Music Recs: Total Teto Takeover, my 2025 top picks & more

me - - 15 mins read

Series: Music Recommendations

Wanna know what to listen to while society collapses into a surveillance state that’s started saying the quiet part out loud while rigging the markets to extract every cent from its people and poisoning everyone’s brains with torment nexii? You wanna know what I’ve been listening to?

Have you heard about Our Lord And Savior Kasane Teto?

normal apartment and normal-size Teto plush who needs couch when you have life-size Kasane Teto plush

The Teto In The Room

You’ve seen it. We have to talk about it. Teto is taking over, and I was curious about the numbers.

VocaDB is an extensive database of artists, songs, and synthesized voicebanks including Vocaloid, UTAU, and Synthesizer V. They have an API, which I’ll talk about in a second, but they also maintain a stats page which allows you to see some very interesting charts.

Here’s “Songs by voicebank over time”:

Miku shaking and crying rn

This has to have been written about before now, but Teto’s popularity has exploded starting in 2023 (I assume thanks to her Synthesizer V voicebank release on 2023-04-27, her 15th anniversary.), and she now maintains a comfortable ~20% of all songs released in 2025, and 2026 so far! I had suspected this was the case, but this graph confirmed it for me. This is nuts, especially considering it appears as though she’s shrunk Miku’s share from comfortably over 40% to approaching 30%.

Speak American

What I’m particularly interested in here, given the massive popularity of BIRDBRAIN (29M views at publish time) and other English Teto songs, and which is not available in the stats page, is the language-over-time breakdown by voicebank. How often does Teto speak English, and is it changing over time? This turned out to be much harder than I was expecting. I had initially planned to use VocaDB’s API to pull all Kasane Teto songs and their languages, but I ran into a lot of problems. The data below is more like “how many songs are likely in English, or maybe have some English lyrics, or maybe it’s slightly related to English, somehow…”.

If you like, you can read the whole data gathering journey post!

Here’s the charts1:

Though the data is questionable, and these are estimates at best, I think it’s reasonable to say that English tracks featuring Teto are on the rise.

  • Notably, there was already an upswing year-over-year for vocaloid songs since 2020.
  • Comparing 2022 to the first full year with Teto SV, that’s a 493% increase!
  • There are undoubtedly more English Teto songs now than before (compare 301 in 2022 to 3,316 in 2025), and also the percentage of songs which are English seems to slowly be creeping up:
    • 2022: 301/1706 = 17.64%
    • 2023: 1324/5832 = 22.7% | up 5.06%
    • 2024: 2005/10117 = 19.82% | down 2.88%
    • 2025: 3316/12149 = 27.29% | up 7.47%

She’s officially 31 years old. She experiences back pain and blows her paycheck on gachas. I think there’s a generation or two that are using Teto to express the difficulty of finding their identity, the dangers of AI, working shit jobs, or even having no job at all…

Though initially created as a joke, Teto became real. Fake it ’til you make it. Sound like adulthood?

Invest in Teto NOW

So, please peruse the below playlist of Teto songs. It includes the requisite Jamie P and Sasuke Haraguchi, but also some of my other faves, English or not. I’m in roommates with Eggtan’s wonderful yuri, and fascinated by AQUASINE’s personification of WinRAR.

(Holy shit you can’t embed the list, it only shows the player??? What a terrible excuse for a video platform. Browse the playlist directly.)

With that out of the way, there’s one recent Teto release I believe deserves a bit more attention…

jam2go - Crash Test (2026)

Remember 3 or so years ago when I said to keep an eye on Jam2go? I’d like to cash in my content curator stocks now, please. We’re not even halfway through 2026 and this is probably my AOTY. It’s perfectly in my strike zone. The lyrics are wonderful, pain-laced and wistful, as sung by a Teto who’s stuck inside old benchmarking and edutainment software.

I was following this project from day one, and ultimately it was “The Sim” that hooked me. I wish I had metrics for this, because I must have listened to it dozens of times by now, singing along in my car. I loooove the way the second chorus adds distortion to the bass that was missing from the first. Really, truly, a Jamming 2 the song in my car while I Go moment.

