'Keeping their dreams, burning from the inside out to growing numbers'
toe Club Quattro
Shibuya, Tokyo
May 8th, 2007
By: Michael Lara
"Keep your dreams don't sell your soul... Be careful." 2000's 'XTRMNTR' classic from Primal Scream delectably encapsulates the united, protected focus of Tokyo's best-kept sonic surgeons whom are soon be inevitably disclosed with their forthcoming explosion on the White Stage at July's international market fair in Japan that is Fuji Rock (www.fujirockfestival.com).
Anatomically correct and super-sized in all the right ways and moments, this underground instrumental quartet of brotherhood that forms toe has been gaining momentum and strength since 2005's 'The Book About My Idle Plot On A Vague Anxiety,' the following year's 'RGB' DVD and last December's EP 'New Sentimentality.' Seeing their persistence wholly pay off in 2007 from years of commitment and 2006's opening for the likes of Facing New York at Shelter with long-time Japanese underground fathers, friends and Fuji Rock regulars Eastern Youth in the watchful admiring crowd, Takaaki Mino (guitar), cap-wearing Satoshi Yamane (bass), Takashi Kashikura (drums) and Nikka-man Hirokazu Yamasaki (guitar, verbal play) yet again make all doctors and patients in this house of Quattro happily proud in the robust health of this digit to be incorporated to your body for full living.
Beginning this communal operation of soul bearing and restoring, these gifted four doctors begin their nearly hour-long affair with "Innovation Alone". Seamlessly coagulating the hypnotic dissonant, yet melodic play of Yamane's stop-start anchoring bass, Kashikura's taut fills and the interweaving chiming stitching between Mino and Yamasaki's guitars as the latter howls at moments of epiphany, the legions of medical students gathered and enthralled by this generously given lab experiment roar. "I Dream Across The River" keeps the desired anesthesia from this unfurling jazz-infused wonderland alive and kicking in its ebb and flow as Yamasaki and Mino follow each other with precision as Kashikura and Yamane take matters on your body respectively at the same.
Forget the title, "All I Understand Is That I Don't Understand," this understated incision of humility shows just one shade of the medical brilliance of these four dispense as they impeccably time and share duties as this table is perfectly clean as our collective Quattro body duly accepts each incision from Kashikura, Mino, Yamane and Yamasaki for utter refreshment and rehabilitation. They could do brain surgery to any of the 600-plus present as this trust builds further in the rumbling, skipping convergence in determination that is "Past And Language" as all four surgeons happily engage, deep in another state of mind.
"Everything Means Nothing" holds Yamane, Mino, Kashikura and Yamasaki deep in their work awash the stop-start yet smooth incisions and sutures delivered to its resonant finish. The racing "I Still Do Wrong" continues this defiance in name as this precision is spot on as the body whole Quattro could never be happier at the touch-and-go, frantic yet clean strikes of this chapter within this multi-faceted operation duly replenishes our hearts, bodies and minds.
As Freddie so often and aptly said in one of Queen's finest, "Keep Yourself Alive!" Well, these four are listening to him and the world they serve in full as well with our bodies and souls vibrantly recalibrated alongside theirs. Will definitely be more than interesting next month high in the mountains of Japan at Fuji Rock when toe will hit the Fuji Rock slab just before The Shins on White.