Melt-Banana's newest
The Japanese noise thrash break avant pop deconstructionist maestros are out with a new album, their sixth proper in a fifteen-year career, called "Bambi's Dilemma". I'm not sure if there are any love songs as I can't make out virtually any of the lyrics, as usual. It doesn't matter what the words are, because while there may be no blatant emotion, it still gives you that purging feeling which is always uplifting - that you along with the band and letting go and screaming and twisting with voice and instruments and just going "fuuuuuuuuck it! ahhhhhhghhHHH!", but in a cool Japanese artsy way, with an understanding of what music has been played before in the history of sound, and saying, "well, yeah, but it's never been played this fast in this way and then tweaked like this, ayieeeee!". Melt-Banana seemed to reach a pinnacle with their last album, 2003's "Cell-Scape", full of spectacular riffs to excite the senses, and here they seem determined to turn it up another notch, showcasing the various ways in which they have learned to freak out. The first half of the album does have a bit more rock/pop vibe, almost saying "see how nice our audio insanity can be?"
...but by the middle of the album onward they abandon all pretense and wig out. The sounds on the last half are more exploratory, too, with much more knob-twiddling and Agata's screeching guitar and electronics whirring and squirting all over the place. It feels as if the last half of the album were run through an analog synthesizer while the band members tripped on acid and turned knobs back and forth, often as fast as they could, while producing the songs down to their shortened chaotic essences, often thirty seconds to a minute or so long.
And here's a bonus track. In my twenties I loved a noise/experimental magazine from San Fransisco called Bananafish Magazine. Bananafish #10 (1995) was the first to include a CD, and on that CD was a very early Melt-Banana doing this (apparent) cover.
Same price from Amazon and Insound, so might as well go the more independent route:
1 comment:
Melt Banana truly is (.)(.)
http://monkeybastard.blog.com
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