Indie alert

Butter 08 and Buffalo Daughter have arrived

by Matt Ashare

Talking Head David Byrne issued the prime directive of multinational, multicultural postmodern pop a decade ago: "Stop making sense." But this year it's the Beastie Boys who seem to be pushing that aesthetic most openly, not in their own music but in the two latest bands -- or, more accurately, projects -- they're endorsing through their Capitol-affiliated label Grand Royal. The label's two new recruits, NYC's Butter 08 and Japan's Buffalo Daughter -- who are both on a tour that comes to the Middle East this Saturday, September 7 -- definitely favor dining à la carte from the postpunk menu of pop, rather than just buying into a prepackaged meal.

Eschewing the verse/chorus/verse conventions of rock that even the alternative nation has willingly embraced and liberating the pop song from the confines of genre is always a perilous business. If you take it too far the result will sound strained and/or unintelligible, which is not really what Byrne had in mind. Don't push far enough and you'll end up with just a novelty act -- and the Presidents of the United States of America have already filled that slot on this year's playlist.

Butter 08 are blessed with a membership that more or less precludes playing it too safe. The girls of Cibo Matto, singer Miho Hatori and keyboard/sampler wiz Yuka Honda, hooked up with downtown drummer Russell Simins of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion when they needed someone to tour behind their fab debut, Viva! La Woman (Warner Bros.). It worked out so well that they built a band around the combo. Rick Lee, who plays scrap-metal percussion in the noisy, rhythmically intense NYC outfit Skeleton Key (who open the Middle East show), joined on guitar. And graphic designer Mike Mills, who is not the guy from R.E.M., came in on bass.

It's hard to imagine this cast of characters producing anything too straightforward. But for all its stylistic leaps and fusions, from suave French Europop to buoyant electrofunk to faux hardcore punk, Butter (Grand Royal), the band's debut, is a lot more focused than you might expect. The disc opens with Simins -- who sounds as if he could provide emergency power for the World Trade Center in a pinch -- pounding out a dexterous, driving beat on top of which Mills deposits some spare, rubber-band bass notes and Honda inserts a single repeating piano note. Before long they've segued into a confrontational chorus with Hatori screaming "I don't want no nine millimeter" and Lee thrashing on his guitar. The next track, "Shut Up," welds some spacious house-music keyboard riffing to a funky Blaxploitation groove replete with wah-wah rhythm guitar. Simins handles the vocals, Hatori offers a multitracked chorus of cute girl-group harmonies, and Honda fills out the break with a rich, fluid Hammond-organ solo.

That's just the start of Butter 08's invigorating sonic experiment, in which each strain of pop the band encounter is treated like a strand of recombinant DNA. There are a couple of straight genre ripoffs/tributes. "Degobrah" is a fast and noisy burst of hardcore that features a spoken-word lecture in which Simins shouts, "Don't look at me/I'm not a role model/Do something with yourself!" We'll assume he's kidding. It's harder to gauge whether "Mona Lisa," a study in linear, drone-pop minimalism, is a straight-faced ode to Stereolab or an inside joke. Either way, with its overdriven organ riff, automaton beat, and austere, emotionless vocals, it's a dead ringer for a Stereolab outtake. By the end of the disc, Butter 08 have touched on acid-rock psychedelia ("Hard To Hold"), welded a metal guitar solo onto a brassy bossa-nova-style rave-up ("Dick Serious"), and blown some bubblegum into the mechanized gears of an industrial noise jam ("Butter Fucker").

Buffalo Daughter don't have the chops to pull off the kind of bold and reckless tour de force Butter 08 achieve. They do manage to sound quite a bit like Stereolab in the opening measures of a song called "Silver Turkey," which rapidly veers off into an intriguing mix of death-metal riff rock and bubbly pop vocals. But on their Grand Royal debut, Captain Vapour Athletes, this trio (Sugar on guitar/vocals, Moog on "turntables," and Yumiko on bass/electronics) lack the power and focus it takes to fuse these disparate elements.

Buffalo Daughter have fun playing around with their Moog synths on the instrumental interlude "Dr. Mooooog," laying twangy surf guitars on top of circular synth riffs ("Cold Summer"), and doing lo-fi, space-rock deconstructions of Devo ("Brush Your Teeth" and "LI303VE"). And because you're never sure what's coming next, Captain Vapour Athletes is great the first time through. But once you stop making sense, you've got to find something to replace it. Buffalo Daughter may be on the right track, but they're still searching.

Butter 08 and Buffalo Daughter play the Middle East this Saturday, September 7.