WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA - Galapagos

new album out June 27

I'm very excited for this as Superman last year was excellent and the singles released so far are all great. I don't know how they manage to be so prolific and consistent, certainly one of my favourite pop groups in the world right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qPSHOTzidw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOqkqOY2E44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC3sHcS0VLc

album is out and dope as heck!

it's as great as always from them, certain to be one of my favourite releases this year. I love the more mellow direction they've gone in this time - very late summer night vibes, kinda balearic in places and ending with two gorgeous synth-drenched dream pop tracks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_epnF4YjQo

the latest single from it, The Bamboo Princess has a very Bjork-esque sound with its orchestration and beats and a great video too

https://galapagos-japan.tokyo/en/

they released official lyric translations here & track commentary here, nice to see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyF2MRWNoas

and here's a live performance of The Bamboo Princess with a full orchestra, really beautiful

I didn't realise we had a Wed Camp thread! Galapagos was not as immediate a listen as Superman was for me but it's still great - their sound is so varied yet so distinctively their own. "The Bamboo Princess" is so damn beautiful.

They've also done the score for the movie Neko wa Doku Mono, in which KOM_I plays a cat: https://open.spotify.com/album/6btY0OvITMAa9aV0EpfeC7?si=-JngavX4TO6eDDtQqktOeg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWI-VukpyTk

!!!

omg yessssssssss

Awesome.

As for Galapagos, having two long, slow songs at the end was a bit unexpected but "The Sand Castle" in particular is quite lovely.

Sounds like a great band! Can't wait to listen to all of their songs. There are 94.

The lead singer KOM_I is also on the new single by The Chvurches, "Out Of My Head" - https://youtu.be/4w9Zs_OfEgs

this band is GREAT.

best pop band in the world!!!

still love this album so much

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jFtNOPhJvY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9oBVKqID7g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEGjoWVJKNk

they also have the absolute best music videos around

have they played outside of Japan + immediate neighbours?

Totally. Too lazy to look it up rn but I have converted at least three people into Wed Camp fans just by showing them the "Jeanne D'Arc" video.

xpost they played SXSW a couple of years ago!

they've been to the US a few times for SXSW and Tyler the Creator's Camp Flog Gnaw festival (he's a big fan apparently), and played a few festivals in Europe, but that's all they've played outside of Asia i think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMrBunWgwBM

prolific as always, they released a new single last month that I'd missed up until now because it didn't get a video

it's more of a slow-build than they often go for but it's great once it gets going. the singer from yahyel's voice goes really well with KOM_I's too

European dates in the spring/summer!! whoop whoop. includes Primavera Barcelona, so praying for Primavera Porto as i'll be at that one

new EP Yakushima Treasure is out on April 4, there's a preview of a track here as part of a trailer for a documentary about its creation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBde4wUtkHQ

Kenmochi Hidefumi, who's usually the group's main producer and writer isn't involved this time - instead Oorutaichi who produced and wrote "The Sand Castle" on Galapagos produced the entire record, and the track previewed is in a similar sort of vein to that.

Hidefumi has been producing some other artists in the meantime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZfMQ-ydw28

Rinne Yoshida - "Mu" is fun dance-pop even though it feels very by-the-numbers for Hidefumi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxlEd_RDl8Q

he's also working closely with xiangyu producing quite a few tracks for her and their work together feels pretty reminiscent of the earlier wedcamp sound, this track is "mycorrhizal fungi"

I don't quite get this band or their trajectory but yakushima treasure is lovely

i like it a lot even though it's quite a departure from most of their previous work, but that's explained by Oorutaichi handling production duties this time

i expect they'll return to their usual more pop-oriented sound soon enough but i would happily take more of this avant-folk-with-beats-and-field-recording-ambience thing they've come up with this time. "east" and "yaku no jitsugetsubushi" are my favourites

Oorutaichi is a real trip. I get this song (??) in my head a lot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ap4iOlbrkk

ultimately I always felt he'd be better as a producer than a solo artist, so I'm definitely down for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEPgsDaM4Q0

new track with Ryan Hemsworth and it sounds exactly like you'd expect that to, in a good way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRwHZ0nsbBY

kanano senritsu - "drop"

while wednesday campanella are on hiatus, their producer has gotten really into footwork and has been writing & producing for a lot of other pop artists

Thanks. I was blaring SUPERMAN the other day and wondered what they were up to. Turned up this

https://www.reddit.com/r/japanesemusic/comments/krraqn/kom_i_of_suiyoubi_no_campanella_wednesday/

Treasure only involved Kom_i?

they haven't officially split like that reddit post claims, the twitter post linked there is just about kom_i getting new management separate from the group's management, someone just read too much into that. they are on hiatus at the moment though & it's unclear if or when they'll ever put out new material

yakushima treasure didn't involve kenmochi, yeah. it was all produced by oorutaichi, who worked on one track on galapagos too.

as far as what kom_i has been up to lately, she's done a bunch of performances with experimental percussionist olaibi, who's worked a lot with yoshimi from boredoms in the past

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75QRGczUjiQ

huh, interesting. I liked that yakushima treasure record. I'd be up for more of that.

that new footwork track ain't bad but I have to say that none of the post-campanella xiangyu stuff has done all that much for me. it's fine but I don't really go back to it and played those first few campanella records obsessively.

this remix has a little of the old magic tho:
https://haretokidoki.bandcamp.com/track/remix-5

'Drop' is cool and I think it might grow on me, but I wish it was a little more "full speed ahead", if you know what I mean?

Sampled a little of the kom_i & olaibi performance and I like it a lot, will definitely go back to that.

yeah, i loved that. thanks for sharing it!

KOM_I is officially leaving Wed Camp, to be replaced by Utaha (who appears to be a street fashion model): https://www.instagram.com/utaha.89/

would be interesting to see where WC goes from here and of course, what KOM_I will be up to next

a shame but looking forward to what they both do in the future

kom_i wasn't usually too involved in the music but she was an incredible performer and really brought a lot to the table there, so i hope her replacement can keep up in that regard.

i guess it was another thread where we mentioned the new album, "Neon".

It's great, and top to bottom I think their best yet!

"Edison" has blown up on TikTok apparently. 15 million youtube plays!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tOIjOPZ5sA

yeah it was in the jpop thread

it's solid but not as exciting as wedcamp 1.0 at their best, it's a bit wedcamp by numbers but that's still very good

yeah, I can't help but miss KOM_I and their distinctive early sound but it's still pretty cool

a pair of new singles recently, "tinker bell / hot pot commander"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0kjE4heEvk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkFqe3tZVpg

"tinker bell" is fine, though fairly by the numbers deep house for them, but "hot pot commander" is very fresh, hyperpop adjacent at the very least

have to say finally got round to listening to this LP and it just does nothing for me compared to the Galapagos stuff, just sounds ultra generic :-(

it's mostly been wedcamp by numbers yeah so far instead of the relentless innovation of wedcamp 1.0. i'm glad "edison" was a big hit for them at least though

i guess I'm also pretty by the numbers 😁

new album is pretty fun even if not up with their original peak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LQP_sXFM7Q

i like "archimedes"

yeah, it's not bad. I kinda wish this project was called something else since it really has very different vibe but whatever.

also, noticed utaha is in this one:
https://letterboxd.com/film/ice-cream-fever/

it's screening in NY pretty soon