The theme of the week may well be unexpected returns, with The Radio Dept. back in action and now Shojoskip – the self-proclaimed “Happy Band From Tokyo” – returning at the end of this month for their first show and recordings in over a decade, and doing it all casual-like as if it’s no big thing.

They’re playing the June edition of Total Feedback, the monthly shoegaze-dreampop night at Koenji High in Tokyo, and doing it as the undercard of a bill that also includes scene legends Cruyff In The Bedroom and My Dead Girlfriend. But more exciting for those of us who won’t happen to be in western Tokyo in a few weeks, they’ve recorded a new song to be part of Little Secrets We Bring Along, a CD-R single with tracks from the other two acts on the bill, Caucus and cattle, which will be available for sale at the show… which of course comes back to being in Koenji in a few weeks. Fine, ok.

They’ve at least offered a tease of the song via YouTube, so perhaps the whole thing will be available out of consideration for the rest of us at some point. Check back after the end of June, I guess.

But at least we have this live recording from the band’s rehearsal where they clearly acknowledge that the comparisons of them to early Yo La Tengo by savvy sound scribes like myself are apt. This take on “I Heard You Looking” from YLTs Painful is a little sloppy – it’s a rehearsal, after all – but still as beautiful as it is on the nose. Which is to say a lot.

I hope that this recent activity is a sign of more things to come, and not just a blip – some kind of follow up to 2012’s Cosodorokitsune would be some kind of magic.