Faces to watch, so says Billboard

Billboard magazine usually includes some sort of coverage of Asian markets, but once a year, they devote a number of pages to spotlight Japan. In this week’s issue (Vol. 119, No. 33), there’s a sidebar titled "Faces to Watch", which includes bands the magazine deems buzzworthy.

Here’s who they feature:

Greeen A rap quartet who keeps their identity tightly under wraps. The band’s label site should have some audio clips. I went through my Dragon Ash phase a long time ago.
Midori Some audio can be found over at Bounce.com and perhaps on JPOPSUKI. Judging from the Bounce clips, they sound like perfect SXSW fodder.
Mitsuki She’s 15 years old, but she’s got a pretty mature voice. Two of the Windows Media clips on her official site don’t launch the player, so you’ll have to paste the URL.
Jyongri Billboard mentions she was inspired by the movie Sister Act at a very young age. O … K …
Angela Aki I checked out Angela Aki when she debuted in 2005, but I wasn’t very impressed.
Tamurapan Of the artists profiled, Tamurapan is the only one going around conventional channels to reach her fans directly through Myspace. Not bad.

These days, I don’t seek out new Japanese artists so much, aside from SXSW and perhaps something mentioned over at Bounce or Keikaku. But I thought I ought to pass along these names to folks who may still be interested in exploring something new. That, and Billboard is kind of expensive.