The Happy Band of Japan
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REVIEWS AND PRESS
Coke Machine Glow review of Allotment
UKULA, Canada/UK
Throwawaystyle Blog
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Singer-songwriter Dan Scott and his wife, performance artist Trish, had up until recently been releasing CD-Rs from their flat in Brixton, South London—records that infused pop-sensibility, pastoral psychedelia, and Boredoms-esque noise into a deliciously harmonious jumble. As always, the necessities of work and the gray squalor of London began getting in the way of creativity, but, determined to keep Happy Band of Japan alive, Dan and Trish decided to up sticks and relocate to sunny Barcelona. Their new found home sees them rejuvenated and renewed: tracks have been rolling out, they’ve been touring through Spain and Germany and, along the way, picked up a drummer, Sergio, and a bassist, Jerome.
Allotment is the culmination of all this frenetic activity, the Happy Band of Japan closing the door on their previous incarnations and setting a keen eye on the future. Beginning with news coverage about city workers commuting away from London, “Your Introduction” breezes in, literally, like a fanfare—a chirpy brass led acoustic song, a missing instrumental from Nixon (2000) walking in the sunshine. In comparison, the bare “The Mean English Eye,” which frames Dan’s croaky Ian McCulloch baritone with a shuffling Talking Heads bass and bubbling electronics, is positively nocturnal. As this trips into the dissonant shoegaze-fixated “I Was Moving On A Different Plane” it’s clear the scope of Scott’s compositions has developed by bringing in other players. Dan could previously sit erringly close to whimsy, but now there’s a muscularity and edginess which pulls Happy Band closer to early-Boo Radleys territory.
As if to illustrate this point, two early compositions are dusted down and reworked: the lovelorn “The Question,” and “Sunshine To The Brain,” now titled “Sunshine Reprised (…everything became the same and stayed that way forever).” ”The Question,” originally an effects-laden harmony fest, has now mutated into a dub inflected ballad with chiming afrobeat guitars allowing the truly heart-warming lyrics to shine through: “I built her wings out of beautiful words / And I lifted her up with a kiss full of seashells.” “Sunshine” is transformed from it’s beginnings as a simple mantra into a sea-scaped kiss-off replete with rolling surf, gongs, bird song, and warm spacey pads which close the album on a luscious honey-dewed note.
Which isn’t to say that Allotment is not entirely without fault. There are a few moments when the psychedelic tone can seem like overkill. The title track, with its repetitive varispeeded vocals against a backing of guitar scales and found sound slightly overstays its welcome, especially after the similarly drone-based “June Is The Beginning Of The Summer.” But, thankfully, there are many more moments of absolute joy—like “School,” in which Scott’s plucking style and singing voice take him into jazzy inflections that Cat Stevens or Leo Kottke would be happy with. And, from tiny beginnings “Tiny Meadows” blooms with filtered harmonies, fuzz-tones, and tabla into a reflective beauty. Even the narrated “Market Town,” with its chopped and sampled banjo/vocals, has a rootsy charm, although its wry observations about satellite towns and shop names, delivered in Scott’s unapologetically blunt accent, may be meaningless to anyone outside of the UK.
Ultimately, Allotment shows the Happy Band of Japan’s progression from cottage industry into fully-formed band. And, with its narrative themes of nostalgic images of youth, UK life, and promising tomorrows, it acts as a dazzling beacon of the beatific imaginings and sonic experimentation yet to be fully nurtured. Until then, take the time out to enjoy and cherish them, even contact them through their Myspace—they may let you in on that equally rich back catalogue.
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These Brits get everywhere, they do. For every member of minority group in the UK there's a UK citizen in some far corner of the world. For every Polish immigrant breaking his back to earn a good life for his family, there's some miserable old couple sitting in a bar in Malta complaining that the food's too greasy and that they can't get a proper cup of tea. For every overseas student in London there's a fat bald hooligan shouting English because that way he thinks he'll be able to be understood. And for every Mediterranean restaurant owner in Manchester, there's some drunken English teacher trying to impress the locals by pretending to be a music journalist....or something. Dan Scott isn't like that. Dan Scott is happy.
