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By Dan Grunebaum
Brahman
With a new album and a US distribution
deal, 2005 is looking up
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Like Hi-Standard or Eastern Youth, Brahman are a Japanese
post-punk band that can go head-to-head with the best the
West can offer. But Brahman—as their Sanskrit name indicates—add
something different, lacing their thrashing guitars and screaming
vocals with Asian influences.
Since debuting in 1995, the Tokyo-based group led by charismatic
singer Toshi-Low have firmly established themselves on the
burgeoning Japanese indie-rock scene, playing the Fuji Rock
Festival and touring Europe and China. With a new album, The
Middle Way (Toy’s Factory), in stores and the re-release
of their 2001 disc A Forlorn Hope by California’s Revelation
Records marking their first foray in the States, 2005 could
be Brahman’s year.
Bypassing the years of obscurity a band often needs before
a breakthrough, Brahman seem to have arrived as a fully formed
package. Their two early mini-albums, 1996’s Grope Our
Way and the following year’s Wait and Wait, showed a
band that had digested the melocore of US acts like Bad Religion
and arrived at their own reformulation of its basic ingredients
of raw, distorted guitars, breakneck tempos and howling, emotive
vocals.
It didn’t take long for the Japanese music industry
to take notice. 1998 saw Brahman manhandling a crowd of 30,000
at the youth culture extravaganza Air-Jam and herald the break
of a new wave of Japanese indie-rock by topping the charts
with their full-length indie release, A Man of the World.
A bidding war ensued in 1999, with independent heavyweight
Toy’s Factory signing Brahman to a multi-album deal,
the first installation of which arrived in the form of the
2000 live recording Craving. In 1999, Brahman also shared
the stage at Fuji Rock with the likes of the Jon Spencer Blues
Explosion and participated in the Tibetan Freedom Concert
alongside Japanese bands such as Audio Active.
Brahman made their first trip abroad in 2000, bringing their
explosive live act to Hong Kong, Spain and Italy, while their
2001 opus,
A Forlorn Hope, achieved the remarkable feat of moving over
500,000 copies. The album arrived on a groundswell of dissatisfaction
with the J-Pop pap the Japanese majors were shovelling at
consumers, and signaled the arrival of the Japanese indie
scene as a force to be reckoned with in the domestic record
market. The band capped both 2001 and 2002 with Fuji Rock
appearances alongside the likes of Eminem and the Red Hot
Chili Peppers.
The last two years have seen Brahman touring abroad on a regular
basis. Their efforts paid off recently when California’s
Revelation Records decided to license A Forlorn Hope, saying,
“Brahman’s scintillating live performances both
at home and in brief jaunts overseas have met with rave reviews.
Brahman are one of the best live bands around; their performances
are breathtaking.”
Their latest, The Middle Way, with its Buddhist reference
point, is not an album to hold its punches. The video for
the single, “A White Deep Morning,” features an
innocent-looking school girl looking serenely out a window,
only to witness the explosion of an atomic bomb. With Japan
facing a growing nuclear threat from North Korea and contemplating
going nuclear itself, it’s refreshing to see typically
apolitical Japanese bands doing something topical.
Yokohama Blitz, Feb 11. See
concert listings for details. M
Photo courtesy of Smash
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editor at letters@metropolis.co.jp.
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