Rockbites: Buffalo Daughter release first LP in three years

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March 2002 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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Buffalo Daughter release first LP in three years
8 March 2002

Japanese electronic/vocal trio Buffalo Daughter (SuGar Yoshinaga on vocals, guitars, and TB-303 synth bass; Yumiko Ohno on vocals, bass, and mini-moog; and MoOog Yamamto on turntables) released this week for North America their fifth studio full-length, titled simply 'I', on Emperor Norton records. It follows their 1999 breakthrough album New Rock, now out of print from the defunct Grand Royal label but available as a Japanese release.
    'I' sees the band more confident, more musically mature. It is gentle but intriguing, at once chilled out and psychedelic, with lots of strings and lovely vocal harmonies mingling with electrobeats and processed guitars.
    There’s a full menu of musical references over the set’s 13 songs and 50 minutes, evoking (among many others) Philip Glass, Lush, Cocteau Twins, The Flying Lizards, and ’70s disco and ’90s industrial rock in general.
    If 'I' is a sonic animé, the first and second tracks (Ivory and I Know) are the backing tracks to the opening credits. Track 3, the heavy and electronic Earth Punk Rockers, sets the first and defining scene: a sterile, sci-fi, post-apocalypse cityscape bristling with danger and possibilities:

“What will we be, what will we see? There’s still a chance to seize - It’s well in grasp. We’re the earth punk rockers!”

    The remaining songs seem to be a reminiscence of many of the genres and ages of the rock era, filtered through the post-traumatic eyes of a dreaming survivor as she tries to recall all that is no more. With this sort of exceedingly clever premise (uh... if indeed they had this in mind; consider it a serving suggestion), the radically varying tracks all follow a common thread and become a whole much more than its component parts.
    'I' is sterile but juicy, dreamy but intense. Three bites out of five.

Rockbites ratings  5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying.

Buffalo Daughter toured Japan in January and are planning a US tour for late spring. | Buffalo Daughter | | Buffalo Daughter on Emperor Norton | | Five Minutes (full length MP3) | | 'I' from Amazon US | | top of page |

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