A-Zap Records – 23rd August 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
There is truly only one Melt-Banana. And Melt-Banana boldly encapsulate all of the craziness that makes Japanese music so peculiar and unlike the music to emerge from any other place. Here in the west, we can, in truth, only marvel at it – all of it. Because it makes no sense. It’s a country of extremes, with hyper-pop culture dominating, and a sense of plasticness and artifice defining the mainstream. But then, Japan is also the home of the most extreme noise – Merzbow, Masonna, for example. It’s not just extreme sonically, but beyond words in terms of performance.
The pitch for this, their eighth album, informs us that ‘3 + 5’ synthesizes elements of a variety of Extreme Musics, Hyper-Pop, classic Punk, vintage Metal, and Noise. It’s informed by Japanese culture in general, and the subcultures of gaming, anime and homegrown underground music in particular. The album’s nine tracks have been crafted to maximize the independent appeal of each song (since so many listeners will be streaming and playlisting these songs). Each selection boasts its own unique charm and ideas that beg for repeated listening.’
I had the good fortune to witness their live spectacle here in York not so long ago, and they were everything anyone even vaguely aware of their work would expect: intense, noisy, crazy, and wildly entertaining.
They create music that fits with the bizarre incongruity of their name – abstract, humorous, combining elements that don’t – or shouldn’t – really sit together – somewhat surreal, patently absurd, but also perhaps a shade Pop Art. Put another way, everything all at once, tossed in a blender and blitzed, the output being like a bubbling hot smoothie or something.
They do have a tendency to favour short and fast, as recent taster track ‘Flipside’ reminded us, clocking in at a minute and fifty-six. It does happen to be the album’s shortest track, but then, the longest is under three-and-a-half, and the majority of the nine songs are around the two-and-a-half minute mark. That means that with a running time of around twenty-seven minutes, the album would comfortably fit on a 10” record.
For a moment, ‘Code’ hints at something spacious, experimental and electronic to open the album – before seconds later, all kinds of sonic mayhem erupt and chipmunk yelping vocal squeak over something that resembles Metal Machine Music played at double speed, before it takes a turn into space rock territory, but again, at twice the pace, with some prog flourishes and a bunch or bleeps and widdly synths all criss-crossing over one another at two hundred miles an hour. For anyone for whom this is their introduction to Melt-Banana, they’ll likely find themselves dizzy and completely bewildered as to wat the fuck they’ve just heard. It is, unquestionably, utterly deranged, and at doesn’t get much more quintessentially Japanese than this.
‘Puzzle’ is kind of a high-octane rock tune, at least at first – but then someone hits the accelerator and in a blink you’re on ‘Rainbow Road’ on the N64 Mario Kart after eating three bags of Skittles and you’re totally wired.
Hyper doesn’t really cut it. Even the more expansive instrumental segments of ‘Case D’ happen at about 600bpm, and it’s like listening to a prog album at 45rpm.
As I listen, I find myself typing faster and faster, as if I’ve sunk six cans of Red Bull while chomping on a whole packet of Pro Plus. My fingers are pale blurs against my black illuminated keyboard, and they’ve seemingly run away from my brain and are just frothing out words in response to the frantic mania pouring into my ears – no, not pouring, but being injected by 10,000-volts of electrical current into my brain via my eardrums.
‘Scar’ slams big guitar rock and skittish melodic pop together like a banging of heads. It sounds like music from a computer game or an animated movie. It sounds like music made in a fictional context. Because in real life, music like this couldn’t exist. And in the main, it doesn’t. Only Melt-Banana are demented enough to actually make it.
Penultimate track ‘Whisperer’ goes big on dance / rock crossover and actually slows to a pace that doesn’t feel like a synaptic twitch or a seizure, before ‘Seeds’ closes the album with a two-and-a-half minute frenzy which chucks everything into the mix.
The whole experience leaves you feeling giddy, dazed, amazed. 3 + 5 may not bring anything radical, new, or revelatory to the Melt-Banana oeuvre, but stands as a classic example of what they do – and it’s as ace as it is nuts.
AA
Aural Aggravation 