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If you fancy having your face peeled off by some speed-of-light grind core – Melt Banana will be firing up our stage with their inferno of noise rock at Supersonic this year.

The band, thoughtfully, have an FAQ section on their website…which we’ll dip in and out of on this blog to give you in the ins/outs straight from the horse’s mouth.

Q: Who is MELT-BANANA?

Answer: Main factors of MELT-BANANA are YAKO, who is singer of the band and writes all lyrics and some of the songs, and AGATA who plays the guitar and writes most of the backtracks of the songs. So far, MELT-BANANA has been helped by many musicians, such as:

SUDOH, TOSHIAKI / RIKA HAMAMOTO / ONOTETSU / KIKUCHI / OSHIMA (aka Watchman) / NATSUME / OBOKATA (aka Obiwan) / SAKATA / DAVE WITTE / TERADA / YOKO KUROSE / UKI / INOMATA / TARO TATSUMAKI (with MxBxLite)

Since forming in 1993 the band has released 13 Albums, 28 EPs, appear on numerous compi’s/collabs and have toured worldwide extensively, winning high profile fans such as Steve Albini, Kurt Cobain and Lou Reed. Their first Peel Session in 1999 was described by the man himself as ‘Simply one of the most extraordinary performances I have ever seen and ever heard…just mesmerising, absolutely astonishing.’ and still they continue to stun live audiences around the world today with their raucous energy.

Q: What type of music?

Answer: Some people say they are noise band, some people say they are so-called no wave band, some people say they are hardcore band, some people say their music is like roller coaster in an amusement park… It is hard to categorise their music, but basically they are rock band with a spice of punk taste. The easiest way to find out is to listen to their music.

Hurtling their way through thrashing cymbals, sirens, lasers, firework guitar riffs, with Yaka’s vocals biting chunks into the frenzied texture, this band is not for the faint hearted. No strangers to greatness, having toured with Melvins and Napalm Death, Melt Banana rose from Tokyo’s ferocious underground with their unorthodox, unclassifiable and undeniable brilliance and continue to jack-hammer the brains of punks, metal heads and beard scratchers a-like with their relentless aversion to sitting still.

‘Melt-Banana have remained like an eye of a hurricane that’s 10 times crazier than the hurricane itself.’ – PITCHFORK.

Q: Is Yako singing in Japanese?

Answer: I am singing in English, and you can find all of the lyrics inside of CD booklets if you are interested. When I first started singing in a band, I was singing in Japanese, but I changed to English. I thought that English would fit more to my style of singing.

Q: Which album makes you frothy?

Answer: Human beings can live because they can forget things that they don’t like.

Q: What is your motto/philosophy?

Answer: For today, jump before you look.

Jumping, nay, diving-head-first-straight-for-the-jugular is something Melt Banana are particularly well versed in. A common feature in their live set is a succession of seriously short songs which get straight to the point.

Perhaps this is an influence of musical pals Napalm Death – who on album Scum recorded the shortest ever punk song coming in at just 4 seconds long. A longstanding kinship between the two bands has most recently seen a split 7inch released on Record Store Day in 2016 featuring 2 tracks on each side. Available [here]

Since releasing their debut 7’EP Hedgehog in 1994, Melt Banana have played with varying line-ups but it’s Yako and Agata’s unique compositional flair which has lead them through the years and given them the notoriety they so deserve. The duo have cemented themselves as pioneers of noise-rock.

The studio album Fetch, released September 2013, saw the band transition to a duo which they now tour as live and somehow still sound and perform as if equipped with army of noise makers behind them…

‘Japanese noise assassins Melt-Banana may well have been thrashing out blistering rockets of screeching, avant garde, hardcore for well over twenty years now, but my gawd do they still feel like a pulverising assault on the senses.’ – THE LINE OF BEST FIT.

Don’t you even THINK about missing Melt Banana at this year’s Supersonic.

Don’t. You. EVEN.

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

Oh and one more important thing to note:

Q: What is your favourite type of sandwich?

Answer: Avocado.

http://www.melt-banana.net/

 

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Capsule are delighted to announce the return of MELT BANANA who will perform in Birmingham on May 27 at the Rainbow Warehouse. Tickets from HERE

 

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 th 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.

Tickets from HERE

Melt Banana official

 

THRILLING HEADGEAR

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

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…

 

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It’s an honour to have one of Japan’s most uncompromising and original noise rock bands appearing at Supersonic’s 10^th anniversary bash – we are of course talking about the mighty Zeni Geva! Seeing as guitarist and vocalist KK Null has graced the Supersonic stage numerous times over the past decade (including an absolutely incredible performance with Zeni Geva themselves back in 2010 that melted the brains of everyone within a 10 mile radius), this seems like the perfect band to invite along for this year’s celebrations.

