest awareness of the album's concept), but I think the double entendre of real man stretches far enough to allow a wider examination of authenticity in the bedroom. Once you go there, you'll see that what cuts this track out from an machismo-shredding ode to male ineptitude as we know and love such things is that Bibi's intention is delivered with empathy rather than exasperation; if I've been seeing you denying as a natural born human isn't a convincing prompt for a more sensitive masculinity, then we're all beyond saving.

The incentive is all there too — she doesn't just want a more authentic connection with her partner, she wants a more sophisticated lover, and lest we mistake Bibi-clone-persona's keep it real plea for milquetoast therapising, sultry-Bibi-persona's opening lines make it emphatically clear that she is ultimately here to indulge her own desires in full self-awareness of any collateral grit. Cigarette…nicotine…Chardonnay…toxin mmhm! Whatever she expects of her real man, wholesomeness is appropriately low on the list. Whether this is canon to the track's concept is not a question I would like to see answered, but I hope this angle is at the very least an adequate illustration of just how evocatively Bibi navigates livewire sensuality with a complex blend of empathy and hedonism — and if her husky delivery happens to be pure sex, then, uh, there's that too. Praise be.

---

Moody Dance Mix for Big Moods in Your Skull

Sofia Kourtesis - ‘‘By Your Side’’

from Fresia Magdalena // 2021 // Microhouse

The following three songs flow together as a little mini-mix that will turn your bedroom/cafe/whatever into a low-energy clubspace for >10 minutes and then wind it down in style, because this is invariably a good thing that you and I both deserve. Kicking it off is Sofia Kourtesis' "By Your Side", which is exactly the kind of microhouse earworm you can dance to with anything from your whole fucking body to the vaguest nudge of your shoulders. Now, Kourtesis' 2023 breakthrough Madres was deservingly heralded for its blend of deep house vibrancy and intimate personal ruminations, and her latest effort, the Volver EP from a few weeks back, followed this up with a fistful of strident bangers, but I think this means all the more reason for a timely re-emphasis of the comparatively stripped-back approach of her excellent, excellent 2021 Fresia Magdalena EP. Her M.O. back then was to lay down gorgeously organic grooves and builds, over which she punctuated a constant trickle of peripheral melodies with bold brass flourishes — and if "By Your Side" isn't the essential case-in-point, then treat it as an invitation to four other great songs to pick from.

---

Intense - ‘‘Natural Progression’’

from Only You / Natural Progression // 1996 // Atmospheric drum and bass

Thank me later for that segue from "By Your Side", which I'll humbly venture is the single most impressive move in the history of DJing, and get your teeth into those outrageously slick basslines! The '90s atmo dnb sound of which “Natural Progression” is assuredly prime vintage has been immaculately gorgeous since day one, but the emphasis is traditionally laid on featherweight breakbeat patterns, exquisitely ethereal twinkles, and breathless airy expanse. “Natural Progression” is packed with all this, but, as our crack scion Milo Ruggles touched on the other day, good basslines are a real rarity in this style’s contemporary revival, and there’s no better way to highlight this than the plus-sized fretless wonders that rule the roost here — and if that ain't enough for you, then the A-side from this single was responsible for a breakdancing cat meme from 2022. Talk about evergreen appeal…

---

Rhythm & Sound - ‘‘Carrier’’

from Rhythm & Sound // 2001 // Ambient dub

Nine tracks down, and I still haven't found time to gush about a Mark Ernestus/Moritz von Oswald project. Huh! Time for a Rhythm & Sound highlight. While my heart still belongs to Basic Channel and my lizard brain is very much wired to the muscular grooves of Maurizio, Rhythm & Sound is perhaps the most organic of their shared ventures — from any perspective, it's certainly the dubbiest. "Carrier" is less a 'song' as such and more an impeccably textured set of delays that, given decent headphones, will lap against your ears like the night tide lazily rising over a Mediterranean shoreline. It takes me back to the starry-eyed raptureof Basic Channel's Radiance (forever one of their best and least heralded works), offering an erosion of the rigid beat-structures the duo built their techno empire upon. The looser they play it, the more the track's central pulse seems to assert itself — and if that's not the ticket to an effortless wind-down, you can get out of here and freeload off someone else's narcotics. Thanks and goodnight.

---

---

Select more frequencies:

Select Frequency #1 (Benjamin Jack)

Select Frequency #2 (K. Bowman)

Select Frequency #3 (Ben Rosenberg)

Select Frequency #4 (Hugh Puddles)

Select Frequency #5 (Erwann S.)

Select Frequency #6 (Tom Read)

Select Frequency #7 (Benjamin Jack)