“We’d have conversations with about it and they’re like yeah, Scritti Politti’s way better than Burial’. The band also cite Scritti Politti – the Marxist post-punks whose sleek 80s synthpop was like a British take on soul music – as an important reference point. Many are formative: as well as J-pop, there are the sonic accompaniments to Japanese culture like Pokémon and Super Mario the Eurodance that soundtracked many a 90s childhood (Cotton Eye Joe, Whigfield’s Saturday Night and Gina G), the latter of which were often underpinned by dancehall and reggae rhythms. But there are a few very specific ingredients in the band’s formula that make it feel so immeasurably right and gratifying to specific ears. Listen to Kero Kero Bonito, however, and it will become clear that “the perfect music” is subjective. We can just go: ‘Let’s make the perfect music’.” “And it’s like, ‘What’s the greatest level of craft we can attain by doing it DIY?’ There’s no reason it can’t be well-crafted as a Max Martin record or an Autechre record.
“The power of DIY in this day and age is almost the same power as a major label or massive corporation,” says Lobban.
Kero Kero Bonito – and their PC Music cousins – are very much DIY acts, which isn’t initially that obvious considering the sound they make is the opposite of the lo-fi guitar rock associated with DIY culture.īut now that professional music software has fallen into the hands of the great unwashed – and anybody can create a slick online image, everyone can make glossy pop. They still don’t live off the band’s earnings, though, instead preferring to channel it back in to their music and videos. Now, as they prepare to record their second album and go out on a European and American tour, the group is turning into a full-time job. Within months, Kero Kero Bonito had uploaded a mix to SoundCloud, which was picked up by London indie Double Denim and released as their debut album, Intro Bonito – strange, dazzling pop songs on topics including cats, dogs, parties, and the distorting effects of selfie culture, the following year. She “never had a singing background”, she says, but “wanted to try it, so I just jumped in.” The trio bonded over a love of J-pop, and Perry developed their half-Japanese, half-English spoken-singing style (she’s fluent in both), and most of the cute props the band use on stage.
They recruited vocalist Sarah Midori Perry via an online advert (“probably saying something really embarrassing like: ‘Do you like the B-52s and rapping and acid house?’” Lobban says). They decided to form a band in 2013, with the initial premise for their style being “minimal and international”, according to Bulled. Lobban and Bulled met as teenagers on the south London schoolboy band scene at the turn of the decade.
So in a track like My Party, it’s just bassline, vocals, super-clear message, some funny sounds and a tight structure – and that’s it. In retaliation, the band wanted to make “the most direct new pop music you could make”, Lobban says. “And we were just like, ‘What the fuck is that? That doesn’t speak to us’.” “A sea of twinkly production and noises, someone not really singing, and you can’t hear what they’re saying, and goes on for like 20 minutes,” is how Lobban sums up the likes of the xx, Four Tet and Burial. The band say their irreverent, high-concentration pop – which has seen them bracketed with the divisive PC Music collective (there are also more formal associations: Lobban releases music on the label under the moniker Kane West and the band put out a version of their debut album as remixed by various affiliated DJs) – is a reaction to the ruling class of electronic music. The Bay City Rollers aren’t the only touchstones of tedium in Kero Kero Bonito’s world.