Japan Live Radio Updated: Mellow

Japan Live Radio has been updated, this time featuring lots of mellow songs by artists such as Kuki Kodan, Nikaido Kazumi (thanks for the recommendation David!), Cibo Matto (thanks for the recommendation Justin!) and Frenesi (though I also managed to fit in the garage rock of Supersnazz, the Clicks and Teeny Frahoop...).

One thing to note: although I describe the station as 'the best of Japanese indies music', I also play music from Korea, Hong Kong and elsewhere from time to time, and feature major label music that I like. I note this because this time I included Aoi Teshima's 'Teruu No Uta', a big hit from the animation movie Gedo Senki's soundtrack. There's nothing remotely 'independent' about the producers of this song, but it fits the mellow theme well, and the 19-year-old Teshima's vocals are fragile and lovely, like a song heard from faraway in a grand open space like the Mongolian steppe.

By the way, for reasons I'm not aware of, the number of people listening to the radio has shot up in the past few weeks. I'm talking a three-fold rise... A lot of the listeners are from Japan and big groups of them seem to tune in at the same time. I'm wondering whether there's something wrong with Live 365's listener tracking system, but then again, maybe it's something more interesting, like a class full of schoolkids with computers all listening to the radio at once, for example...