I’m not sure if it’s because they’re putting something in the chips, but there seems to be a growing collective of interesting electronic producers inhabiting the Brighton area at the moment.

Japanese Sweets consists of approximately one half of ambient-pop-noisesters Speak Galactic, namely Owen Thomas. In his current incarnation, Thomas deploys exploratory electronics to investigate a variety of textures and moods. While any existent melodies are implied or masked beneath more liberal auditory pleasures, we’re still not in the vicinity of outright noise. There’s nothing particularly vicious about the sonics, in the end it’s only as obtuse and challenging as you decide to make it for yourself. Certainly, if you have a stomach able to withstand the less rhythmic movements of Harmonia, the more ambient degrees of Mouse on Mars, or the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s “Blue Veils & Golden Sands”, you’ll find much here to dissolve along to.

Just relax into a comfortable shape, think of it like head music for the not-yet-quite-exploded.

If anybody reading this has experienced any unexpected potato based hallucinatory episodes on the south coast recently, let me know. Or just listen to Japanese Sweets. Yeah, that’s the one.

Mike Phillips