I can’t express how much this album has grown on me less than a month after its release. It evokes some of the feeling I got from listening to Nurture for the first time: the raw and punishing self-reflection of “Walk Cycle”, the beautiful digital-meets-nature aesthetic in the music video for “I Hope This Email…” and Talk To You Later’s beautiful piano plus vocal chops…

If you listen to one album from this article, please make it Crash Test.

formaaaaaldehydeeeeee

Favorites not mentioned:

  • Crashout
  • Angels in the Static Snow
  • A Million Postcards

Sōtaisei Riron (相対性理論) - Shiraberu Sōtaisei Riron (調べる相対性理論) (2019)

(OTOTOY) (YouTube Music)

Wow, I can’t believe I haven’t written about this band until now. Hi-Fi Anatomia is probably one of my favorite albums of all time. 2 It’s a bummer, then, that the tracklist on this live record includes none of the songs on their debut album, but it’s still well worth the listen.

相対性理論 means “Theory of Relativity”, and this is their latest album, also their first live album, released in 2019. This is quite interesting, because the band has a track record of avoiding publicity since debut. Their music videos rarely show any other humans aside from the lead singer, if they show any at all.

Speaking of, you may have heard their lead singer’s voice in Space Dandy’s first ending song! That’s Etsuko Yakushimaru, and her voice lends a playful and emotional vibe to the band’s sound that is capitalized on by the lovely guitar riffs. It feels childishly innocent and professional at the same time; the shiritori-esque onomatopoeia-filled (シュワシュワ! ふわふわ!) lyrics of 『 ウルトラソーダ』 (“Ultra Soda”) present a fickle girl in love who wants to drink cream soda, maybe. In 『 ペペロンチーノ・キャンディ』 (“Peperoncino Candy”) each syllable in the first verse is repeated - is this whole band an excuse to hear Etsuko sing all kinds of fun words?

This album feels like the climax of the band’s work, a sound that could only be fully realized when played in a massive concert hall. When you “graduate” the close and intimate Hi-Fi from a room to a stage, the natural echoes become their own instrument. Etsuko and the rest of the band take turns grabbing your attention with some interesting melody. I know I’ve focused a lot on the lead singer, but the riffs this band produces are absolutely killer. The lead-in to the album layers each effect and instrument on each other to form a wall of sound that only parts for Etsuko to sing. Listening to Shiraberu Sotaisei Riron is like listening to the radio, trying to focus on the exact frequency the album is playing on, and when you turn the dial, the static and interference becomes part of the music…

Wake me when their next album comes out. I’ll be waiting.

Moe Shop - EVO EVO (2025)

Moe Shop has gradually been getting more and more into hardware synths since Moe Moe, which I fully support. I’m a big proponent of completely and fully understanding the tools you’re using. Reverting from DAW to hardware feels like the ultimate version of that for a musician.

I can hear the influences in this album like they smacked me upside the face. The Fr*nch touch classics of Daft Punk, Justice, and oh my god, Moe Shop and I basically shared the same music taste growing up. You can hear the Lemaitre in “HEARTLESS” so much that I couldn’t help but make a mashup. “BOINSOIR” feels like a love letter to the m-flo tracks of old, and is that a motherfucking Jamie Paige feature on a Moe Shop track in [current year]??? “Love Taste” was a lifetime ago, but that track is a load-bearing part of my musical identity.

Sometimes it’s a struggle for me to articulate what I like about the music I feature in these posts. Normally I try write word all good fancy-like, make observation about sound fun to read! But me when I actually listen to music is basically just my jaw dropping and me going “what the fuckkkkk” or “ooooooooooh”. This and FUS were basically the top two albums where I had the most of those moments, so if we’re counting, then this one’s a real winner. I won’t try and act smart in this section, I’ll just lay back and bask in EVO EVO’s pure ecstacy from front to back.

