AMID a sea of anaemic pop, New York quartet Asobi Seksu have emerged as a cool explosion of mind-bending riffs and soulful wisps.
Fronted by coquettish Japanese-American singer Yuki Chikudate, Asobi's crazy, infectious soundscapes have quickly born comparisons with such pop/rock royalty as Bjork, Sonic Youth and the Smiths.
"We like to mix things up," says Chikudate, as she lounges in a London hotel room on a rare break in a European tour which will take them to Glasgow this week. "I guess you could say that trying to define us is like putting a square peg into a round hole as far as scenes go."
With Chikudate and guitarist James Hanna forming the heart of the band, alongside bassist Glenn Waldman and drummer Keith Hopkin, Asobi have quickly gained attention with a sexed-up brew of post-punk, dreamy pop and psychedelic rock and two impressively catchy albums.
Named after the Japanese colloquialism meaning "playful sex", New York's best kept secret have been playing the East Coast scene since their formation in 2002.
A "risky musical experiment" meshing Japanese and English lyrics, the classically trained, Brooklyn-based Chikudate says the reaction to their music still shocks her. "When I first came on board with the band, I thought I was coming in as the keyboard player, happily hidden away at the back. But I was nudged up front and the idea of incorporating Japanese lyrics into the songs came into play.
"I was worried at first that people would not emotionally connect with what they couldn't understand but having that element has given us quite a unique, playful aspect, which people seem to find interesting."
Current darlings of the American press, the New York Times has praised their "blaring, shimmering, multi-layered guitars" and "well-made pop melodies." And whether batting off comparisons with late Eighties shoegazers like My Bloody Valentine or trying to emulate Sixties girl groups such as the Shangri-Las, Chikudate says that as a band they simply play with the sounds they enjoy, instead of focusing too much on the endgame.
"We tend to veer our love from soul sounds and French pop to Sixties girl group stuff and today's Japanese indie bands: often something begins as one thing and takes a journey in a totally different direction, that's part of the fun of it.
"Sixties girl groups had such a cool presence but at the same time we're all pretty inspired by more recent musicians like Bjork too, so it leaves the field pretty open to us."
For all their playfulness, at Asobi's heart lies something strangely melancholic and insightful. Even their track 'Strawberries', sung completely in Japanese and inspired by one of the band getting food poisoning, has a surprisingly emotional resonance that begs a second listen.
"Part of our sound is tied into the unknown, from the mystery of the Japanese lyrics to the fact that our genre is pretty indefinable," says Chikudate. "By being as diverse as possible, we try to show what we can do across the board, whether it's constructing a musical story from the simple, beautiful things in our everyday life or more playful sounds that just make people want to jump around."
Indeed, says Chikudate, while making the music gives her great pleasure, performing it live provides an equal buzz. "There's nothing better than getting on stage for that first song and seeing a sea of people with their arms folded and a slightly bemused look on their face and then the transformation an hour later, when they are jumping around like mad things, not sure how they got there with our crazy setlist.
"It doesn't get any better than that." v
• Asobi Seksu plays King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow (0870 169 0100), Tuesday, 8pm. 'Strawberries' is released on November 12
www.asobiseksu.comThe full article contains 645 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
