Stream: Melt-Banana – “Dog Song”

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(from the album Melt-Banana Lite LIVE ver. 0.0 on A-Zap Records)

Melt-Banana is a really loud band from Tokyo, known almost as much for its distorted guitar as for its Animaniac, video-game-effects-at-hyperspeed tethered to equally rapido drum beats.  And singer Yako’s screaming cadences are so loud and often distorted that it doesn’t matter what language she sings in; it still sounds awesome. Don’t be mistaken by the band’s “Lite” side project, which is Melt-Banana substituting Agata’s guitar for synth programs and samplers and the revolving door drummers replaced by beats. Everything else is pure Banana. The end result is the kind of music teenage Terminators would mosh to. There’s one song, “Cat and the Blood,” that uses ambient spacey samples zig-zagged by shrieks that sound like weapons over Yako’s kitty Armageddon chorus “Ca’s singing like Meow, more blood, no trap, while dogs sleep tight.” The lyrics are in English, and they even provide the lyrics, and they’re actually pretty good for a second language. “Dog Song,” Yako’s ode to the faithful canine, is my personal favorite: “He likes some bones, He likes to bite hard, He Likes some toys, He likes to run fast, I hear some dog barks…”  And then she lets out the most awesome electronic distorted barking freakout in the history of recorded music (maybe they could sell it as a ringtone?).  This music makes me feel so hyper. If I was back in Echo Park, I would take this CD to the tunnel adjacent to the Echoplex, and I would get really high and play this CD on a boom box full blast, so the echoes would ricochet in every direction. If any of you try it, and I highly recommend you do, let me know how it sounds.

-Scott Schultz