Dan Scott is in Spain in a band. Dan Scott is The Happy Band of Japan. And he has every reason to be happy, too, as since he started making music - at the age of 11- he's been creating some of the most luscious, up lifting music you'll here this side of Benidorm. With a mixture of influence ranging from the pop - Beach Boys, Kinks - the sophisticated - Richie Hawtin and Scott Walker and the just plain strange - The Boredoms, and My bloody Valentine - The Happy Band of Japan sound like a mission to bring together all that's sunny and bright and turn it, like a sonic alchemist, into something beautiful. Their first, home-recorded album is available on iTunes and is a collection of sublime pop doodlings called Sunshine to the Brain. But wait a minute, Sunshine? Happy? Leaving dark grey London to go to Spain? Isn't this all a bit too much? A bit sugary? From the sound of it, one should be throwing up after about half way through the album. But this isn't it, like the greatest British Pop, The Beatles, Belle and Sebastian etc. Happy Band of Japan are more than just some sweet melodies.
Take the track Sycamore Tree (available for free on their myspace site www.myspace.com/happybandofjapan ). The track starts with sea sounds, bells, chimes and the breath expressive voice of Dan backed, assumably by himself, in an almost do-wop styling, before a change in time signature a driving bass and more layered keyboard sounds. Happy Band of Japan don't play instruments, they assimilate them. They find them lying about the house, mic them up and then make them an integral part of the music that surrounds them. This is more than happy pop songs, this is a sound track. Recent live performances in Bremen German have helped this distinctly trans-national group gain a wider European following, once richly deserved for the work put in. Likewise, reviews in the British press, the Guardian for example, and increasing radio play, seem to point towards a sun-filled future for our enigmatic, but happy, friends. So, if they are recording a soundtrack, what are they recording a sound track to? My guess is their forthcoming album is going to be a soundtrack to your summer 2008.
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Words: Nick Scammell
Dan Scott grins as he remembers: "We played on an articulated lorry [truck] trailer being pulled by strongmen down a tiny country lane - that was the coolest gig we ever did." Having abandoned the cold and gloom of London for the warmth and life of El Barça, the brains behind the Happy Band Of Japan is muy tranquilo. "In Barcelona ... people don't mind if somebody spray paints a picture of a cat having sex with an alien." He marvels. "But I do miss England: the miserablism and the dry humour."
Stimulated by these changes the Happy Band recorded a clutch of new songs, collected on their recent, self-released album, 'Primary Colour Pop'. "It's big: but not in a bombastic way," says Dan. With pocket psych-pop symphonies like 'It's Not Love' and 'Shout It Out' balanced by the sleepy, starlit sway of 'Sycamore Tree' and the vamping, mutating anthem 'Your Head Lets In The Rain,' the Happy Band look to have found some distinctly odd territory in between My Bloody Valentine, Toto and The Byrds to call their own. Melodies and shape-shifting rhythms tangle and dance about this record while tunes slow down, speed up, change direction and generally appear to have lives of their own, which Scott and his partner in crime (wife, Trish) compress into three minute rushes of beautifully twisted music.
Listening to the Happy Band brings adjectives like exotic, heartfelt, drop-dead beautiful and perfect pop rushing into the mind. Que piensas, Dan? "It's English psych pop, not chest-beating rock. So it's quite melodic, but it's also got vulnerability and a bit of humour. It's like three minute strange pop songs."
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UKULA
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Word: Rosie Swash
A few years back, newly weds Dan and Trish Scott grew tired of the unshakable grayness and high cost of living on offer in London and decamped to Barcelona to make music and be happy. All the cheap living and sunshine has had nothing but a positive effect it seems as, under the guise Happy Band of Japan (they are happy but they're not from Japan), the couple took their array of influences, from the Alan Parsons project to Kanye West, and managed to amalgamate them into one harmonious, joyous lump. According to Dan, they make "epic yet flawed English psychedelic pop",
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Rockbeatstone Review of Primary Color Pop
Words Daniel Westerburd
As you may already have guessed, this band is not of Japan. They are actually from the UK, but live in Barcelona (hey, if I lived in the UK, I would move too). No problem there. Neither do they sound particularly happy. This could be perceived as a problem for a band who cite The Beach Boys as a primary influence. OK, I know that The Beach Boys' songs were never really as happy as they sounded when you really delved into their deeper connotations. But I digress.When considering the sound of the Happy Band of Japan, I was more convinced by another cited influence: The Sunburned Hand of the Man. A band who have been criminally ignored, largely because a lot of their music is un-listenable. However, the portion of it which is not, is fantastic. Again, I digress.
As you may have noticed, this debut full-length release from these ex-pat Brits does not do a great job of holding one's attention. That is not to say it's boring, the opposite is in fact the case, the music is simply very dense, and not as easy to really absorb as one initially is led to believe. There are no easy hooks or sugary, repetitive choruses. There is some serious complexity here, and that can't be a bad thing. One thing is for sure: it is anything but boring.These nine tracks do not sway lazily, but lurch through lots of different sounds, moods and influences. A case in point is ‘Shout it Out' which flashes you a shamelessly cheesy 80's synth intro before morphing in an organ-driven verse, before the whole thing descends into a stew of melodic distortion and electronic doodling. At the risk of defining yet another useless subgenre, I would file this CD under "Surfectronica". It's got plenty of twinkly 60's acoustic guitar and swooshing sounds in the background, but buried deeply behind subtly menacing electronica.
