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All Music Guide:
Quite likely the most unapologetically artsy punk-related band since the early days of Sonic Youth -- when Kim Gordon was writing for Artforum, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo worked with Glenn Branca, and underground movie star Richard Edson was their drummer -- Japanther is not in the least bit afraid to get all conceptual 'n' stuff. Japanther was formed in 2001 by Matt Reilly and Ian Vanek, undergrads at New York City's highly regarded art school The Pratt Institute. With Reilly singing while playing a three-stringed bass as Vanek simultaneously attacked a drum kit and a bank of electronic equipment playing found and mutated cassettes, both of them singing into microphones fashioned out of old-fashioned telephone handsets, they're like a more playful and even more self-conscious updating of the late-'70s no wave scene, though a thorough rooting in the skatepunk scene as youngsters keeps things from getting too precious. After a 2001 self-released demo, Japanther debuted with the 2002 EP South of Northport, followed by the full-lengths Leather Wings and Dump the Body in Rikki Lake. After a second EP, The Operating Manual for Life on Earth, and a pair of split EP projects with Sneeze and Viking Club, the albums Master of Pigeons (2005), Wolfenswan (2005), Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty (2006), and Skuffed Up My Huffy (2007) followed. In addition to various multimedia projects with a variety of collaborators, Dump the Body in Rikki Lake and the concept album Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty (a loose retelling of the 1960s cult classic Wild in the Streets) were used as the basis of puppet shows in collaboration with Philip Huber, who designed and controlled the marionettes in the film Being John Malkovich.
Wikipedia:
Japanther is an art project, established by Matt Reilly and Ian Vanek, then students at Pratt Institute. Japanther was featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial and the 2011 Venice Biennale, and has collaborated with a diverse pool of artists such as gelitin, Penny Rimbaud, Gee Vaucher, Dan Graham, Eileen Myles, Kevin Bouton-Scott, robbinschilds, Dawn Riddle, Claudia Meza, Todd James, Devin Flynn, Ninjasonik, Anita Sparrow and Spank Rock. Japanther has made its name with unique performance situations, appearing alongside synchronized swimmers, atop the Williamsburg Bridge, with giant puppets, marionettes and shadow puppets, in the back of a moving truck in Soho, and at shows with giant dinosaurs and BMXers flying off the walls.
Recent installations include The Phone Booth Project at Clocktower Gallery in New York.
'Described most recently as “art-rock installation paratroopers” and “a studied form of New Wave anarchism” by Flash Art, a “Performance Galaxy” by Vanity Fair, “Super hard, incredibly fast and overall inspiring” by Thrasher, “more accessible than other bands of its genre” by the New Yorker, and “the best band ever, straight up” by Tokion. Japanther has always been a band apart, running the gamut from performance art to punk rock and back again. Pushing parties to the limit ("Lincoln Center punk-rock concert turned mini-riot” -New York Post), Japanther returns in 2011 with Beets, Limes and Rice, a celebration of ten years in the underground and an ultra-contemporary meditation on "catharsis and being in love in a time of darkness.". Following on the heels of Rock ‘n’ Roll Ice Cream (2010), Beets, Limes and Rice was again recorded in the hills of Los Angeles with producer Michael Blum, who has worked with Michael Jackson, Madonna (Like a Prayer, Who’s That Girl), Pink Floyd and Suicidal Tendencies. From Venice Beach to Rockaway Beach, this new album delivers a new urban punk rock dance sound that bursts with California sunshine and amped-up collaborations with Ninjasonik, Erick Lyle, Total Warr and John McIntyr. Beets, Limes and Rice was written in the midst of "It Never Seems to End," an 84-hour performance piece in Vienna, Austria for TBA 21; in Paris, Venice, during cross-country travel from Juarez to Brooklyn to Bellingham, and lots of airports in between.
The band's latest album, Beets, Limes and Rice, was released on October 18th in digital and vinyl format from Recess Records, on CD from Japanther's own Tapes Records, on cassette from Lauren Records, and by Seayou Records in Europe. The artwork for the album was created by Monica Canilao, whose art focuses on craft, reclaimed materials, and “the meaning of home, the power of collectivity and the imprint history has left on me.”
Japanther’s next project is a November 2011 residency culminating in a performance at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC). Japanther’s performance is commissioned in conjunction with Quote Unquote: Experiments in Time-Based Text, an interdisciplinary series presenting work by artists that use an existing text as a departure point for installation, film, and performance. For this new performance, Japanther presents an analog narrative of grand scale utilizing performance, live music, and animation, inspired by Walt Whitman’s The Mystic Saxophonist.
