From the whip-like crack of Yako’s signature staccato vocals and impossible-to-memorize lyrics to the relentless overdrive tempo of their one of-a-kind prog-core, MELT BANANA have long resided in a cybertopia of their own devising where the limits of technology and human capability are old-world concerns as quaint and cumbersome as bartering with a blacksmith. The demos for Fetch, their first studio album since the severely fried pop-punk of 1997’s Bambi’s Dilemma, were completed in March 2011, but the Fukushima earthquake changed everything, including their ability to concentrate on recording. Which stopped completely.
Once they felt ready to return to their music, they decided to approach the songs on a sound-by-sound basis, choosing each tone with meticulous attention to detail, affirming their personal connections, being themselves naturally and openly.
They’ve been performing live as a duo since summer 2012, and will do the same for their “2 do what 2 fetch” tour in support of the album. After nearly 20 years of playing with a live rhythm section, their use of a PC, while opening possibilities for a variety of drum and synth voicings, does not signal a move away from the traditional live band sound, as heard, for example, via the future transmissions from downtown Noiseapolis on 2009’s Lite Live: Ver. 0.0. Yako and Agata say they need to feel real band sounds onstage as much as someone in the audience. This is a group that routinely excels at several kinds of impossible simultaneously, so of course any new challenge they come up with for themselves is sure to blow the doors off your Mini Cooper.
Swelling from out of the cosmic putrescence of the Wizzleteat corpse, Thrilling Headgear force day-glo colours into angular shapes, holding groove as dogma. At turns both despondant and ethereal, TH play bleeted punk rock, transcendent and engaged, psychonautical engineering for earth-bound space mechanics.
Glatze is back! After a brief hiatus the one-man musical loon has been coaxed out to play by the prospect of supporting Melt Banana again, for old times’ sake. Glatze’s first gig for Capsule was this very same support slot, back in 2009. Expect the usual live improvised electronic mayhem, with just a hint more “mad professor” than “young buck”. He promises to do his very best in support of one of his favourite live acts…