that foreign music blog🌎

You may be thinking: why did it take her so long to write this? Well, it’s mostly because there was SO MUCH to process this time around. That, and I’ve been busy. This festival, held in Matsumoto’s Alps Park, had one of the most beautiful venues, which can be found up towards the mountains. The stages were organized on the sides of the road and wound up in a sort of steep spiral. While this resulted in you having a small hike between stages, it also offered you a view of the surrounding summer foliage and lush greenery. You also, of course, got to enjoy Nagano’s famous red apples, as it was literally called “Apple Music Festival”. As someone who’s used to names being names only, it was a nice surprise to see that almost every food stall had apples on sale.

What struck me most about this festival, though, were just how friendly the people were. It was my first time to Nagano, period, so I was a bit tense when I arrived at the station. While everything had been written on the venue website, as we all know, it’s hardly ever that easy.

The first thing I noticed was the long queue that’d snaked it’s way around the rotary. Looking for the shuttle buses, I puffed out my chest and asked one of the festival-goers, who were easily identifiable by their red wristbands. It’d been a young man of about the same age, chatting with his other friends about whatever. I was so nervous that my voice was shaking, but I eventually managed to get the Japanese out: ‘Is this the line for the shuttle buses?’

“No. This is for the taxis.” he replied, his friends eyeing me with equal curiosity, “…Are you going to the music festival??”

“Yeah. Which way is the fastest?” I returned, feeling a bit more confident.

“Taxi is the fastest.” he answered, and I thus decided to remain in line, not really realizing the peculiarity of it until the man addressed me again.

“Are you by yourself?”

“Yeah.”

The three of them then looked between each other and asked if I wanted to ride up to the venue together. Initially I didn’t really understand the reason, but when I watched more and more groups get into the cars lined up beside us, it dawned on me that my riding alone would’ve been a waste of three other seats. I thus agreed to go with them.

We talked a little while in the taxi, as I was too shy to strike up conversation in line, and I found that some of them were actually from Tokyo. They recommended a few artists like popular girl group, CHAI, and soloist, UA, and noted how taking the shuttle bus back the station was the most convenient return-method. Once we arrived, I began to sift through my wallet for the fare, but the men had agreed to pay for my part. I lowly bowed in appreciation before we went our separate ways, though I was admittedly a bit reluctant to continue the day on my own. Still, I continued to experience warm encounters throughout the day like smiles from passing strangers, as well as a fellow listener who broke open my chopsticks for me when he noticed how I was struggling to do so with one hand.

The whole experience made me leave Nagano with the best possible impression, even though I didn’t make time to go sightseeing. Interacting with the people alone had made me want to go back again.

Anyway, back to the music~

When I bought my ticket, I planned the go with the intention of finding new music. I didn’t really know any of the artists on the lineup and was pretty excited to hear everything I could. The day started with city pop band TANGINGUGUN, who had drawn me in with their entrancing guitar and soft-spoken vocalist. They were playing at the Wasabi Stage, which was one of the smaller stages that’d been settled towards the beginning of the “hike”.

What I came to realize later on was that the same person I noticed dancing at the front of the stage for the other artists, was actually the keyboardist from this band! However, in finding the mix of red and gray wristbands–gray marking the performers—I got an idea of how casual of an event this was. As I got food or aimlessly wandered the venue, I saw more musicians chatting away with their beers and coffees as they headed to their respective stages or, much like that keyboardist, clapped and danced for their fellow musicians. People didn’t really seem to even recognize them, either, even those who’d played on some of the bigger stages.

One example of this was when I saw Tempalay walking down from the Soba stage, which was positioned at the mountain summit. It wasn’t necessarily a big stage, but a lot of people had gathered for the experimental group, who had garnered a fair amount of fans after their hit song “Doooshiyoooo“. When I’d climbed up to the stage earlier in the day to hear a bit of the dance music from soloist, ZOMBIE CHANG and emo rock group, jan and naomi, not only could I sit rather comfortably on the grassy area, there were even some people who were napping! However, as the sun set and the rain clouds started gathering, that luxury disappeared with the arrival of slightly bigger–albeit indie–names. Tired as I was, I stood on my tippy toes and could still only HEAR them, but by stretching my arms up and blindly taking a shot with my iPhone, I managed to get a decent photo of guitarist and vocalist, Ryota and drummer, John Natsuki.

