#NTsKi

[b3crew]

No Borders No Race: The SXSW 2023 Showcase | B3 - Boston Bastard Brigade

The annual South By Southwest Festival is just around the corner, and King Baby Duck's got you covered! Over a dozen Japanese acts (and a couple of Boston ones) are on display, with the where's and when's people can see them live in Austin, Texas! (Although there are a few that were, at the time of the recording, still to be determined!)

PLAYLIST (with album/single links):

the tiva - Go back our home (from The Planet Tiva part.1 EP)

Haru Nemuri - Seventh Heaven (from the album SHUNKA RYOUGEN)

VivaOla - Runway (from the STRANDED EP)

Kami Lyle - Much Too Young (digital single)

POT - Beginning (from the album Journey)

Chihiro Yamazaki+ROUTE14band - Fairy Tale (from the album Oto no Sekai)

BackDrop Cinderella - Bond Girl Sugu Shinu (from the 3rd e.p)

GracieHorse - Crustaceans (from the Gracie EP)

NTsKi - Kung-Fu (from the album Orca)

Otoboke Beaver - YAKITORI (from the album Super Champon)

Yogetsu Akasaka - Heart Sutra (digital single)

Snøw - Wxrds (digital single)

NEMOPHILA - Seize the Fate (from the album Seize the Fate)

YAYOI DAIMON - Sin Miedo (from the MY OWN BOSS EP)

CHAMELEON LIME WHOOPIEPIE - LaLaLa (digital single)

Muck and the Mires - Beat Revolution (digital single)

DYGL - Under My Skin (from the album Thirst)

Wez Atlas & Seann Bowe - The Plot (digital single)

YU-KA - Hoshizukiyo (digital single)

Click here to listen!

[yamamiya]

King Krule

NTsKi

[ferios-favorite-styles]

Labyrinth of Summer - gentoku Remix / NTsKi, gentoku

[airheadrecords]

【 Evening Drive 】

-

NTsKi (Jp) / Sam (deca joins)

2022/11/9 @ PAR STORE

[lovejustforaday]

2023 Year End List - #12

Calla - Ntski

Main Genres: Glitch Pop, Art Pop

A decent sampling of: Neo-Psychedelia, New Age, Alternative R&B, Trip Hop

It's always a real pleasure when a lesser-known artist you've been following for a while happens to drop a new record. Being part of a smaller following makes the occasion feel a little more special, unspoiled by the discourse and expectations held among fans during a regular album roll out for a much bigger artist.

A big part of the reason why I even started this blog was so that I could recommend stuff to my friends (and denizens of the internet) that I didn't think they'd normally come across. Ntski happens to be one of those hidden gems.

Not to be confused with Mitski who I wrote about a few entries back, Ntski is a Kyoto-based Japanese electronic artist and producer that I came across about two years ago via the interwebz (do people still say that?). Her debut LP Orca ended up being one of my favourite albums of 2021, and you can peruse my blog's archives to check out the review I wrote on that one.

In that review, I described Ntski as being tangentially part of a crowd of female artists to come out of the more artsy side of the 2010s alternative R&B explosion. Essentially, If you really enjoy the works of artists like FKA Twigs, Kelela, and Caroline Polachek, then Ntski is probably also right up your alley.

What makes Ntski special is her appreciation for abstraction, and the combination of the aesthetics of pure simplicity with sound textures that are quite complex. She sings in a very meditative tone, guiding the listener through galleries of metamorphic sound exhibits. Her music works to soothe the soul in gradual waves, eroding rugged exteriors to reveal smooth inner cores. She also has a playful sense of humour and sometimes embraces nonsense lyricism that really evokes a child's imagination.

While Orca was strongly based in R&B rhythms and featured a more involved production style, Ntski's latest offering Calla is more sparse, with a sound rooted in serene, natural soundscapes that are accompanied by glitchy, languid, and faltering electronics that serve to peel away layers of reality to reveal the soft, ethereal membrane of its inner-universe. It's not a huge departure from her established sound - just slightly more formless, with emphasis on the sustained spaces between notes and the continuously evolving ebb and flow of the record's pulse.

"If" is simply unreal. Neo-psycedelic glitch pop that sounds like its being stretched like silly putty and sucked into an endless vortex, but in the most non-violent possible version of that description. In fact, it's actually quite pleasing to the mind, like a full-on aural head massage. Everything in the surrounding area melts into a glowing yellow wax. Trees drooping back into the earth, and the true sensation of letting go.

"Field of Flowers" is a more beat-driven trip hop-y track, with something really ominous looming in the background. The lyrics evoke the imagery of the song title contrasted with phantom screams and the sense of danger if one is to remain. A sort of perverse paradise that cannot be stabilized. The shift in atmospheres on this track is palpable, like changes in perspective that occurs when intrusive thoughts enter into a peaceful headspace and begin to wreak havoc.

