music
Falling In Love With The Japanese House The English indie pop act’s emotionally resonant studio album Good at Falling was released last month.
continually return to her partner. In “We Talk all the Time,” she very bluntly announces the state of the relationship at the time: “we don’t f*** anymore, but we talk all the time.” The mood and sentiment of the song is not sad, but rather a quiet respect for the natural progression of things. Through much of the album, she cuts through heavy emotion with a light atmospheric beat. She frequently uses autotune and tight vocal layering to give her voice an ethereal quality, making the finished product sound like an other-worldly lullaby. Bain reminisces about her relationships and manages to express the lows and highs of falling in and out of love with equal beauty and reverence, recognizing every aspect as holding equal importance in the human experience. It’s fair to say at moments that the album gets emotional at times, but not in a way that leaves you feeling overly somber. Good at Falling reminds us that we also can survive falling in and out of love.
By JT Lucas
R
emember how it felt when you first fell in love? Remember the feelings of euphoria, the feeling that the person you’ve chosen who has chosen you back was an addictive drug offering the greatest high you’ve ever experienced? That feeling that you don’t know how you survived without that person and how you don’t know how you would ever press on without them again? Now, remember what it was like when you first fell out of love, became sexless and stagnant, but all of your friends and experiences and finances were intertwined by this point, and you get along just fine as friends anyway, so it’s just “whatever” at this point? Like, you’re low-key depressed about it, but pressing on is better than being alone? This is the vibe of The Japanese House’s debut full-length album Good at Falling. In a promo email to her fans via Dirty Hit, Amber Bain, the producer and sole artist in The Japanese House, says that her lead single “Lilo” “is a reminder to me that I am good at falling in love and I can survive falling out of it. I’m good at falling.” This sentiment is prevalent through its melancholic electronic soundscapes, uniquely soothing vocals and overtly profoundly emotional lyrics. At its inception, The Japanese House thrived on anonymity, to the point where people began to speculate that this might be a spin-off of British powerhouse The 1975, a band who ultimately helped launch her career. Bain did not want to display her name or gender with her work, thus she claimed the moniker of a cottage her family stayed at when she was a
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child. Androgyny is a prevalent theme for the band, as it has been a prevalent theme in Bain’s life. In an interview with Dummy magazine, she laments a time when she was on vacation and she posed as a boy for a week. The girl next door developed a crush on her boy persona, and when she had to break the news that she was actually a girl, it broke the girl’s heart. As a young adult at the age of 23, she sports boyish, long blond hair and a very grungeinspired fashion palette. She does not shy away from photos as much as she used to, but her reluctance to see the spotlight is still there.
JT Lucas is a Columbus-based music enthusiast, frequent concertgoer and a Carly Rae Jepsen superfan.
Good at Falling lays bare Bain’s emotions. The opening track explores a moment where a friend was attacked and hospitalized, displaying the album’s only moment of true chaos. She takes moments to explore some of her own personal demons, often stating her insecurities in a very matter-of-fact manner. Much of the album, though, explores moments she experienced in key relationships through her life. In “Lilo,” she describes meeting a girl for the first time, feeling breathless and immediately madly in love. In “Maybe You’re the Reason,” she comes to terms with her depression, acknowledging that every time she tries to find meaning in her life, her thoughts
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