Archive Event : Melt Banana
29
2003
Venue: Factory Club
Acts: Melt Banana Trencher Esquilax
- Melt Banana
- Trencher
- Esquilax
Event Details:
This time they will present their new album ãCell-Scape” (A-ZAP Records / REVOLVER). MxBx toured Europe and USA several times. The audience is getting bigger and bigger even MxBx’s music is not that kind of music you would expect to hear on daily radio-charts. But what you can expect for sure is a live show that you will never forget.
Many fans been melted by the ear-nuking, brain-microwaving, head-exploding music that YaKo (vocal), Agata (guitar), Rika (bass) and an excellent, precise drummer (for this tour it’s Dave Witte from US-band Burnt By The Sun).
YaKo is Japan’s punk rock empress, whipping out her razor-sharp vocal like a bondage-queen she-devil from the hottest harem in hell having the kind of climax that, erm, melts bananas.
Guitarist Agata gets so many sounds out of his six-string you’d think he had a synth, two turntables and a couple of screaming Tokyo schoolgirls stuffed in his underpants. He rustles up what sounds like radio feedback, sirens, pistol-shots, crucified kittens, you name it, it’s somewhere on Agata’s fretboard.
Bassist Rika wrestles with an instrument twice her size and always gets the better of it. Let’s give you some “cool” names now: They’ve been engineered by Steve Albini, mixed by Jim O’Rourke, free-jazz guru John Zorn produced their live album on his labal TZADIK, which was engineered by Robert Musso; they did a radio session for legendary British DJ John Peel, and Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafro is a huge fan, leaping on stage to add his vocal when the Banana crew did a cover of DK song “Government Flu” at San Francisco and Florida gigs. Mike Patton is a huge fan and seems like very, very influenced by MxBx.
Links:
http://www.parkcity.ne.jp/~mltbanan/ – melt banana official site
http://www.jonsonfamily.com/bands/bands.aspx?bnd=10 – Trencher info
Review in th Wire Magazine
MELT-BANANA
BIRMINGHAM MEDICINE BAR UK
BY MARTIN LONGLEY
This was the Tokyo combo’s fourth European tour, acting as a hearty push for their recent Cell-Scape disc. After a decade’s activity, it’s only their fourth album, although Melt-Banana have also issued a compilation of cassette obscurities, a live set and a healthy 19 EPs. Their reputation (at least in my own subjective life) has been forged via massive exposure on John Peel’s show, not least their staggering series of Maida Vale live broadcasts.
The line-up remains YaKo (speed vocals), Agata (panoramic guitar) and Rika (contortionist bass), with Burnt By The Sun’s Dave Witte guesting on drums. The instrumentalists come out first, setting up a rolling momentum for YaKo’s purposeful entrance.
Agata swoops everything up full, stroking, hitting and slamming his guitar to produce broad swathes of multi-layered distortion, or alternatively, tight stutters with in-between razor spaces. He uses bottleneck to race up and down the frets, sometimes toying with outbreaks of what sound like accelerated boogie woogie or sludgy bar-room blues. Rika’s bass is weighty but nimble, fingers slapping hard, but unwinding convoluted lines that repeat and intertwine with Agata’s wall-of-noise. Witte is constantly changing rhythmic direction, nailing down these sudden shifts, with all four Bananas perfectly attuned to the communal dynamics of each stunted-length number. Melt-Banana have become such a bonded unit that they can ride these rapids with ease, maintaining a level of rapt attention in the audience that doesn’t let up over their hour-long set. The entire experience is one of intense compaction: extremely short songs that manage to communicate their separateness, like a series of micro-suites.
YaKo sways gently against the unrelenting bombardment of her bandmates, reeling out her microphone lead like she’s about to measure up a bespoke suit, tilting her head slightly as if to coax out the finest nuances of yelping precision. No matter how hard, how dense, how speeding or how intricate these truncated songs are, she’s reeling off staccato lines with an unerring rhythmic attack, keeping hold of her melodic sense, always singing rather than spewing guttural shouts. YaKo, eyes darting left and right, seems to be in a quiet sphere of her own, partly oblivious to the surrounding aural overload.
After the first encore, music’s piped through the PA, but the crowd keeps bellowing for more. Just as everyone starts to drift away, the Bananas return for another one-minute assault, an almost ludicrously brief return for these masters of new headbanging complexity.
