V/A – nagoyaka na kaze / 和やかな風 (quiet wind)

Wisdom Teeth’s latest compilation is a cross section of the electronic music scene of Nagoya — while ‘nagoyaka na kaze’ playfully puns on the city’s name, there’s some serious tunes here that span coruscant ambient textures, blippy microhouse, and swaying dub grooves. Co-curator abentis (Yuya Abe) contributes the most dancefloor-ready of the bunch, ‘Choreography’ — a groovy cloud of error tones and jagged clicks orbiting around a steady 4×4 clip. ‘Karula’ brings a bit of South Asian percussive and melodic flair, while ‘Xylophonica’ splashes echoey snares over a forest of woody thwacks. Much of this stuff straddles genres, borrowing from a grab bag of influences that somehow work together. Alongside Nikki Nair’s ‘Nagoya’ EP with Foodman last year, this record shows that we’re only starting to catch up with the oft-overlooked Japanese city.