Hoshikuma Minami has released ‘NOVA feat.Kenta Koie’, a new single featuring Crossfaith/AFTERVOID frontman Kenta Koie, written with Crystal Lake guitarist YD. The pair performed it live together at Hoshikuma’s Zepp Shinjuku show in June, nearly four months before release.
Released digitally on September 30th, with a music video directed by Takuya Oyama, ‘NOVA’ closes a series of three consecutive monthly releases after July’s ‘OXYGEN’ and August’s cover of Sia’s ‘Chandelier’. Hoshikuma co-wrote the lyrics with Koie and composed the music with YD. The song had its first terrestrial TV performance days before release, on the September 25th edition of TV Tokyo’s late-night music show Cho Choonpa.
Koie joined Hoshikuma on stage at the June 7th finale of her PREDICTION TOUR to debut the track, backed by her touring band, which includes his former Crossfaith bandmate Hiroki Ikegawa on bass. Ikegawa has played with her since her PREDICTION one-man show in February, alongside YD, ex-Survive Said The Prophet guitarist Ivan, and ex-KOTORI drummer Chihiro Hosokawa.
In a recent interview, Hoshikuma said her producer, Suzuki, suggested Koie for the feature. She’s known him since her WAGAMAMA RAKIA days, and as a techno fan had been following AFTERVOID, his solo project fusing hard techno and metal.
Her brief to Koie was to recreate the explosive feeling of first putting your voice into a microphone, turning the dark, negative things inside you into sound. Hoshikuma said his natural talent for working a crowd lifted the whole Zepp Shinjuku show, and afterwards he suggested that adding “a detonator like me” from time to time would make her own strengths stand out even more.
Lyrically, ‘NOVA’ deals with wanting to be loved and needed. Hoshikuma decided to open up her own trauma for the song, and couldn’t stop crying while writing the first lyrics in a café. She described it as possibly the first song where she properly faced the human side of herself.
Hoshikuma heads out on the NOVA TOUR in December, her first tour in a two-band format. Before that, she shares the GORILLAZUN 2026 bill at GORILLA HALL OSAKA on October 31st with both AFTERVOID and Crystal Lake.
Hoshikuma Minami
NOVA feat.Kenta Koie
Release Date: 30/09/2026
Label: Independent
Stream: Links
Dates and tickets
| Date | Location | Tickets |
|---|---|---|
| 2 Dec 2026 | Nagoya CLUB QUATTRO, Nagoya, Japan | TicketsOn sale |
| 3 Dec 2026 | Umeda CLUB QUATTRO, Osaka, Japan | TicketsOn sale |
| 9 Dec 2026 | Shibuya CLUB QUATTRO, Tokyo, Japan | TicketsOn sale |
About Hoshikuma Minami
Hoshikuma Minami is a Japanese singer and songwriter, and the former main vocalist of WAGAMAMA RAKIA. She sang and played guitar in a band before co-founding the group, which debuted on June 17th 2016. WAGAMAMA RAKIA were an idol group that mixed loud rock with hip-hop, R&B, and EDM, working with producers such as MY FIRST STORY's Nob and Crystal Lake's YD. They disbanded after a final show at Zepp Haneda on July 9th 2025. Hoshikuma began releasing solo music in 2019, and in 2021 she launched DEATHNYANN, a project with Paledusk guitarist DAIDAI as composer. DEATHNYANN's 'High Stakes Club' was released as Fortnite lobby music at the start of Chapter 4 in December 2022. She wrote every lyric on her 2023 solo mini-album 'TOKYO KAMI VIRTUAL', which brought hardcore and dubstep into her sound. Outside her own releases, she sang on 'Start Select', a 2024 collaboration written by Cö shu Nie's Miku Nakamura. She also sang on Takeru's 'TO BE LIKE THRILLER' alongside SPYAIR's IKE and 4s4ki, and has lyric credits on &TEAM's 'Big suki' and 'Bewitched'. She released 'CRAVE', her first single after the split, in August 2025, with a crowd of rebellion's Baku Maruyama producing. 'LUMEN' followed in December, then a run of 2026 singles including 'NIRVĀṆA', 'HOLLOW EYES', 'dark', and 'PREDICTION'. Her earlier solo work had a strong electronic and hyperpop sound, but since 'CRAVE' she has moved towards live instruments and band arrangements. Hoshikuma has said that after years of writing songs around hundreds of shows a year, making music is now the centre of her life. Her lyrics have also become more direct about wanting to be loved and needed, and about the fear of being forgotten. PREDICTION, her first one-man show after the group ended, sold out Spotify O-WEST on February 19th 2026. It introduced a band of Crystal Lake guitarist YD, former Survive Said The Prophet guitarist Ivan, former Crossfaith bassist Hiroki Ikegawa, and former KOTORI drummer Chihiro Hosokawa, who stayed with her for the PREDICTION TOUR. Hoshikuma has said the four don't see themselves as a support band, and she named Ikegawa as one of the members bringing ideas to the project. Crossfaith's Kenta Koie joined her at the tour's Zepp Shinjuku finale on June 7th 2026 to perform the then-unreleased 'NOVA feat.Kenta Koie'. She wrote the lyrics with Koie and the music with YD, and released the song on September 30th 2026. Her stated aim is to make space for girls who don't fit the heroine role. That includes artists with darker, more villainous images who shouldn't have to soften their look for a mainstream audience. She also wants to be recognised worldwide as a female artist representing a scene between the mainstream and the underground.
About Kenta Koie
Kenta Koie is a Japanese vocalist and lyricist best known as the frontman of Osaka electronic metalcore band Crossfaith, and since 2026 as the creator of solo project AFTERVOID. Koie began playing in bands in 2004, initially covering nu-metal acts including Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit, before forming Crossfaith in 2006. His screamed vocals, clean singing and English-language lyrics became central to the band's mix of metalcore and electronic music. Crossfaith grew from Japan's loud-rock circuit into one of the country's most internationally established heavy bands. They toured extensively outside Japan and reached the main stage of Download Festival in the UK in 2014, while Koie's high-energy frontman style became part of their live reputation. Alongside his work with Crossfaith, he developed a parallel identity as a frequent guest vocalist across heavy music in Japan and overseas. His collaborations include Crystal Lake's 'Beloved' in 2014, The Qemists' 'Anger' in 2016, ONE OK ROCK's venue-exclusive 'Skyfall' with MAH of SiM and Masato of coldrain in 2017, Void Of Vision's 'Hole In Me' in 2021, Paledusk's 'Q2' and Sable Hills' 'Battle Cry' in 2024, and the multi-artist REDLINE DREAM BAND single 'REDLINE' later that year. Crossfaith announced an indefinite hiatus in August 2025, with the band confirming that each member would continue individual activity. Koie subsequently launched AFTERVOID on February 7th, 2026 with 'RUNNING AWAY (Destruction Test Remix)'. Rather than simply reproducing Crossfaith's sound, the project's debut material fused hard techno with metal, while July single 'EXITRANCE' brought hardstyle, gabber and hip-hop into Koie's metalcore roots. In 2026 he co-wrote and performed on NOISEMAKER's 'KINTSUGI', appeared on coldrain's 'SAVIOR', and joined Hoshikuma Minami for 'NOVA feat. Kenta Koie'. Hoshikuma first performed 'NOVA' with Koie at Zepp Shinjuku in June, placing him on stage again with former Crossfaith bassist Hiroki Ikegawa, who is part of her current live band. Outside releases, Koie also works as a DJ and runs the personal YouTube project Koi Channel.