As a music-lover, I try to listen to more than just the popular songs, but as far as Tempalay goes, I hadn’t really heard much else than “Doooshiyoooo”. I was kind of curious as to what other stuff they had to offer, especially since my friend said that, apart from that popular song, their sound was a bit strange. It’s true that their more popular stuff caters to the city pop feeling that’s been trending within indie rock these days, but this band definitely takes a more experimental approach with their dreamy keyboard effects and vocal manipulations, as well as an interesting use of discords. You can hear this in their newer song, “Sonatine“.

After their set, I saw them hanging around the white tent of the Kinoko stage, watching a hip-hop performance that’d been completely eclipsed by dry ice. I was only a few feet away from them, but seeing as how comfortable they looked with their food and beverages, I’d decided to leave them alone.

Another big name I saw was 80s inspired dance rock group, CHAI, just as those boys had suggested. I’d vaguely known them by name, but I didn’t really know what to expect when walking into such a big crowd. They were set to play earlier that day at the Ringo Fes. stage, which was at the bottom of a sloping hill surrounded by trees and grass. I got the impression this was the biggest stage, especially since the lineup included several of the bands those boys from before had recommended. Little did I know that the band consisted of four cute girls donning pink sweatsuits. Listening to them, I suddenly had the urge to binge-watch all my eighties favorites like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. More impressive was that the vocalist–perhaps Kana—could speak really good English and had the bassist, Yuuki, translate in Japanese! It was really cute how they interacted with the crowd, too, as they asked us “Do you like our blonde hair?? We need blonde hair, SERIOUSLY~”. They ended their set with a sort of monster dance in monster-esque costumes as shown in this Tiny Desk performance.

When I started this post, I’d told you that I didn’t really know anyone. I really didn’t, but on the train ride, I did a little bit of studying to try to decide my route. Luckily, the festival event has it’s own APP that links you to each of the artists’ music, so I went through several names before finding two that I really fell in love with. One of them was peeto, a kind of funky rock group with the gentility of light jazz. I was completely enticed by the hushed vocals, lulling me into a sweet dream. While I tend to like the brutality of punk, I fell pretty hard for these young guys. Before their set, I noticed them hanging around the Wasabi stage, where they were set to play, and I kept making eye contact with the long-legged bassist. Part of me wanted to speak up–perhaps ask for a picture—but as I paced between the food stalls and the stage, my shyness ultimately got the better of me. Their album “LIKE A WAVES” is generally pretty good, but the song that really got me was sentimental lost-love song “Babymoon“.

A few hours after them was Art title, another band I’d taken interest in after finding them on the festival app. They’re a sentimental rock group with strong, emotional vocals, and a prominent guitar that leads the song with its loud cry. They aren’t post-punk revival, but I can hear by how the vocalist plays and sings that he’s a fan of bands like Arctic Monkeys, and it comes out most in their song “Alicia“. Not surprisingly, once they started their set, passersby stopped to listen to the hypnotic melody that echoed out from the stage. It was around this time that the sun was setting, too, and I felt that they set the perfect mood to match the orange that’d fallen onto the venue.

I decided to leave after Art title, exhausted from the constant up and down between stages. Not only that, but it’d started to rain, so I was real ready to get out of my soggy shoes. The weather hadn’t really dampened the buzz of the evening though, as I’d still been dancing on my way to the shuttle buses. I passed some boys on the bridge with guitars strapped to their backs and wondered who they were with their bright green hair and piercings. Needless to say that seeing them had made me stop to rethink my decision of leaving so early, but my feet ultimately decided for me.

Apparently the Ringo Music Festival is quite famous, so I hope that Matsumoto will have recovered from the typhoon in time for next year. There’s no doubt that I’ll be back to see the new lineup of breakout artists.