The crowd watching Japanese math-funk band Zazen Boys perform at last year’s Music Terminals outdoor concert in Taoyuan gave the band and lead vocalist and guitarist Mukai Shutoki such a warm response that it more than made up for the scorcher of a day: “It was very hot,” said Shutoki. “The heavy sunshine made us feel sunburned. The people surprised us, their passion is as hot as the weather.”
The eclectic, eccentric front man said that he felt a “special passion” from the Taiwanese that has been missing in Tokyo for some time. The band, which tours extensively, played to a packed crowd of local youths who crowded to the stage and filled the field with dancing bodies.
“We’re very happy that the audience feels free dancing to our beats,” said Shutoki, who returns tomorrow for a show at Legacy.
He envisions his avant-garde band, successor to his previous group Number Girl, as “Led Zeppelin in kimonos” and labels their albums in a similar fashion — numerically. The first two albums were well-received but the third, which was more ambient, improvisational and experimental earned mixed reviews. In addition to a slew of live albums, the band released a fourth studio album in 2008 that features more synthesizers and a funk edge.
“A few years ago we started to make songs using a laptop,” said Shutoki, who likes to compose while touring. “The atmosphere in the hotel room outside Tokyo is very lonely, so I could make some lonely sounds.”
He is evasive when asked to analyze or explain what inspires him, referring instead to a response that Japanese artist Ohtake Shinro made when asked about his point of view on his art works: “When people asked him … he answered ‘No special idea in it, because it’s boring to care about this’ — I deeply relate to him in this.”
He gives the example of a painter using a certain color on a canvas because it feels right and touches you, and said that the reason never comes to one’s mind but allows others to “decide freely.”
Zazen Boys’ music is more aggressive and physical when they perform live, with heavy beats and what Shutoki calls “illusory lyrics.” In their first attempt to “challenge minimal house music” the band adds to it the “original style of Zazen Boys” he said, which is based on math rock, complex rhythms and extended improvisational songs, with a newer synth-funk sound.
Self-described as a “weird Japanese rock band,” Shutoki’s Zazen Boys rely on the fact that while you may not know what their music is, you’ll know if you like it.
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