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picture by
Teppei Miki |
I really start to enjoy doing these little write ups about Japanese
bands, it's a real challenge to get proper information and I love
it.
No No No are a trio from Ibaraki, Japan, they started in 2009/2010
(taking influences from the Swedish band
Nödslakt, maybe after they saw them live or met them, not clear but I read
something about it), released a live tape, had a break of several years
for personal/job reasons, got back together and have been seriously
rocking for four years or something now. Sakai, the drummer, is
also involved in
Kili Kili Villa, a
label
and
webzine
covering the DIY scene, and in
Vogos, another band in which drumming does not sound challenging at all.
No No No made the cover and were interviewed in El Zine #47 (THE punk
zine in Japan, you can find a few old issues in
pdf on archive.org
if you're interested and read Japanese), if anyone got a link I'm interested.
Ok let's give it a try!
No No No's four-track demo is the only release of the band's first period (roughly one year long between 2009 and 2010). It's obviously a live take but it does sound pretty good.
The trio delivers some classic Japanese hardcore punk, a bit shaky but
full of energy and reminiscent of the classics that everyone quotes when
it comes to Japan (The Comes,
Lip Cream
etc...) even if it doesn't really sound similar, but above all No No No recalls another female-fronted band from Ibaraki, the excellent
悲鳴
(Himei)
which was active around the same time.
More than seven years later (early 2018), No No No self-releases Cutting Edge, a ten-track CD (whose artwork makes me think a lot of the Little Prince for some reasons).
Based on the first track only you could think that the trio took it off
exactly where they left it so many years ago with a not-so-fast classic
kind of hardcore punk, but, as the following songs quickly show it, the
tempo has increased "a little bit".
You see speed, fastness, "velocity" (or whatever you wanna call it) is a
state of mind in punk, there is the "normal fast", the "super fast", the
"ripping fast" and the "insanely fast" (and probably others for that
matter)... and the one we're facing today is probably close to the
insanely fast level, the one you mostly meet in genre bearing barbaric
names like grindcore or power violence (or quite simply fastcore). And of
course when you got a Japanese female-fronted band playing at that speed
there is only name that can pop in your mind:
Melt Banana
of course!
Yes yes yes Melt Banana... a band that totally destroyed the
limits of the mental universe the word music was filling in my then
teenager brain, many years ago now...
But Cutting Edge is not just about super power-violence-fast
tracks, there is also the slower and very good
Sensitive Song whose "melodic" vocals are pleasantly surprising,
the mid-tempo instrumental Shadow, the almost 2-minute long
No No No which starts like an anthem and explodes in a more
"conventional" hardcore punk way as well as
Vanished (Into the City), the last track, whose slow and "scary"
bassline beautifully concludes the album.
To be honest I've found this album a lot more surprising and enjoyable
than what I was expecting, it's a good record!
A bit later in 2018 got out Live Fast, the first No No No 7", released by 悲観レーベル (Hikan), a label run by one of the member of 悲鳴 (Himei).
Eight tracks that finally allow the band to demonstrate their mastery of
speed and anger, tracks that benefit from the best recording quality the
band has had access to so far and that are, in the end, more than a
demonstration but a proper lesson in technical mastery.
Technical mastery yes, but not at the expense of spontaneity and real
listening pleasure, No No No has perfectly understood the
importance of "breaks", of pauses to let breath, of the "low" intensity
parts that make the "high" intensity ones even higher and more efficient,
in one word the importance of carving in full and hollow.
And that's what totally blows me away in this record: ok it's insanely
fast and angry but it's so much more than that! It's diverse, it's
"melodic", it's sad and desperate but most of all it's not boring for a
sec. I mean listen to the beautiful break of Live Fast, to the bass
break of No End In Sight and of course to the so beautiful and
surprising Upset which recalls the 90s grunge / Riot
Grrrl scene...
I'm definitely impressed... I don't think I've ever heard
something like that.
2019: No No No, 経血(Kei-Ketsu)
and Eyescream (to not be mistaken with the indonesian or russian bands of the same name), three furious female-fronted hardcore punk bands from the Ibaraki
and Miyagi areas, team up on a three-way split released by
Break The Records
and
Foad Records
and called
Croon A Lullaby
(and I absolutely love the cover artwork).
You should absolutely check out the whole record as all bands are quite
good but I will only focus on the one I'm interested in today if you don't
mind.
Well I didn't think it was possible but it really does sound like the
trio is playing faster than ever (these guys won't stop astonishing me).
What can I say?
Yes it's faster, rawer, crazier and probably better than ever!
Four tracks for a total of less than four minutes and a half, I think I
can say that No No No know how to keep it nice and short. And once
again it's well balanced, the breaks are just where they should be, the
"insanely fast" parts are absolutely insane and just long enough and there
is even a beautiful, but short, sung part on Silver...
It's just super good... once again...
(the Fynal Tokyo project is an initiative of the punk
photographer
Teppei Miki)
The Indonesian label Gerpfast Record released this Raw Live Fast Tape in summer 2019 and it's exactly as described, it's a raw live recording of a bloody fast band. I'm not a big fan of live recordings but this one at least has the merit of showing (once again) that the band's speed is not a studio affair and that seeing this band live can only be a mystical experience. 12 minutes and 39 seconds, that's a decent show length.
I'm glad I've wandered around that page though, thanks to the label
recommendations I've discovered another Japanese gem,
the all-female band
Otoboke Beaver
from Kyoto (don't dare tell me that you're not impressed by
THIS!)... damn it looks like I have a lot of catching up to do on recent Japanese
punk...
2021: here is what is described as No No No's first full-length;
released on tape by
Gerpfast Record
(with a collage artwork by
Luna Kadima
from the Spanish band Satélite)
and on CD by
Kili Kili Villa
(with
a different cover). It will also probably be their final release as they announced the end
of the band in December 2020 (I hope I understood that right).
The label announced really clearly that there was no digital version
(for now or at all, I'm not sure) so as surprising as it can sound in 2021
it means we will have to do with the two tracks (out of fifteen) which
were posted on YT for now...
And despite a small line-up change (new bassist), it doesn't sound like No No No has decided to give up and sell out...
Can't Live In The Past's video was made by Teppei Miki (him again!) with his own pictures and based on an idea taken from the Obliteration's Mind Ain't Right video.
I will update this post if the digital version finally shows up by any chance...
N,J'Oi!
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