Melt-Banana, led by shrieking vocalist Yasuko Onuki
(who matches Poly Styrene's proverbial hysteria)
and Ichiro Agata (a guitarist who recalls
Arto Lindsay in DNA), play
fast-paced "noise-core" that mixes the speed of
hardcore and the cacophony of industrial music.
The cassette Cactuses COme In FLocks (Chocolate Monk, 1994 - A-Zap, 1999)
presents short, spastic, atonal, minimalist outbursts that are reminiscent
of the old "no-wave".
The 24-track 30-minute album
Speak Squeak Creak (Nux, 1994 - Charnel, 1995 - A-zap, 2001)
shows musical improvement only in that one can recognize nods to free jazz,
math-rock and speed-metal, as in a cross between
God Is My Co-pilot and
Napalm Death.
The "estranged" pop of It's In The Pillcase (Skin Graft)
introduced the stoical nonsense of
Scratch Or Stitch (Nux, 1995 - Skin Graft, 1996), particularly
Eye-Q Trader,
Disposable Weathercock, Ten Dollars A Pile, Iguana In Trouble, Rough Dogs Have Bumps, Contortion Out Of Confusion.
Following the EP Wedge (Slap A Ham, 1997),
the band released what remains their most conceptual album, for better and
for worse: Charlie (A-Zap, 1998). Befriended by the New York and
Chicago avantgarde, the Japanese forget their identities and assume the
personas of experimental composers.
The noise and the frenzy in songs
like Spathic is tempered by excessive self-awareness.
The live MxBx (Tzadik, 1999) works well as an anthology of their
reckless career.
The mini-album Teeny Shiny (A-Zap, 2000) could be their
most frantic work.
Three Studies For A Crucifixion (Passacaglia, 2001) is a split album
that contains six more Melt Banana hardcore missiles.
The EP 666 (Level Plane, 2003) has some of their most accessible songs.
Cell-scape (A-Zap, 2003) presents`
a more accessible version of the band, despite the
thundering and sputtering Phantasmagoria and the usual abrasive mess
of folk-jazz-metal-punk jamming
(Key is A Fact That A Cat Brings,
Like A White Bat in A Box Dead Matters Go On,
Shield For Your Eyes A Beast in the Well on Your Hand).
Melt Banana's former drummer Toshiaki Sudoh formed
Machine And The Synergetic Nuts
with keyboardist Noriya Iwata.
They released the all-instrumental
Machine And The Synergetic Nuts (Alibaba, 2003) and
Leap Second Neutral (Alibaba, 2003).
13 Hedgehogs (A-Zap, 2005) collects the singles from 1994 to 1999:
Hedgehog, It's In The Pillcase, Untitled (Piano One), Eleventh and Dead Spex, as well as rarities.
Bambi's Dilemma (A-Zap, 2007) marked a surprising rediscovery of melody
(although still drenched in their trademark chaos).
Agata debuted solo with Spike (Tzadik, 2004), a collection of 25 instrumental miniatures.
Melt-Banana's Fetch (2013) lives up to the standards of their early
albums.
Candy Gun is one of their most exhilarating songs, combining
witchy shriek, distorted guitar, gallopping rhythm and alien synth noises.
Their romps include the Ministry-grade thrash-punk of The Hive and
one minute of epileptic rock'n'roll in Vertigo Game.
There is demented Ramones-esque exuberance in Left Dog and the
guitar inferno of Infection Defective.
They even attemp to captivate the dancefloor with Zero.
Unfortunately the songs soon become repetitive and less amusing. This should
have been a six-song EP.
