The Japanese House - Follow My Girl

‘Lilo’, the comeback single and first preview of the debut album from The Japanese House, was a song of emotional revelations, with a personal dead-end giving way to a stark eureka moment, this sense of new beginnings flowing through every sinew of the song.

On its follow-up, new single ‘Follow My Girl’, things aren’t quite as straightforward for Amber Bain. “Different people have their different ways of living / I chose mine and it was unforgiving,” the song opens, a sense of malcontent immediately penetrating the track. “I knew someone who died in quite a horrible way and it sort of clicked for me like, ‘oh, people can just die?’,” Amber told us in a new DIY interview around debut album ‘Good At Falling’ (out in March via Dirty Hit. “I hadn’t really thought about that before and that sort of triggered this extreme fear where I’d honestly be taking a blood pressure monitor with me everywhere I went, compulsively checking my blood before leaving the house, taking a thermometer with me…”

This sense of unease permeates the heart of ‘Follow My Girl’, but stands in direct contradiction with the music - the most impressive, commanding sounds The Japanese House has created to date. “I can’t fix it, it’s not right / Nothing feels good, it’s not right,” she sings over warped backing vocals before a sugary, wonderfully danceable chorus enters - she sings of needing to find a sense of direction while simultaneously never having seemed more sure of herself. A double-pronged song that can help as both an empathetic hand on the shoulder in difficult times or a sprightly, catchy bop to escape into, ‘Follow My Girl’ sees The Japanese House expanding her palate, stretching her abilities and coming on in leaps and bounds.