GRAND POP

PAS TASTA is the perfect microcosm of J-pop’s evolution over the past few years. The six-deep crew of producers—Uyama Amane, Kabanagu, hirihiri, phritz, quoree, and yuigot—were first acquainted through the netlabel scene, collaborating in various permutations. When the six of them eventually got together in a Discord server, it wasn’t without growing pains. The group circulated project files, encouraging others to add their own ideas. The laissez faire attitude of the internet imprints they operated under exposed them to vastly different musical approaches, encouraging experimentation without pressure for results. Sometimes there were long gaps from one person’s contribution to the next.

Over time, they attuned to the same wavelength. They all switched to working in Ableton Live, making it easier to share files. Turnaround times shortened to one day. Passing tracks back and forth became a trust exercise, each member deferring to their bandmates’ cuts or changes. “If they say so,” phritz said in an interview with FNMML, “that’s just how it is.” Collaboration became friendly competition as they tried to one-up each other with increasingly wild ideas. PAS TASTA worked almost exclusively through group chats, but still managed to generate buzz and draw in more collaborators. By the time 2023’s GOOD POP came together, the album had ballooned into a sprawling snapshot of Japanese internet music.

GRAND POP broadens the scope further, this time taking stock of the entire J-pop landscape. On “My Mutant Ride” they bring in Taku Inoue—whose long list of credits includes compositions for video games, virtual idols, and online influencers—to play breezy guitar over the syrupy-sweet bubblegum bass track. (Though he’s pop royalty, Inoue calls himself a “PAS TASTA fanboy,” as if he’s the one starstruck.) They pull an even bigger name for “Suburban,” supporting the booming voice of anison legend Tatsuya Kitani with an amped-up J-rock shredder. Guitar by Kitani and synthesized sounds lurch forward and back as Kitani soars over the melody, his voice occasionally glitching into a twisted mass. It has all the energy of one of Kitani’s anime openings, with the unmistakable, welcoming chaos of a PAS TASTA production.

Despite the elevated star power, the collective hasn’t forgotten its roots. Fellow netlabel friends and rappers Jumadiba and Lil Soft Tennis hop on “byun G,” trading verses back and forth over the mangled backing track. They hold fast to the rhythm, keeping step as it descends into a madness of breakbeats. The group dig even deeper for “B.B.M.,” paying homage to their collective love of the Vocaloid musicians that influenced them. They chop up the computerized voice of Hatsune Miku—courtesy of veteran producer Pinocchio-P—scattering it over a grimy baile funk beat. It’s a quintessentially PAS TASTA song as well as a bit of sly humor, referencing the viral art trend of drawing the Vocaloid idol as if she were from Brazil.

Massive moments of triumph bookend the record. First full track “BULLDOZER+” and closer “The Car” go the hardest, stacking Uyama’s voice into a vocal-fried stadium anthem on the former and an angelic chorus on the latter. The outro fades on a wailing guitar solo, which yuigot says he played so forcefully that most of the strings broke. PAS TASTA save their best for when outside collaborators are absent, showing their real strength comes from the synergy they’ve built. In the past year the group has transcended the Discord server, bringing their friendly competition into the flesh as they playfully elbow one another for control of the knobs. GRAND POP presents a unified theory of J-pop, but that’s not necessarily PAS TASTA’s goal—they’re just chasing the sounds that excite them.