As Trent Reznor might put it, they came back haunted.
It was three years ago that Cibo Matto, the Tokyo-via-NYC duo of sound-shaper Yuka Honda and vocalist Miho Hatori, resumed their creative partnership, initially for a summer tour that landed the pair on a triple bill at the Hollywood Bowl. More than a decade had passed since they issued their last (but only second) album, Stereo*Type A, a pale facsimile of their trendsetting classic of the mish-mash ’90s, Viva! La Woman. That ear-opening mélange combined elements from the past (rap, dance, Talking Heads), the then-present (trip-hop, acid-jazz) and the near-future (Hatori was doing the M.I.A. thing well before Ms. Arulpragasm was monogramming albums), leaving behind a still-cool blueprint for later indie dance/pop/hip-hop hybrids to follow.
As with the game-changing collages of Beck, their sonic brother from the West Coast during that era, time has caught up with Cibo Matto; Coachella is annually littered with twosomes, threesomes and moresomes all trying to sound just like them. Yet, as evidenced by both their new work Hotel Valentine (released on, when else, Valentine’s Day) and Sunday night’s terrific hour-long performance for a capacity crowd inside the Observatory’s Constellation Room, none of their stylistic offspring are making such modern and idiosyncratic music so guilelessly.
Yes, it’s hard to know just what their new self-described concept album is about, apart from merely presenting the moods and encounters of a “10th Floor Ghost Girl.” Is she recounting her own death (perhaps in an “Empty Pool”) and afterlife at the hotel, or is she sharing observations of the current occupants? Or both? Is she haunting an actual hotel with living visitors, or could it be she’s caught at a spiritual halfway house?
Seeking out answers makes as much sense as separating individual strains of Cibo Matto’s sound. What matters is how the entirety hits the senses. For as quirky and exotic as Honda & Hatori’s artistry is, it’s packaged and delivered in the best traditions of Japanese cinema, with effective minimalism and refreshing straightforwardness but also evocative imagery and open-ended philosophy.
“Having spent some time apart,” Honda said in a press release accompanying the new album, “we became more aware of our magical chemistry, our magnetic bond. We both realized we had unfinished business.”
So they essentially picked up where they left off, forging into uncharted digital terrain while hanging onto a map leading them back to where they started. Just as Hotel Valentine feels like a project that could have surfaced at any point in the 15 years since their last recording, the fluidity of their eclectic approach – skillfully bolstered by bassist Jared Samuel and drummer Yuko Araki – showed sublimely in Santa Ana Sunday night in a 14-song set evenly divided between then and now. (The play again tonight at L.A.’s El Rey Theatre.)
The latest morsels on Cibo Matto’s menu are arguably more engagingly complex, from the roiling 7/8 feel and Zappa-esque surrealism of “Emerald Tuesday” and the polyrhythmic asides of “MFN” to the glitchy ambience of “Empty Pool” and softer pop of “Déjà Vu.” But the eager-to-groove Constellation crowd understandably cheered loudest for food-filled tunes we haven’t heard live in a long time: the spectral strut of “Sugar Water,” the disco-spy feel of “Spoon,” the snapping kick of “Sci-Fi Wasabi,” the hopped-up rush of “Birthday Cake.”
All told, a delicious sampling from a one-of-a-kind café we’re grateful has reopened.
Main set: Le Pain Perdu / Sugar Water / Spoon / Check In / Sci-Fi Wasabi / MFN / Emerald Tuesday / Moonchild / Working for Vacation / Déjà Vu / Empty Pool / 10th Floor Ghost Girl
Encore: Housekeeping / Birthday Cake
Photo: Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer
Contact the writer: bwener@ocregister.com
