I’m truly a massive forever-fan of Slacker-Style and have been for as long as I can remember. Now I’m not gonna waste this whole post talking about the iconoclastic nature of a Kurt Cobain cardigan or the sheer fun and fuck-you-ness of some Dee-Lite sunglasses, nor will I talk about the perfect level of sneaker tattered-ness that provides a Sk8-Hi wearer with credibility, nor any discussion of Dickies or Carhartts, nor the irony of a trucker hat or oversized glasses from 2 or 3 decades ago, nor talk of any the countless nuances of a vintage flannel, self-shredded denim, or the perfect-fitting motorcycle leather t-shirt combo, nor anything that has to do with punks or hippies, or hippy-punks, no mention of GenX or anything really that signifies suburban misfitting. While I’ve lived through all this, I couldn’t speak confidently or with any kind of authority on these trends, not being any true student of fashion myself. But I will say two things. 1. Slacker recognizes Slacker. And 2. To make it look effortlessly cool, which is kinda, in-a-round-about-way, and admittedly the point, is an art. As Rob Gordon says in High Fidelity about making a mix tape for somebody, “There are a lot of rules”, and like Ziggy Stardust says at the end of side one, “It Ain’t Easy”.
So kudos to Tanno, pictured here, for ace-ing the style part of Tokyo Record Style, #respect. Kudos also to Tanno for scoring this latest solo 12” EP by frontman of Japanese indie rockers / West-Coast inspired breezy-poppers, “Never Young Beach”, and frequent collaborator of Devendra Banhart and protogé(?) of Haruomi Hosono, boy wonder himself, Yuma Abe. Go give this EP on the Thaian Records label a listen and you will be quick to recognize that this will become a highly-collected and hopefully repressed record probably to adorn many walls of record stores in the future like all the City Poppers do now. And Tanno had it here first!
Yuma Abe – Surprisingly Alright
Label: Thainan Records – TAIAN002 / Temporal Drift – DRFT-10
Format: Vinyl, 12″
Country: Japan
Released: May 17, 2023
Genre: Pop
Style: J-pop
https://www.discogs.com/release/27105351-Yuma-Abe-Surprisingly-Alright-
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