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J-Tronica,
Buffalo Daughter's
Dreamy Vision
by Marina Galazidis |
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Think driving on a two-lane highway, the white passing lines dotting
by, rhythmically creating the bass line. Think about all the little
electronic sounds of modern everyday, from the cell phone to the
microwave to the E-mail alert. Think enchanting (if self-consciously
bizarre) lyrics. Think American and European 80's pop rock reinvented
in the imaginations of three female Japanese musicians. Put it all
together and you have the enigmatic, yet eerily familiar sound of
Buffalo Daughter, the Japanese electronic trio that manipulates
punk, no wave, 60's British rock, and classical string quartets
into a roster of ultra poppy songs.
Since their first album, Shaggy Headdressers, released
in Japan in 1994, to their most recent release, I
(Emperor Norton and Toshiba EMI) from 2001, the band has developed
artistically and geographically. As their global reach extends,
they are making plans to sign with a European label to coincide
with the worldwide release of their upcoming album in September.
Arguably their most musically and conceptually sophisticated album,
I continues to usher acclaim and to fortify their American
fan base. As with all of their productions, the band spent a lot
of time in the studio with this album. And it comes as no surprise,
as the goal seems to be a polished complexity of overlapping rhythms
reminiscent of the contemporary composer Steve Reich. Also
like Reich, Buffalo Daughter lays out the themes one by one then
begins to layer, tweak, and conflate them. At times this cacophony
of instruments and beats induces involuntary dizziness that some
listeners may find tickling. In the catchy tune "Earth Punk Rockers",
there is more than one crescendo of noise upon noise, but the song
gracefully retreats from each breaking point and returns to a satisfyingly
heavy guitar loop. In "A Completely Identical Dream", while
complying to their general guidelines of composition, is typical
of the group in an entirely different way as well - it spotlights
their compelling melodies. The lyrics "A lot of bubbles kept coming
from my mouth / And I devoted myself to putting them in a line"
are secondary, this is one to put on repeat for the sheer pleasure
of the synthesizer's beats and the ice-clear vocal notes.
In fact, for the most part Buffalo Daughter uses lyrics to establish
a certain mood that changes from song to song. In the title track
"I", the words function more as a percussive element. They
are abruptly spoken and sung by the three vocalists, suGar Yoshinaga,
Yumiko Ohno, and MooOg Yamamoto virtually a cappella,
and each part is mixed over one another in such a way that the words,
and not surprisingly 'I' above the others, become drum-like patters.
On the other end of the spectrum is "Mirror Ball", in which
lines such as "sound of sphere" are paired with a feel-good melody.
The words lose their meaning in repetition and are instead playful
sounds to help induce the feeling of the song.
Among the influences the band claims are 70's and 80's new wave
such as Devo and Talking Heads, the New York underground
bands of the same period like Liquid Liquid, as well as German
groups Kraftwerk, Neu!, and Harmonia. To that list
I might add psychedelic, punk, as well as Isaac Hayes, especially
"Moog Stone", and the Beatles who are somewhere through
it all in the vocal harmonies and the instrumentation. (Sean
Lennon, appropriately enough, is thanked in the liner notes.)
As for Japanese inspiration, guitarist, vocalist, and TB303 wizard
suGar says that it was only in the last "couple of years that we've
found it interesting. Kahimi Karie, Yurayura Teikoku, and
some other independent Japanese music is interesting." Of the Japanese
music scene in general, she describes a world "pretty much dominated
by J-rap (Japanese hip-hop) and J-pop (Japanese pop/rock)
with a couple of million-seller artists. Techno/electronica influences
on rock bands are gaining popularity. Those young, new bands like
Super Car and Qululli are a kind of second generation
influenced by bands like Buffalo Daughter or Cornelius that
have been appreciated much in Europe and the U.S."
As to why Buffalo Daughter is appreciated in the U.S. seems to be
partly due to the fact that the images and associations (take the
title "Robot Sings (As if he were Frank Sinatra with a Half-boiled
Egg and the Salt Shaker on a Breakfast Table)" for example) reference
the American ordinary, but are very far from the original. As they
reinterpret the noise of our day from our music to electronic bleeps
to distinctively American tropes, one has to wonder how tongue-in-cheek
they are being since it often sounds convincingly genuine. Buffalo
Daughter has an affinity for tapping into our cultural iconography
that begins with the band's name. SuGar explains, "we used to have
some dreamy vision [of the] American countryside - kind of [an]
illusion that David Lynch or Tom Robbins created in
their films or novels - dark, twisted, but somehow [a] funny, cute,
and attractive image. 'Buffalo' came from those images, and as we
wanted to show there were women in the band, we put 'daughter' after
'buffalo'.
Perhaps Buffalo Daughter is cultural commentary or perhaps it is
simply an interpretation of the Japanese and Western mainstream
towards the creation of their own international J-Tronic
niche. Either way they are worth a listen and, in the case of a
few gems, worth many. |
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_________________________________
For more on Buffalo Daughter go to:
http://www.buffalodaughter.com/ |
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_________________________________
Marina Galazidis teaches third grade in Brooklyn. |
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