Melt Banana + Glatze + Lash Frenzy vs Mort
Out of the old ashes sizzle and scream a new wave and realization simply called MELT-BANANA. A maelstrom of experimental heart surgery, Melt Banana walk on water, They effortlessly juggle all of those sharks that think they`re swimming in new, unexplored territories. Here are the imported children of the no waves gone by, a hardcore-informed, audio info overload from Tokyo`s ferocious underground. MELT-BANANA sweat out a super-adrenalized, maxi-caffeinated collision of frenzied drum rhythms and torturous guitar squeals through tiny, frantic, hyper rhythmic little songs. Front woman Yasuko O.`s ultra-high-pitched screeches and Agata`s screaming slide guitar vie for supremacy across a rhythmic frenzy that is so ridiculous and precise, it will crush you with it`s brilliance. Here are the cerebral gnashing guitars, the aggravated pep squad proclamations and the neck-snapping rhythm change-ups irresistible to those seeking a new musical truth. MELT-BANANA doesn`t sound like anything you`ve heard. Simply put, they are unclassifiable. If that`s not enough for you…. well then, back into your cave Grogar
http://www.parkcity.ne.jp/~mltbanan/
Lash Frenzy & Mort the Sonic
Lash Frenzy is Andrew Moscardo-Parker (Guitarist in Einstellung). Under this guise Andrew has collaborated with many musicians including Kat from Babes in Toyland, ex-members of Godflesh, Mistress, Sally, Einstellung, Anal Nathrack and many others.
Mort the Sonic is Richard Morten. Richard imports raw data from image files into his MAC to create the most horrific abstract sounds. He grew up in Birmingham alongside the Godflesh boys and the many spinoff bands.
Lash Frenzy & Mort the Sonic join forces spasmodically to create huge intense claustrophobic walls of sounds. Initially the two worked together to create a ‘Digital vs Analogue’ battle but realised that the sheer brutality did nothing other than unite the two in a savage harmony. Often disorientating with strobes and smoke machines this performance will again see the two parties unite to create something special.
Glatze
A musician, circuit-bender and all-out live music nutter, hailing from Kernow and now based in the West Midlands. His sets are an orgy of customised electronic equipment, with circuit-bent kids’ dolls sitting alongside doctored loudspeakers, squealing guitars and a fun-at-all-costs mentality!
www.mrunderwood.co.uk
MELT BANANA + BRIAN DUFFY & MODIFIED TOY ORCHESTRA + NOISE NOISE ALLORE
MELT BANANA
BRIAN DUFFY & MODIFIED TOY ORCHESTRA
NOISE NOISE ALLORE
Out of the old ashes sizzle and scream a new wave and
realization simply called MELT-BANANA. A maelstrom of experimental
heart surgery, Melt Banana walk on water, They effortlessly juggle
all of those sharks that think they’re swimming in new, unexplored
territories. Here are the imported children of the no waves gone
by, a hardcore-informed, audio info overload from Tokyo’s ferocious
underground. MELT-BANANA sweat out a super-adrenalized,
maxi-caffeinated collision of frenzied drum rhythms and torturous
guitar squeals through tiny, frantic, hyperrhythmic little songs.
Frontwoman Yasuko O.’s ultra-high-pitched screeches and Agata’s
screaming slide guitar vie for supremacy across a rhythmic frenzy
that is so ridiculous and precise, it will crush you with it’s
brilliance. Here are the cerebral gnashing guitars, the aggravated
pep squad proclamations and the neck-snapping rhythm change-ups
irresistible to those seeking a new musical truth. MELT-BANANA
doesn’t sound like anything you’ve heard. Simply put, they are
unclassifiable. If that’s not enough for you…. well then, back
into your cave Grogar
http://www.parkcity.ne.jp/~mltbanan/
Brian Duffy + The Modified Toy Orchestra
The UK’s foremost circuit bender. Ever wanted to see a ‘speak and
spell’ sing like the devil or wished to see a hula girl
toy take a darker more satanic route? Now is your chance as
Brians’ army of robot toys march onward to create twisted pop of
the most disturbing order.
Noise Noise Allore
Take their cues from such post punk luminaries as devo and gang of
four but add an urgency that is all their own, a world where
rhythmic time changes vie for attention with angular shards of
guitar and a vocalist that can barley contain the voice from within
his own body, a highly charged sexual rush of a show that will
leave you confused and wanting more..as all good lovers do. Expect
fruity fun.