The lyrics are unusual and fit well with the bizarre soundtrack, the production has deliberately not brought the vocals to the foreground, but most of them seem to be about love and/or dying. Just as well, in my opinion. There are enough happy-clappy records around anyway. Shame it doesn't quite manage to grab you upon the first listen, because by the time it does, you'll probably have given up. Your loss, I guess.
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This month we caught up with Dan, from the The Happy Band of Japan, who make sensationally skewed pop. Here's what he had to say.
IN: To start with, you could tell us about how the Happy Band came together. Indeed, what is the happy Band of Japan?
D: It started with the name and the rest came after. It's been me writing and recording for three years with anyone whose might be available. Releasing some cdrs and stuff. The first CDR was called the Occidental Confusionist. Now it's a full band with five members. From England, Italy and Canada. No one from Japan I'm afraid.
IN: Given your extensive musical tastes, why do I feel that sunny, slightly wistful pop is the medium most important to you?
D: Slightly wistful? We're not into "slightlys". I'd rather people thought the music was heavily wistful...Does it suggest we're lightweight? I hope not. This music is made to touch you deeply. In a warm, melancholic but eternal kind of way. Besides I can't do anything else. The Happy Band of Japan will go on for years. We've no plans to quit and become landscape gardeners or anything like that.
As for sunny... The sun is important. The best gods are always sun gods. There is a sun worshipping element to this music. And pop is just good music. All the best music is pop. Faust were pop. There's no real difference between Abba, Can and Missy Elliot. Pop is the just good stuff with no authenticity hang-ups.
Its tricky. In years to come when Time Team (British archaeology programme – do you know it?) start digging up music they'll find us and under all the weirdness they'll find a series of small pop walls. We can't help it. Its what comes out. Sometimes we use white noise or cheap drum machines or feedback or recordings of lions but it always comes out pop. Which is cool. I'm way more pop than rock. Rock is boring. Rock is pleasant noise. Radiohead are boring to me. Pop is more kacky and annoying.
Anyway, personally speaking I was brought up on Alan Parsons Project and the Eurythmics as much as Beatles, and the cool shit like VU, My Bloody Valentine, Sun Ra, Miles Davis and whatever else came later. We have a soft rock heart.
IN: Amongst those influences I see David Axelrod and Julian H Cope; why those two in particular?
D: David Axelrod because I have one of his albums and its just beautifully arranged but somehow groggy around the edges. I love that 70s orchestral funk sound. The Love Unlimited Orchestra are just incredible. It's like MBV or Boredoms or Animal Collective or good house records. Just huge rushes of sound.
Julian Cope's the other end of the spectrum I guess. When I was 10 I bought Peggy Suicide. I don't know why. I'd started getting the NME. It blew me away. I remember playing it to a friend during my first week at secondary school and they had no idea. Two years earlier it was all BMXs and maybe acid rocknroll was a bit much for some 11 year olds. I started early. I still really like Julian Cope. His writing got me into Krautrock and stuff. I stand by him. He has integrity. There's a few of those folk I like. Robyn Hitchcock, Robert Wyatt, Kate Bush. Proper English weirdos. Really cool songs too.
Julian Cope is also interested in the whole Gnostic process which I'm fascinated by from a creative perspective. Mythology – Joseph Campbell, the White Goddess, all that. It all creeps into the music some way or other.
IN: Does living in Barcelona (which I'm sure is a kind of ecclectic's heaven) help with the creative process?
D: Yes - its cheap and full of energy. And it has the sun of course. I feel way more English here though. It kinda sharpens your identity. Also you can be here and say 'I make music' without people thinking you're only a step up from eating babies. That can happen in England.
IN: What is it about the Japanese musical tradition that interests you?
D: Dunno! The name was a coincidence. We're English and Japan's one of the few exotic places left in the world. Having said that we love Boredoms, japanese punk and the Flower Travellin Band. Me and Trish also love Spirited Away and those Mirayaki animations... the music is very beautiful.
IN: Any nice recipes?
D: Apart for the one for slightly wistful pop, don't ask me. James, our drummer, makes ace sushi and Luca, the guitar player, is Italian so I'll ask them and pass on some tips.
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