TRACKLIST: 01 One More Kiss  02 Let Me Die (In Your Arms)

Now that we have had the inauguration gala for the Japanese duo STILL DREAMS’ first album (“Make Believe”) with Elefant Records, we can openly enjoy a new release that plays with qualities that make it especially enjoyable. It is possible that “One More Kiss” is one of their most representative songs in this aspect. The song can grow on you, in the deepest part of your gut, and let the light grow in the most intimate, comforting way. But it will also bring you to unexpected peak levels of exaltation on an endless night. As if THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART and MY BLOODY VALENTINE put together a supergroup for private parties. And for the release of this Digital Single, the producer DONG has made a magnificent lyric video, inspired in the pixelated arcade games of the eighties.

And to complete the release, there is a new, previously unreleased song, “Let Me Die (In Your Arms)”, the perfect companion for “One More Kiss”: dreamy melodies, eighties-style guitars, synth-pop bass, and a Europop chorus that can lift even the lowest spirits. Once again, NEW ORDER and SAINT ETIENNE pumped with a perfectly harmonious heart rate. And still, the feeling that with this whole epic show of energy, there is always a sort of dreaminess hiding between the notes of Ryuta’s and Maaya’s songs.

Last but not least, the cover art is once again in [ Read more ]

TRACKLIST: 01 Ultra Doomed  02 Last True Love  03 Spell  04 Drive All Night (Faster Than Light)

05 One More Kiss  06 Make Believe  07 Live With Excuse  08 2008

“New Adventures In Pop” collection [Issue 051]

We do not need to tell you that at Elefant Records we have a weakness for bands from far east Asia. The duo STILL DREAMS reaffirms our feelings about the marvelous music that comes to us from that region, and now they are included in our catalogue with a 12” pink vinyl Mini-LP that, of course, is being released as a part of our “New Adventures In Pop” collection, which we reserve for promising new bands.

Ryuta and Maaya were already playing in bands together, since their high school days. But after getting married, they decided to form STILL DREAMS. And after a couple of EP’s, they are here with Elefant with “Make Believe”, a purification of their musical conceptualization, reaching the sublime. These eight songs comprise a conglomeration of evocative, luminous emotions and an openly pop spirit, close to COCTEAU TWINS, Sarah Records, synth-pop and NEW ORDER.

The album opens with a song that we know as our introduction. “Ultra Doomed” is an exercise in evocative, synthesized pop, with huge melodies, that could fit in somewhere between SAINT ETIENNE and THE HUMAN LEAGUE. The song invites us to dance and get excited in equal parts. “Last True Love” remind [ Read more ]

STILL DREAMS’ music is like a journey. Each new song we have advanced from their imminent album, “Make Believe”, unites their capacity for the evocative and the dreamlike with exquisite pop melodies, danceable beats and all those characteristics that have made us such longstanding fans of pop music made in Japan. And “Last True Love” is no different. With that chorus that illuminates summer nights, Maaya’s sweet voice and Ryuta’s rhythms, they build one of those new hits that traces the connections between a physical movement and the feelings that hide behind it.

If on “Ultra Doomed” we enjoyed the intimate lights of Japanese cities and on “Live With Excuse” we were transported to more bucolic landscapes, the excellent video for “Last True Love” takes us (with Keita Muraki’s images) from the neon lights of Osaka, the crosswalks, the lights and billboards all over the city, to the sea. As a physical journey that reveals an internal one, magnificently represented by the dancer Kento Ebihara, who is truly magnificent partnering with the dancer Luna Mia Takagi, showing all the many aspects of the music of STILL DREAMS. Kodai Kitanobo’s chroma keying with Maaya’s dancing, the montage, the special effects, and Daniel Cuenca’s project coordination work all come together to make an absolutely exquisite audiovisual document.

And as a final gift within t [ Read more ]

TRACKLIST: 01 Live With Excuse  02 Telepathy

While the Japanese duo, STILL DREAMS (who we were introduced to recently with that fantastic single, “Ultra Doomed”), gets their debut on Elefant Records ready, we are advancing a few of their songs as Digital Singles. And “Live With Excuse” is an absolutely spectacular appetizer. It is one of the more intense songs from their upcoming Mini-LP, “Make Believe”, full of dense, epic, euphoric textures, but with an absolutely addictive and dreamy melody. As if a Phil Spector of the XXI century had made a beyond perfect pop album with BLONDIE. We can see this in the video, directed by Keisuke Maeda, that has Ryuta and Maaya surrounded by nature, playing music in a river, later letting themselves be bathed in fireworks at nightfall. It is an epic explosion of euphoria, working from the pop essence of groups like M83 and ARCADE FIRE. A wall of sound hiding major melodies, or a reformulation of MY BLOODY VALENTINE’s universe through synthesizers.

But this single also comes with a previously unreleased song, “Telepathy”, which lets their clubbier facet loose (and this time the leading vocals are from Ryuta), and evokes NEW ORDER at their most festive and luminous. All of this with an incredible new manga-inspired cover by KNN.5.

STILL DREAMS’ BIOGRAPHY:

Maaya Wachi: Vocals / Ryuta Wachi: Guitar, Production

Ryuta and Maaya alread [ Read more ]

TRACKLIST: 01 Ultra Doomed  02 Envy

At Elefant Records, we have always had a weakness for Asian pop groups. And we have taken in groups from Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines… METRO, THE PANCAKES, MY LITTLE AIRPORT, MARINE LIFE, VENUS PETER, MAYLOVE, PHOTO JENNY, Edine, COLOR FILTER and THE PENELOPES are just a few of the names that comprise an indelible part of our catalogue.

That is why we are so proud of being able to add STILL DREAMS, a Japanese duo made up of the couple Maaya and Ryuta, with widespread tendencies toward indie-pop, synth-pop, and shoegazing. Their introduction on our label is this advance Digital Single for their upcoming Mini-LP for our collection “New Adventures In Pop”. The star of this single is “Ultra Doomed”, an exercise in synth-pop, evocative, with great melodies, and which could fit somewhere between SAINT ETIENNE, NEW ORDER and THE HUMAN LEAGUE. What’s more, we have “Envy” as the exclusive song of this single, with its clear echoes of THE CURE’s “Just Like Heaven”. It lays its indie-pop spirit with remnants of melancholy out for us, which STILL DREAMS makes shine.

And then, the video that goes along with the title track shows Maaya moving through the streets of Osaka, with excellent photographic work and direction by Kodai Kitanobo, who makes the nighttime lights work toward the hypnotic effect of the soundtrack.

Finally, the cover art is an interesting exercise in [ Read more ]