U:phobia

Emma Aibara exists halfway between Los Angeles and Tokyo and so does her music. Occasionally a resident of cities on the Eastern and Western hemispheres (currently, she’s based in Tokyo), she embodies the current trends of Japan’s emergent internet music scene in equal measure to Y2K pop-rock of yesteryear from the United States. Breakbeats are the rhythms driving her music forward, bringing to mind the modern Japanese strains of house and jungle, but guitars and piercing growls provide the finer texture. Vocally, u:phobia resembles The Used; melodically, it echoes Good Charlotte; visually, the cover evokes a pixelated version of Fallen by Evanescence, even closely mimicking the typography. She fashions herself like a mid-2000s scene kid too, looking like the kind of nuisance you’d find skulking around the mall in a bygone era. She’s certainly not the first young musician to play so strongly to millennial nostalgia — 100 gecs have notably made it a central theme of their sound — but Emma seems all-in on it without a hint of winking irony. She approaches the styles and sonics with genuine interest. In 2025, that’s more strange than parody — and it’s a novel combination with club music.