And my god, the studio live is my hopes and dreams made manifest. The flawless transitions and projected visuals on display are this basement DJ’s fantasy. Moe Shop, if you’re reading this, from a fan you graciously humored in 2017: you’re still an inspiration.

Skrillex - FUCK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3 (2025)

While we’re on the topic of nostalgia-tinted nuclear bombs, I missed this when it came out in 2025, most likely because it was released when Skrillex dropped a Dropbox link to his email list on April 1st? lmao

Look, I’m a known Quest for Fire enjoyer, and since I’ve already broken my rule of not double-posting about artists I’ve already posted about, you bet I’m posting again.

I was stunlocked for my entire first listen of this album. It’s a fully mixed, 45 minute assault that pulls on your musical memory with each leitmotif Sonny pulls from his back catalog. Alongside completely new tracks, we get “Tears (Lost Drop)” (yep, that’s Tears), “Things I Promised” and “Voltage” sounding real “Summit”, and “Hold On” is a re-tooled “Humble (Skrillex Remix)”. Except it’s not just callbacks: FUS stands on its own through its whopping 34 tracks. The whole thing is phenomenal, but highlights for me are “Spitfire” as the hard af opener, the insane “Look at You” (featuring bass that takes a few beats to let you get up off the floor). You know I fuck with the G Jones synths featured in “Druids”, too.

And that’s without mentioning the extremely silly DJ Smokey tags, each their own gem. “WE KILLED SKRILLEX”, or “SHADOW WIZARD MONEY SKRILLEX GANG. We love casting spells dubstep”. I was caught so off guard by “Biggy Bap”’s punchline that I legitimately laughed out loud for a good minute. It’s almost giving Explorers of the Internet live set. Much like Skrillex’s tracks, I think if you played DJ Smokey’s music for anyone over 50 it would instantly vaporize them.

“smoking is bad for your health… especially when it’s your own flesh you’re smoking”

Ninajirachi - girl EDM (disc 1) (2024)

I know Ninajirachi released I Love My Computer a half-year ago to much acclaim, but exploring her back catalog I found myself drawn in by girl EDM. Don’t get me wrong, you should go listen to ILMC immediately if you haven’t heard it - it deserves all the praise it gets plus more (“Fuck My Computer” is the song of a generation no doubt) - but girl EDM’s tracks had me absolutely addicted the more I listened.

Nina’s lyrics, I think, are a big part of what keep me interested. She’d already mastered catchy hook writing here, just listen to the two-part “Undo U” (“I know something that could undo you”), or “Wayside” (“Nobody really knows my love, my love, my love”). In that latter track, the switch-up at 1:35 that elevates the track into full nighttime speeding down the highway at 70mph type feeling is mwah. Her voice is a stark contrast with the crunchy sounds of “Hand on my heart”. She drags you back and forth between ethereal, dreamy lyrics, before plunging you into the rave zone™ again. I think that sums up Ninajirachi’s appeal pretty well.

Nina, Porter - release WannaCry and my repeat button is yours.

gaburyu - メイドサントウィッチ (Maid-san and Witch) (2025)

(An artist name I wish I had thought of, and a visual style I strive to emulate one day. Oh hey, Kiato drew that cover art!)

(VocaDB) (OTOTOY)

Maid-san and Witch is harsh, shrill, and grating at times, even. It’s hyperpop meets Vocaloid in a way that only a Japanese artist could create. The aesthetics are this weird mix between low-poly anime girls, computer UIs, and perhaps a little bit of surreal sci-fi (my beloved). All of the song titles on the album are in katakana (e.g. ピースキーパー (“Peacekeeper”) , サモンセンス (“Summonsense”) (?)), the characters have backstories on the artist’s website. A translation of the story for ウォーターマーク (“Watermark”) is below:

The fragments of the scattered Migikiki dispersed across the internet as cyber maids. Their bodies and functions customized countless times, and their minds stretched thin through a rapid cycle of duplication and erasure, Migikiki’s spirit permeated into the deepest recesses of the internet. Before long, it coalesced into a massive, singular consciousness…

Neat.

gaburyu uses the Vocaloid IA, whose voice is provided by Lia of “Tori no Uta” fame, a song that’s become a bit of a anison DJ classic in its own right.