On the poppier side of things, "Aloha" offers light-hearted, sputtering electronic majesty, painting a colourful vignette full of tranquility and familiar cradling warmth. The song is a treasured celebration of a mother-daughter bond from the mother's voice, made all the more bittersweet because of Ntski's own mother's passing last year. A beautiful ode to the most fond and remarkable kind of relationship.

The closer "Sayonara" is an exquisite send off. The dawning light captured through the lens of tiny misty globes of morning dew, with every streak of light shining through like little memories of the past being filtered through the realities of the present. The raw essence of that Dr Seuss quote: “Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened”. This piece is most likely also about the artist's mother, which is something powerful and sacred, but at the risk of making it about something it's potentially not, I will just say that, in true Ntski fashion, it feels part of something more abstract and greater than all of us, like a great shift in the resonance of the universe.

Admittedly, some of the contents of this record are too abstract on the surface and don't quite reach me as a listener. But I think this record rewards patience, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if this one grows and grows on me in the future. I'll check back in a year's time and see if this is still only sitting at #12.

For now, what I will say is that this record is a decisive step forward in quality from Ntski's already very solid debut. Calla is strange and beautiful and relaxing and mind-expanding all at once. If you're a fan of any of those adjectives, then do yourself a favour and check this one out.

8/10

Highlights: "Sayonara", "If", "Aloha", "Milk White Seed", "Field of Flowers", "Michi"

[jpopstreaming]

🆕🎶 「 Calla 」 new album by NTsKi is now available worldwide! 🌐 Listen now and discover new sounds from Japan on our weekly updated playlist 🎧 https://spoti.fi/3lgjH73

[isamuyorichika]

2022年3月26日

大阪CIRCUSにてライヴします。

GOLIN x E.O.U JAPAN TOUR 2022 

at CIRCUSOSAKA 

LIVE:

Golin

NTsKi

toiret status 

DJ:

E.O.U

nerd god

Rosa

¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U

[belladonnas-thirst]

Some Female Music Producers and DJs: Amelie Lens, Avalon Emerson, BABii, Björk, CIFIKA, CINTHIE, Cowgirl Clue, DIDI HAN, Ela Minus, gyrofield, Izzy Camina, Jclef, Jessy Lanza, Kelela, latesleeper, lau.ra, Lionclad, Logic1000, Lolina, Loraine James, LP Giobbi, M.I.A., mobilegirl, NECTA, Nina Kraviz, NTsKi, Ouri, Park Hye Jin, PinkPantheress, Qrion, ROSALÍA, Salamanda, Scintii, Shygirl, SUMIN, Talia Goddess, tamanaramen, Tinashe (some of her mixtapes), TSHA, Vendredi sur Mer, XKYLAR, Yaeji, yeule, yunè pinku

[silly-geese-united]

"Its not like I like you or anything!" a Natsuki Stimboard <3

x - x - x // x - ntski - x // x - x - x

[yamamiya]

NTsKi

[ferios-favorite-styles]

♬おすすめの曲 プレイリスト♪ Ferios List 207

2024/7/20～7/26にリリースされた邦楽の中��らチェック。個人的に聴きたい曲を集めたリストです。

【掲載アーティスト】

Feelin'Go(o)d / 藤井風 Naoshima / Gimgigam, ZIN M4D LUV / MILLENNIUM PARADE Sunburn / chelmico nevermind / muque DAWN / e5, KUROMAKU Sober / MEZZ 飛び交う街 / アイニー, 皆川溺 Lovely Freak / ASOUND Trust Me / ena mori All Alone - feat. Grace Aimi / Shōtaro Aoyama, Grace Aimi Find you in the dark / Lucky Kilimanjaro sour / YAJICO GIRL On the shore / 踊ってばかりの国 Fuwa Fuwa / luv in the mood / Emerald Work Hard Play Hard / YONA YONA WEEKENDERS Summertime / ANORAK! Fashion / Monkey Majik Straight Up / The BONEZ, Kj 20XX / AFTER SQUALL BLADE / OVER KILL, JUBEE, CYBER RUI Radio Star'24(Oh-ah oh) / Analogfish 風にキスをして / GLIM SPANKY GLORY / Are Square エンプティー・ラブ / ChroniCloop Outside(Soto) / 長谷川白紙 楽園 / Natsu Summer Friend / Czecho No Republic Overdreamt / Pictured Resort FlowinTokyo / MoMo We All Lie / milet With you / Last lily LIFE【2024 re-edit】/ Mondo Grosso, bird Vanity / Takuma the Great, TOSHIKI HAYASHI(%C) その瞳 / Chouji, MuKuRo Labyrinth of Summer - gentoku Remix / NTsKi, gentoku UMA - soda mix / xiexie Love Factory / Sho Asano, Anna Toribuchi, Kaoru Tominaga Alone in my heart(Feat.mrgn) / 7mON, mrgn

[puchun]

NTsKi first album ORCA

[hunklet]

Kung-Fu - NTsKI, Orca (2021)