The Tokyo I Keep Imagining

When you can’t afford the flight—or just can’t justify it—there’s always music. A mixtape I put together called "Shibuya Connection" was built around exactly that fantasy: the blinking storefronts and arcades of Tokyo’s trendiest neighborhoods, the sensory overload that everyone who’s been there either loves or resents. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Capsule, Perfume—electronic J-pop that doesn’t so much suggest Japan as detonate it.

Kyary is the obvious entry point for anyone who hasn’t gone down this particular rabbit hole: pastel chaos dressed up as pop music, the aesthetic logic of a Harajuku fever dream. But Capsule and Perfume are where it gets genuinely interesting—tighter, more geometric, club-adjacent without losing the playfulness. Put all three together and you get something that approximates the sensation of wandering through Shibuya at 11pm with nowhere specific to be and neon reflecting off every wet surface.