Music Recommendations

Are there any western music artists that takes influence from Japanese music?

The only one I know of is British rock band Area 11. They combined J-Pop style music with western shred rock, complete with anime-inspired lyrics, in a style they called "gaijin rock", and it was awesome. Sadly, they switched to "modern rock" which basically sounds like a poor man's Enter Shikari.

But surely there's got to be more J-influenced western artists, right? I've been wanting to know what a western musician influenced by Japan sounds like. Any possible recommendations?

Author.

here you go

On a more serious note, the Sonic Mania soundtrack is being composed by a guy taking influence from Naofumi Hataya (composer of the Japanese Sonic CD soundtrack) and others.

There's also t e l e p a t h, a vaporwave artist who recently began making original tracks inspired by 80's Japanese City Pop. Check these albums and see what you think.

Besides that, though, I got nothin'. If there are more, they're probably not making music I'd listen to.

edited 15th Jan '17 7:28:19 AM by PhysicalStamina

I need mood music for a project I'm working on. Anyone know of any instrumentals that sound very calm but at the same time really bleak? Something you'd listen to at night when everything's calm and you're looking over your hopeless situation

Would this suffice?

Oh, several.

In the ambient department, your best bet is Stars of the Lid, particularly their album The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, which is a classic of pure concentrated sorrow and emptiness delivered with the utmost gentleness. Likewise, any Mirror album will do, although Islands and Visiting Star are probably the most desolate where their other work tends towards the eerie and alien; Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann's solo oeuvres each carry these emotions in slightly different musical directions, with the latter's collaboration with Merzbow being spectacularly ominous. Even more sullen and isolated are the works of Thomas Köner, which is like wind through a deserted bunker given a nigh-orchestral presence; and Final, the project of notorious industrial maven Justin Broadrick, which tends to give the impression of the voids of interstellar space, or in their more intimate moments, the vast spaces of uninhabited planets. Early Oneohtrix Point Never occasionally feels like this, too: Check out Rifts at your leisure. I could go on from there about a zillion other worthy acts, but... maybe just pick up Ambient 4: Isolationism and have a look-see from there.

In terms of instrumental rock and more ambiguous genres, Dirty Three have always been able to bring the pathos. You can practically taste the dust and drying dregs of whiskey on Horse Stories, with "Hope" being particularly devastating. Similarly, Earth in their more restrained, almost folky moods as on Hex could be similarly compelling in that regard, painting portraits in the mind of ruined farmhouses beneath a high, bright moon. And then there's always Godspeed You! Black Emperor, who while often intimidatingly loud are also masters of the slow burn and the subtle build. Bohren und der Club of Gore mine a very different seam, but have similarly absolute control of mood and tension, always fairly quiet yet impeccably emotionally evocative—perhaps the best fit for what you seem to be asking in the "non-ambient" camp, come to think of it, although I'd be remiss to not mention the others.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Thanks! I love that and I'll have to check out all of those

edited 24th Jan '17 10:12:39 PM by Cailleach

I'm looking for good contemporary Blues musicians, preferably with strong Rock music influences. Someone similar to Hozier and Rag'n'Bone Man.

Spiral out, keep going.

Come, Nick Cave and Angels of Light may be of interest to you.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Thanks.

Spiral out, keep going.

I just need some different stuff to listen to. Open to anything

edited 30th Apr '17 11:21:02 AM by Cailleach

If you ever feel like not going to sleep at night...

Or if you have work tomorrow...

edited 30th Apr '17 12:36:15 PM by PhysicalStamina

Stuff that doesn't quite sound like anything else that I can think of off the top of my head:

• Anna Meredith, The Vapours
• Caroliner, The Cooking Stove Beast
• Jandek, Six By Six
• Luuli, Contrasty
• Matmos, A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure
• Negativland, Escape from Noise
• This Heat, Made Available: The Peel Sessions
• Xiu Xiu, The Air Force

I had more extreme and bizarre material on here but I decided to limit it to things which aren't too intrinsically off-putting.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

There's also Replica by Oneohtrix Point Never.

OPN is definitely a good call in that respect.

The Olivia Tremor Control, Bark Psychosis, Deerhoof, These Are Powers, Ludus, Faust, Cabaret Voltaire, Soft Machine and Young Marble Giants may be worth a look for similar reasons.

As for more outré material... Steve Roden's Speak No More About the Leaves, Jute Gyte's Perdurance, Jordaan Mason and the Horse Museum's divorce lawyers i shaved my head, Mirror's In To The Woods, Sutcliffe Jügend's Blue Rabbit, The Body Lovers / The Body Haters, Sunroof!'s Delicate Autobahn Under Construction and Prurient's Black Vase spring to mind. Oh, and Merzbow's Batztoutai With Material Gadgets and Cycle, plus some Ahleuchatistas and Naked City. That sort of boxes the WTF Compass.

edited 2nd May '17 4:14:19 PM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

My musical tastes have apparently taken a bit a of a weird turn recently, heading towards music that people consider to be technically impressive but "emotionless" and "soulless". I love crazy time signatures, fast playing, key changes, etc, while disliking the "human aspects". I've been a big fan of Rush and Dream Theater for a while, and have also been enjoying Joe Satriani and Kansas lately. Any suggestions in this vein? Maybe for something a bit less well-known?

You might like some jazz fusion, like Paco de Lucia, Al Di Meola, and John McLaughlin's Friday Night in San Francisco, or The Mahavishnu Orchestra's first two albums.

Do you like modern classical? Modern classical music, like mid 20th century to now, is....strange. A lot of composers play around with dissonant melodies and mathematically perplexing time signatures, and many compose for computer programs because their pieces are nearly impossible for a human to play.

The Nancarrow studies are some prime example of this

For player piano, this and this (They also have the bonus of being pretty to look at)

And for stuff played by actual humans, there's stuff like this. (I think one of the comments sums it up the best: "I love how much visible pain everyone is in trying to perform this piece.")

Then there's my personally favorite, a piece called "Tango?" written for 3 staves, each with a different time signature.

edited 23rd Jun '17 6:48:30 AM by Cailleach

How harsh do you like your music? Cuz if it's "very", there's a number of metal bands I could suggest.

All I can suggest is the breakcore genre, I'm sorry dude.

I'm not usually willing to go past an 8 on https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness

Jazz fusion sounds interesting. I'll check out the rest of the recommendations, too, though I'm a bit more skeptical towards them.

Try out Watchtower's Control & Resistance which was the original tech-nerd metal album. Here's the 2012 remaster.

I made a remix of Love Live! It samples the dub. You were warned.

Does anyone know of Chaotic genre bending music in the vein of Unexpect and Mr. Bungle's Second album?

edited 2nd Aug '17 10:38:11 AM by BILLYMAYS!!!!

What fate a slugcat...

If you enjoyed Mr. Bungle's second album, you might like Schizofrantik - they also make eerie jazzy progressive rock that jumps from light arrangements to heavy guitar. Here's one of their lives. There are also Tub Ring, who have more conventional time signatures, but they throw a lot of different stuff in the genre blender, resulting in the most amazing case of musical ADHD. And here's a bunch of stuff by Secret Chiefs 3, who practise fusions of various genres with ethnic Arabic and Persian music. And finally, a Norwegian band Shining, who went from playing plain jazz to this and beyond (their album Grindstone will probably fit your tastes the best).

edited 4th Aug '17 5:18:28 AM by Small_Mess

Nonsense is better than no sense at all.

I'm looking for good Dark Wave musicians/bands, preferably with female vocalists.

Spiral out, keep going.