“SHUT UP AND EAT!”
Cibo Matto was a band formed in New York City in 1994 by Japanese ex-pats Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda. They first came onto my radar via a rave review in Spin Magazine for their 1996 debut album Viva! La Woman, and the first song that I heard from them was “Apple” when I was lucky enough to catch it one night on Brave New Waves (via the CBC). Soon after I got the album from Columbia House, and it was love at first listen. Hip-hop-inspired sound collages, a combination of singing and rapping (in a second language) and the distinctly nineties production team of Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake are all prominent, though of all the arbitrary categorizations of their music, “avant-pop” is probably the one that fits best. And the lyrics (and almost every song title) reference food, which is appropriate given that the band’s name purportedly means “food madness” in Italian.
“Birthday Cake” was the first single from the album (in spite of containing some obviously radio-unfriendly lyrics), and while “Sugar Water” (with its brilliant Michel Gondry-directed video) and “Know Your Chicken” are probably better known, “Birthday Cake” remains my favorite Cibo Matto song.
Have a great night thread, Avocado!