A shelf in the record shop
Japan
City pop, J-jazz, local radio, community.
13 stations
Every station here plays in 432 Hz instead of the usual 440 if you want it to — the page shifts the pitch down by 31.77 cents. We promise you no effect. We give you a dial.
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StreamAfrica · Tokio, JP · mp3 · 192 kbit/s
City pop, wall to wall — that Japanese sound of the late seventies and eighties that combined funk, AOR, and jazz fusion, and has been rediscovered worldwide for a few years now. The direct neighborhood of Atarashii Gakko and their forebears.
no ads
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Listen.moe · Tokio, JP · opus · 192 kbit/s
A volunteer-run station for Japanese pop, broadcasting in the Opus format at 256 kbit/s — the best sound quality this genre gets anywhere. The track list is maintained by the listener community, not an editorial desk.
community no ads lossless
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Listen.moe · Seoul, KR · opus · 192 kbit/s
The Korean sister channel, technically identical and also community-curated. It's here because the line between J-pop and K-pop has long since become musically porous.
community no ads
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R/a/dio · Tokio, JP · mp3 · 192 kbit/s
A station that grew out of an imageboard community, where volunteers DJ live and listeners request tracks through a queue. Chaotic, often silly, and precisely for that reason closer to what radio used to be.
community live DJ human host
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FM Setagaya · Tokio, JP · mp3 · 128 kbit/s
The district station of Setagaya, a residential area in western Tokyo, with neighborhood news and weather in Japanese. Not a music station, but a window into perfectly ordinary Japanese daily life.
local human host
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Gotanno FM · Tokio, JP · mp3 · 128 kbit/s
A mini-station from Tokyo's Gotanno neighborhood, run by a handful of people from the block. So small that listening feels like overhearing someone in the next room.
local community
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asia DREAM radio · Tokio, JP · mp3 · 128 kbit/s
Japanese jazz, played by Japanese musicians — a scene with its own tradition that's been producing remarkable work since the sixties and gets barely noticed in the West. Calmer and more formal than American jazz.
no ads instrumental
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Stereo Anime · Tokio, JP · mp3 · 128 kbit/s
Anime theme music from five decades, from the seventies to today. A genre far more musically ambitious than its reputation — here you hear big band arrangements next to synth-pop and metal.
no ads
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Yumi Co. · Paris, FR · mp3 · 256 kbit/s
A French collective broadcasts Japanese music at 256 kbit/s — city pop, Shibuya-kei, video game music, selected with a European eye. The outside perspective turns up different finds than Japanese stations do.
community no ads
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NFRS · Niigata, JP · mp3 · 96 kbit/s
A regional station from Niigata Prefecture on Japan's west coast, far from Tokyo. Local music, local news — the opposite of the metropolitan perspective that shapes Japanese culture abroad.
local community
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Anime Para Ti · Tokio, JP · mp3 · 128 kbit/s
Anime music with Spanish-language hosting — a station for Latin America's huge, largely overlooked anime community. Two cultures in one program, which regularly leads to surprising transitions.
community
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NTS Radio · London, GB · mp3 · 256 kbit/s
NTS with a British eye on Japanese music — city pop, video game sounds, Japanese ambient and noise in one endless mix. Sorted differently than Japanese stations, because here it's selected rather than maintained.
no ads
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Zushi-Hayama Community Broadcasting · Zushi, JP · mp3 · 128 kbit/s
The community radio of the coastal towns of Zushi and Hayama on Sagami Bay. Through the day it is mostly jazz — in the afternoon, after dark and after midnight — with oldies in between. It sounds like a beach promenade, not a big city.
local community