Melt-Banana

1992–present·Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo two-piece-plus-whoever playing the fastest, tightest, strangest noise rock anyone's ever figured out how to sustain for more than one album. Yasuko Onuki's voice is somewhere between a war cry and a cartoon dog. Agata's guitar rig fills a warehouse. Thirty years deep and the records still land like somebody throwing a filing cabinet down a stairwell.

People

Yasuko Onuki
vocals

Melt-Banana's vocalist. Her voice is somewhere between a war cry and a cartoon dog — impossibly fast, percussive, deployed as another instrument rather than a melodic anchor. Onuki and Agata have kept the band's lineup a duo core for thirty years without the intensity dropping once.

Ichiro Agata
guitar

Melt-Banana's guitarist. Plays through a rig of effects pedals the size of a small city block, producing sounds that shouldn't be possible from six strings. Wears a surgical mask on stage. The riffs move faster than most bands can count.

Discography

1994

Cactuses Come in Flocks

Skin GraftLP
Discogs →
1996

Scratch or Stitch

Skin GraftLP
Discogs →
1998

Charlie

Skin GraftLP
Discogs →
2000

Teeny Shiny

A-ZapLP
Discogs →
2003

Cell-Scape

A-ZapLP
Discogs →
2007

Bambi's Dilemma

A-ZapLP
Discogs →
2013

Fetch

A-ZapLP
Discogs →
2023

3+5

A-ZapLP
Discogs →

Connections