Zeni Geva’s sound doesn’t lend itself to easy categorisation, taking the primordial soup of death metal and blending it until it assumes the complex characteristics of prog rock, then lathering it in thick, turbulent layers of dissonance and serving the whole mixture up with a generous side portion of paranoia, anger and fear. Whilst KK Null has remained the core leader of the group, over the years the band’s personnel has read like a who’s-who of the early Japanese noise scene, featuring the talents of Acid Mother’s Temple guitarist Mitsuru Tabata and Boredoms/Hanatarashi drummer Ikuo Taketani, who has since been replaced by hyper talented Ruins sticksman Tatsuya Hoshida. Zeni Geva’s incendiary sound was too exciting to go unnoticed by the Western world however, and eventually caught the attention of such luminaries as Steve Albini and Jello Biafra, who signed the band to his Alternative Tentacles label in 1993 to release their classic ‘Desire For Agony’ record. As anyone who has witnessed them in the flesh before will attest, the Zeni Geva live experience is truly a force of nature. A whirlwind of distraught riffs, rapidly shifting time signatures and an almost unbearable tension threaten to overwhelm the listener, before the band’s abstract pummelling eventually ushers in a state of bizarre, transcendental euphoria. The band’s UK shows haven’t exactly been plentiful over the years, so grab this chance to see this incredible band while you can!

But of course, artists as prolific as Null and Hoshida aren’t just satisfied with treating us to just one mindblowing performance, and both artists will be taking to the stage under different guises this year too. KK Null will be teaming up for a one-off set with local tuba drone pioneers ORE, a two-piece dedicated to broadening the pallette of drone/doom with the vast, resonant sounds of the tuba. ORE’s Sam Underwood joined Null for his gut shatteringly intense performance with Lash Frenzy at Supersonic two years ago, which was evidently the start of a very fruitful partnership indeed. This unlikely combo will be playing a piece of music they’ve written specially for the festival, and will even have a few copies of an ultra-limited CD-R for sale. These are sure to sell like hot cakes, so act quickly if you want to snap one up! How ORE’s deep brass drones will play off against KK Null’s retina searingly powerful waves of noise is anyone’s guess, but this promises to be a fantastically esoteric journey into the furthest reaches of experimental music. Don’t miss out!

Tatsuya Hoshida will also be performing as Ruins Alone, the solo incarnation of his incredibly complex but endlessly groovy band Ruins. Sharing a similar style of frantic hyperactivity with bands like Naked City, Fantômas and Melt Banana but walking a path that is all their own, Ruins feed music through their own personalised meat grinder and string together the resulting strands into intricate patterns that make the Fibonacci sequence look like the 2x time table. Taking influence from French prog rock madmen Magma, Ruins songs are sung in their own language, a fitting trait for a band that so steadfastly refuses to adhere to conventional norms and structures. After being lucky enough to find 4 different virtuoso bassists to accompany him over the past 18 years, recently Hoshida has decided to go it alone, wowing audiences across the globe with his technical precision and flawless ability to leap between wildly different time signatures with the utmost grace. Ruins have always emphasised the power of immediacy and spontaneity in addition to their impeccable musicianship, making this a set that will be as gratifying to free wheeling hedonists as it is to beard stroking percussion experts.

Zeni Geva will play Supersonic Festival on Saturday 20th October, whilst Ruins Alone and KK Null & ORE will play on Sunday 21st October.

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Friday 22nd October 9pm – 2.30am
Tickets £20 BUY NOW
Headlined by Napalm Death
with Dead Fader, Demons (feat Sick Llama), Devil Man (feat DJ Scotch Egg), Drumcorps, Fukpig, Gum Takes Tooth, Necro Deathmort, PCM

Saturday 23rd October 4pm – 1.30am
Tickets £35 BUY NOW
Headlined by Godflesh + Melt Banana
with Blue Sabbath Black Fiji, Cave, Cloaks (DJ set), Dosh, Eagle Twin, Gnaw, Gnod, King Midas Sound, Lash Frenzy vs KK Null, Lichens, Melt Banana, oVo, Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides, People Like Us, Steve Troman & Dan Nicholls Duo, Stinky Wizzleteat, Tweak Bird
+ talks, films, workshops, market place, tea room

Sunday 24th October 2pm – 12.30am
Tickets £35 BUY NOW
Headlined by Swans + Hallogallo
with Barn Owl, Black Sun Drum Corps, Bong, Factory Floor, Jailbreak feat. Chris Corsano + Heather Leigh, James Blackshaw, Master Musicians of Bukkake + Khyam Allami, Mugstar, Nisennenmondai, Peter Broderick, Pierre Bastien & Male Instrumenty, Voice Of The Seven Thunders, Zeni Geva
+ talks, films, workshops, market place, tea room

Weekend tickets £75 BUY NOW