A New York Cultural Collage in Audio

Like many excellent music acts, Cibo Matto blended all conceivable forms of music which can be tied together by a backbone of pop, and created fluidity between them. CB was a New-York based band built by two Japanese, Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda. They collaborated with other musicians, Timo Ellis and Sean Lennon, the son of John and Yoko. Since the end of CB, Miho has had other projects, such as Smokey and Miho and singing as Noodle for the Gorillaz. Yuka Honda has also maintained a solo career as well as collaborating with Yoshimi P-We (the Boredoms, OOIOO), and touring with Sean in his latest tour. Really, their collective talent level is on par with Cornelius, Beck, and — maybe - almost - justnotquite — Air and The Chemical Brothers. The styles these musicians touched upon are as diverse as the city of NYNY itself. I cannot think of a style they didn’t at least hint at. Their eclectic sound was always very musical, however, setting them apart from typical ‘experimental’ groups. From hip-hop, rock, to dance, jazz - the talent shined through. The Cibo Matto web of music is a wonderful world that any sane music lover needs to explore. So here’s an arbitrary starting point for you. Yuka Honda' mostly instrumental Memories Are My Only Witness. Or if you prefer, the more vocal-oriented album by Miho Hatori, called Ecdysis.

^^^a really cool music video directed by the legendary genius music video director, Michel Gondry (he did the best music video of all time, Let Forever Be by The Chemical Brothers).

a dead nexus of disparate grooves... Supercar

スーパーカー SUPERCAR were (one of) the best band(s) in Japan in the Millennial era. They began with a garage rock sound, diversified by having two singers, Miki and Kouji. The sound transformed into a strongly electronic style in the years before the band’s end. Check out their OOYeah!! album here... Now, the former main musicians and singers, Miki Furukawa(フルカワミキ) and Koji Nakamura (中村弘二、aka Nyantora, ニャントラ), continue to make music which has taken Supercar’s later electronic sound as their starting points. The other members, Ishiwatari Junji and Tazawa Koudai, are also still active, but I’m not sure what labels their music is under / what bands they joined... Anyway, you can hear Nyantora's continuation of the late Supercar style on his 99-00 album.

Here's the seriously cool vid for Nyantora's Taitan, directed by Toshio Iwai, famed artist and creator of the DS game Electroplankton.

And here's the PV for Strobolights, one of Supercar's most purely electronic pieces, courtesy of divx.stage6.

(I'll get a vid of Miki up soon :)

^ Kouji