New Pants: New Pants (1998)

A few years ago I stumbled upon a CD by a Chinese post-punk band named New Pants. I bought it on a whim and absolutely loved its blend of Ramones-esque fast punk and breezy electronica. I've enjoyed what I've heard of the band ever since, but recently I managed to track down a copy of their original 1998 self-titled album. It is a chance to hear the band in their early stages.

It's a slightly strange experience, since it almost sounds as if the tracks were laid onto the album in the chronological order in which they were written. It certainly ends with a fairly similar sound to the one with which I'm familiar, but it begins somewhere quite different. In truth it begins with them sounding like a straight-up Ramones tribute act.

Jolin Tsai: Play (2014)

Jolin Tsai is a hugely popular Taiwanese recording artist, whose career has been peppered with smash hits, sold-out concert tours and constant Madonna-style image reinventions. As is often the case with North Asian celebrities, Tsai has expanded her performing career to incorporate modelling, consumer goods promotion, and acting - most recently providing the voice of Judy Hopps in the Chinese edition of Disney's Zootopia.

Play, released in 2014, is her most recent album to date. It is a collection of bright, superficial pop songs that was a huge success in her own country.

Given the right melody I can really engage with sugary, superficial pop music, and I had particularly enjoyed Tsai's earlier 2012 album Muse. Sadly Play does not match up. There are a few too many songs here that simply lack that ear worm quality that makes for great pop music. Asides from one highlight it is all just a bit too ordinary and disappointing.

Ringo Sheena: Japanese Manners (2007)

I have previously reviewed Japanese jazz-rock band Tokyo Jihen's 2011 album Great Discovery. This 2007 precursor features many individual members of that band, but is actually a solo recording by its lead singer Ringo Sheena. It was produced as the soundtrack to Mika Nishikawa's feature film Bakuman (adapting the popular manga) in collaboration with composer and violinist Neko Saito.

To describe Japanese Manners as a soundtrack would, however accurate in specific terms, miscommunicate the style of the album. Sheena had originally envisaged an electronic instrumental score, but it was at Nishikawa's insistence that the music was expanded to include the violin, vocals and an entire orchestra. This is, if anything, an experimental jazz album. It is also pretty outstanding.

I think Ringo Sheena is an exceptional singer. She has a distinctive husky voice that really sets her apart from her Japanese contemporaries, and there is a strong sense of play and experimentation in her music. I would recommend her work to anyone with an interest in good music.

World's End Girlfriend: Seven Idiots (2010)

Seven Idiots is an instrumental rock/pop album by solo artist World's End Girlfriend, aka Japanese musician and composer Katsuhiko Maeda. Released in 2010 it fast became one of the more acclaimed albums of its year among enthusiasts for the avant-garde and Japanese popular music.

Maeda composes music with a huge variety of elements and instruments, ranging from orchestral-style pieces to rough electric rock to electronica and even 8-bit style bleeps and bops. It's a deliberately messy sound, creating a sort of loose, out of control sound that is both distinctive and oddly addictive. Listeners seeking bubbly Japanese pop will probably be disappointed, but anyone with an ear for the esoteric will find a huge amount to enjoy here.

Banks: Goddess (2014)

Jillian Banks, who simply performs under the stage name Banks, is an American singer-songwriter. Her debut album Goddess was released in 2014 and peaked at #12 in the USA Billboard charts. I have to admit I had not heard of Banks - although I had heard one of her songs quite a lot without knowing who was performing it - and only encountered a copy because my wife purchased it in error (I cannot remember what band she had misread the slightly ornate cover copy as).

The most striking thing about this album is how homogeneous it is: Banks has a very specific musical style, broadly categorised by the music press as either alternative R&B or trip hop. Her songs all seem to have the same combination of low, electronic tones and syncopated percussion. They have a slow, haunting quality to them. Liking Goddess almost entirely requires the listener to be a big fan of this sort of slow, Portishead-like musical style, because there really is nothing else that Banks presents here. It's great at what it is, but essentially that is all that it is.

L'Arc en Ciel: Ark (1999)

L'Arc en Ciel is a Japanese rock band. They formed back in 1991 and, a bunch of member changes notwithstanding, continue to produce music today. While they started off as a visual kei group (a sort of Japanese off-shoot of glam metal) they soon shifted over to becoming a fairly light rock/pop outfit. They are tremendously popular in Japan with more than 40 million albums sold over the past 25 years. In 1999 the band simultaneously released their sixth and seventh studio albums, Ray and Ark. I figured I would take a listen to Ark and see how it went.

The biggest issue facing L'Arc en Ciel is just how blandly inoffensive they sound. It's that sort of generic upbeat pop-rock that seems guaranteed to find a fan base without actually contributing anything fresh or new to popular music. They do have a generally Japanese flavour to their music, and that might attract some fans of Japanese popular culture, but there are better and much more interesting bands out there to sample. This album sounds about as mainstream a collection of songs as you could find, and that lets it down pretty badly.

The Bombay Royale: You Me Bullets Love (2012)

The Bombay Royale is an 11-piece independent pop group based in Melbourne, Australia. The group was formed in 2010 by musician Andy Williamson, and it was initially devoted to performing covers of songs from 1960s and 1970s Bollywood movies. They rapidly segued into writing and performing original songs, albeit ones overwhelmingly inspired by the kind of popular Indian music they were covering.

They really are a band you need to see live, given they not only sing songs but enthusiastically perform them. Lead singers Parvyn Kaur Singh and Shourov Bhattacharya front the Bombay Royale with a surfeit of energy and personality. The nine musicians are each clothed in a different weird fancy dress - one a ship captain, one a masked bandit, and so on. They blend Indian popular music with funk, surf rock and even elements of disco. In short they are a near-perfect multicultural party band, well-suited to be lined up at the next festive gathering before jumping to the dance floor.