This is the part where the girl walks away. Most likely it’s in slow motion and the camera pulls out on the guy as he drops the flowers to the floor. The girl is making her way to the door, pausing momentarily to look over her shoulder at him. There’s a hint of a smile, or a smirk, or something that no one can pin down before she heads out and the credits roll. Ever so slightly everyone winces in a heartbroken agony. “Now that we’ve lost our way, the rest can all fall apart.” Jeez. Tearjerker material here. Asobi Seksu have recorded a few bare bones updates of their already-cinematic dreampop for the album Rewolf, recorded in a flash at London’s soon-to-be shuttered Olympic Studios. Beneath those gossamer vocal effects and fuzzy blanket guitars lay some sublime melodies and affecting lyrics that are given a life of their own with this set of revisions. Check it out 11/10 on Polyvinyl.

Asobi Seksu, Thursday

MP3 Download

Asobi Seksu will be sharing the stage with French musician and composer Yann Tiersen for a heap of dates starting tomorrow across the U.S. and Canada.
Read the full story

[Photos by Sean McCabe]

We’ve been fans of Asobi Seksu since their humble beginnings, which makes us so happy (and maybe even a little proud?) of the continued success and evolution of their already beautiful sound. To classify them as shoegaze would be both accurate and criminal, as they embody something fuller and lusher than the genre tag would suggest. Yet, it does apply to the lulling magnificence that leading couple and primary songwriters Yuki Chikudate and James Hanna create.
Read the full story

Asobi Seksu has spent the last few years crafting a solid sense of self as a band; in that time, they’ve moved away from obvious shoegaze comparisons and towards a firm but floaty aesthetic that tingles with more than a hint of sex appeal. By no means does the group lose this aesthetic on Hush, their third full-length album and first for Polyvinyl Records. All of the pieces are still here; at base, Hush has plenty of slinky pop moments couched in an ethereal shroud of keys and guitars. At the same time, it’s strikingly obvious from the the opening notes of “Layers” that there’s a new thread emerging in the Asobi Seksu story. Where their last album Citrus held a sharper, more upbeat feel, Hush begins like an indie rock operetta, building up in intensity but never quite taking itself seriously.
Read the full story

When we were trying to think of a good MP3 to post, Paul Simon and brother Ed’s rendition of Davy Graham’s “Anji” got us thinking in the vein of great cover songs. Then we were tipped off to this London busking video (looks cold there) of Asobi Seksu and we were reminded of this beautiful version of the classic Crystals song.
Read the full story