It is the first Friday of October, you know what that means: Bandcamp Friday is back! When a Bandcamp Friday takes place, Bandcamp waives their revenue share. This means more money is left for artists and labels after music fans buy music and merchandise through Bandcamp. That’s Bandcamp Friday in a nutshell.
Now that it is Bandcamp Friday, it is time to highlight some Japanese artists and labels in an article. Do you want to know who we have highlighted in the past? Be sure to check to read our articles listed here.
Hinako Omori
We recently wrote about Hinako Omori’s performance at Bristol’s Trinity Community Arts and even more recently she released a new music video, it is about time to shine a spotlight on Hinako Omori’s Bandcamp as she will release a new album at the end of October, stillness, softness… The work of Yokohama-born, London-based producer and musician Hinako Omori is said to be more akin to an immersive map of the mind in the ambient style than a simple recording because it uses therapeutic frequencies, forest baths (also known as shinrin-yoku), and binaural sound.
KK Null
It really has been years since we wrote (when AVO Magazine only published in Dutch) about KK Null and it is cool to see that he is still making music. KK Null, his real name is Kazuyuki Kishino, is an experimental multi-instrumentalist and has founded noise rock band ZENI GEVA and rock band Absolut Null Punkt (ANP). KK Null is considered one of the great cult artists in experimental music since the 1980s. Today, he posted his latest release, Star Quake XIII, on Bandcamp, recorded at his home studio Prima Natura during the months of August and September.
Ethereal Sin
Formed at the end of the 1990s by Yama Darkblaze, the symphonic black metal band Ethereal Sin delivers music on what they call Elegiac Black Metal with the balance of symphonic and melodic elements and intense spiritual songs. Over the years, the band underwent several incarnations and managed to be active in the indie scene until 2019. After a new drummer joined the band, they released their fifth full-length album in March, titled Time of Requiem – Part 2, a year and a half after the release of the first part, via King Records. Earlier this year, they were touring Europe for the first time in three years with Fleshgod Apocalypse and Omnium Gatherium.
SleepInside
Last summer, alternative guitar rock band project SleepInside released a self-titled album, which you can buy digitally on Bandcamp. SleepInside’s band activities started about five years ago and has undergone several transformations, from a band format to a solo project and since a short while it has been a band again, consisting of three members and led by Kohki Imai (who can be found on Twitter as hachigatsu_news), creating songs with a shoegaze/dream pop vibe. Yet he did all aspects of this album himself.
Seeds And Ground
The music label Seeds And Ground is by the owner, DJ and composer Kaoru Inoue described as an electro-organic label. The label started first as a sub-label in 2003 and features mostly releases by Kaoru Inoue or one of his aliases. Kaoru Inoue’s latest work, is based on field recordings at the World Heritage-listed island of Yakushima, which was released in September as a CD supplement to the Yakushima-based travel magazine called SAUNTER magazine to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the World Heritage Site.
It is good to know that on Bandcamp Fridays, an average of 93% of your money reaches the artist or label (after payment processor fees). On other days, an average of 82% reaches the artist or label. Who are you going to support on Bandcamp Friday?
