Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Japancakes



Japancakes is an American indie rock group based in Athens, GA. Rhythm guitarist Eric Berg formed the band with the idea of putting ten musicians in a band without any rehearsal, and performing a D chord for 45 minutes (similar to Terry Riley's In C). Japancakes formed in 1996, and since then have garnered national and international attention for their unique and woozy brand of spaced-out instrumental music. The band has never been one to shy away from plumbing the depths nor scaling the upper ethers of melody and beauty. The creation of their singular soundscapes encompasses widely varied approaches: whether they employ a singing-sword pedal steel, a throaty cello, a sparkling wash of precision-aligned synthesizers, or even a well and wisely-placed moment of silence. Japancakes are intent on emerging from their forays into musical space cloaked in pure sound. The music is direct. Whereas the listener might suspect that the absence of vocals would leave some sort of void, Japancakes deftly negate that suspicion by turning that same so-called absence into an unlimited mesh of listener interface; every moment of a Japancakes song is an opportunity for true listener interactivity. In other words, each Japancakes recording invites you INWARD to engage in a dialectic with its own particular cosmos, and furthermore, invites you to project what you please into it.

www.japancakesmusic.com

Smelly Dog

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