Tokyo

Tokyo noise is its own entire universe — Boredoms, Keiji Haino, Merzbow, Ruins, Melt-Banana, hundreds more. This dataset barely scratches it. Melt-Banana are the touring ambassadors for the whole thing: relentlessly fast, impossibly tight, guitar tones that sound like a dial-up modem dying. Japanese noise rock owes less to the American lineage than you'd think — hardcore got warped into something more rhythmic and more extreme. Koenji, Shinjuku, Shimokitazawa — a thousand tiny venues, a thousand bands, a whole parallel noise rock tradition.