Anyway, I thought it deserved a mention here just because I’m really intrigued by this artist’s style and I’ve not seen them talked about much. They seem to know what they like and aren’t afraid to express it, which I respect. I really need to hear Masayoshi Iimori’s remix of イコンアーカイヴ (Iconarchive) live at some point, and it’s nowhere to be found on streaming. Maybe I’ll get my hands on a physical copy of this album one day, including this adorable plush that’s sold out :(.

Tanger - Prefer Not To Say (2024)

Ok, I’ll transition back to something a bit more chill towards the end of this post, just give me one last album.

Never heard of this artist before this, I was clickbaited by their artwork (unique art for each song? yup) but I’m glad I clicked. Prefer not to say is full of variety, with lots of transitions that light up the still-alive DJ parts of my brain in fun ways.

And “fun” is how I’d describe listening. The first 9 songs are all instrumentals, save for small samples (wan!), then the singing starts with the bright and catchy “tiny windows” to mark the second half. “dogbone” brings a bassy, spacey rap with a creative use of a cough as percussion. Ultimately “BAD NUMBER!” drew me in as the catchy track to keep on repeat, but this album is worth a front-to-back listen since the back half is increasingly more diverse (“strangers once again”: is this even the same album??? The vocals and guitar, what a delight!). The ending track “somewhere, someday.” embodies that cover art, imo. Lie on the ground and be consumed by the music type beat.

Discovering albums like this makes me really happy that Bandcamp somehow still exists as a platform. You have to enjoy the nice things while you can.

Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures (2025)

This last one is gonna be nice and calm. Luminescent Creatures was my first introduction to Ichiko Aoba. I was desperate for some easy listening and boy does she deliver.

All of the acoustic guitar and vocals are performed by Aoba herself, and she also writes the lyrics, with others perform a wide range of instruments. It’s not overproduced in any way, as if a microphone happens to be in the room at the same time as each track, a tiny miracle, is happening. In “mazamun”, you can hear the sound of the celesta’s keys bottoming out. “tower” might be my favorite track. It’s a slow, plodding dance of keys, strings and chimes. Here, too, you can hear the background noise. The first few measures of piano contain so much emotion.

Further down the rabbit hole, as I searched desperately to consume any kind of Ichiko Aoba content, I discovered that she’s done tons of livestreams, during which she’s performed some wonderful covers. The YouTube channel mina’s b-sides has some bootleg compilations of these livestreams that are wonderful for relaxing or working to. Don’t miss her “Smile” and “Refection Eternal” covers. Discovering a new Nujabes cover is like looking at a photograph of a loved one with a new pair of glasses. (Did you catch Mori Calliope’s version of Luv(sic) as well? She effortlessly emulates Shing02’s cadence and provides a great new way to experience the first track of the Hexalogy.).

I’ll leave you with this KEXP performance and interview, so you can see just how easy Aoba makes it look to extract heavenly melodies from the guitar and pair them with her otherworldly voice.

LIGHTNING ROUND

New Aiobahn album yeaaaah dude you better fuckin believe I’m posting about it fuck the rules. 1:41 is illegal

eau de parfum has a Miku and Teto version of 天天天国地獄 - the original gets stuck in my head every time I hear it without fail. Have you heard the Nimi & Mint cover? Perhaps the Korone & Okayu cover, for the based individual? Good song.

Heard this song on shuffle and had to immediately figure out where the hell it came from. What is this production??? Random vocaloid producers randomly drop the dopest shit you’ve ever heard. The album needs to come out on streaming or I’ll freak.

stuff I don’t have fully formed thoughts on yet might post about later but seem cool

  1. All song types, including covers. ↩︎

  2. One day I plan to write a post about my favorite Japanese vocalists, and Etsuko Yakushimaru is definitely on that list. I guess I’ll talk about Hi-Fi Anatomia then. ↩︎

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