| Maher Shalal Hash Baz is the oddly-named band for Japanese cult figure Tori Kudo and his wife Reiko (apparently a Hebrew biblical phrase meaning “be quick if you want to steal something”). Since the late 70s, Tori has been a pioneering figure in Japanese post-punk and avant-garde circles, beginning with bands like Guys’n’Dolls, Noise and Tokyo Suicide (a cover band dedicated to New York synth-punk pioneers Suicide).
Tori formed Maher Shalal Hash Baz in the mid 80s with neighbours who could not play instruments, ever since has been pursuing a single-minded vision of music as simple, spontaneous and unpredictable. The band’s always changing lineup. anywhere from three to thirty people, features mostly untrained musicians playing music often shown to them on the day of its performance, expressing the innate beauty of failure as much as of success.
The band began releasing records in 1989, but did not come to worldwide attention until 1996, when they released the ambitious triple album Return Visit To Rock Mass. In 1999, UK label Geographic released From A Summer To Another Summer, a compilation of Maher recordings. Soon the band were touring the US and Europe regularly, and Geographic released their most recent album Blues Du Jour in 2003.
Live Aoiheya January 2003 documents an entire brief performance by this unique band, capturing them in a variety of guises, including an extended abstract instrumental, songs based on conversations between band members, passages by Japanese composers, vocal relays and a Brahms Waltz. In the EP’s 26 minutes Maher Shalal Hash Baz manage to cover more ground than most bands do in their whole career, all the while maintaining a spirit and idiosyncracy that is idenitifiably their own. |
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