Good music you should listen to: Part 1

Being a fan of kpop and jrock for quite a long time, new band arrivals such as B.A.P, and EXO are quite exciting for me, because they're new and their music supplies the whole genre an added 'boost' of awesome, and fandom. In particular the Hallyu wave has been pumping out quite a strong year of debuts, and sometimes these can block out other, alternative genres that don't get so much a listen to. With the exception of the success of Epik High and Visual Kei, I think it can be the case in both South Korea and Japan, when equally talented artists don't get so much exposure as those who are involved in the pop or rock sphere.
So here's the beginning of a series of posts to try and tempt you to listen to more alternative sound.

And what better way to start of, with the sound of FREETEMPO.
It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but this music is good for generating a positive, casual mood.

 Even if there are some sadder sounds/themes, Takeshi Hanzawa always includes some kind of reassurance in his music that things'll be fine in the end.

 I had never discovered FREETEMPO until I stumbled it from Youtube, but as far as I can tell most music he makes has English lyrics rather than Japanese lyrics. More information and more tracks can be found at his page on last.fm

Next is DJ Okawari who I've only just recently discovered. His music is deeply varied, from composing a beautiful melody on the piano, to making more technical rthymns.

DJ Okawari is a great composer for the piano.

I find it easy to listen to this artist because the sounds are so varied, he doesn't get boring, which I think makes him a very good, original artist.

Another thing with DJ Okawari is that he likes to use sampling in his music, and I think he does this brilliantly. Check out his last.fm page here.

Now for a few more alternative sounds you may have missed out on:

I have to especially mention Mutyumu as being particually amazing ^

Hope this was interesting to you.

Part 2 coming soon...