Dream Weavers

We’re calling this a second marriage, basically,” Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto – the avant-garde alt. pop legends who burst into the collective conscious from New York City’s lower east side art scene – says about re-activating the band after an absence that spanned the bulk of the noughties. 

“The first time we did it, it felt more like meeting someone in high school and you get pregnant so you get married, y’know? Things were happening really fast and we just jumped into the water and tried to swim. But it didn’t feel like it was a conscious decision because everything happened almost too fast. So this time it feels a little bit more like we’re making conscious decisions with each other and conscious decisions about every step. Always asking ‘what do we do now?’”

That was the question Honda and Cibo Matto lead vocalist Miho Hatori asked after reuniting to play a benefit for the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims in March that year. The answer led them to play a US tour, open some dates for Wilco (Honda’s squeeze is actually Nels Cline) and, eventually, to write their first new material since 1999’s Stereo * Type A. 

Of the resultant album, Hotel Valentine, Honda says, “It was a bit of trying to capture the spirit of what we were doing in the past and also it was a bit of trying to do something new and different. Because the chemistry is definitely the same; it’s still the chemistry between me and Miho and that creative bond between us is still as strong as it ever was. But at the same time we have also spent a lot of time apart writing music, so we wanted to reflect on all of the things we did separately by making this record together.

“We wanted to write music that sounded more like our dreams. A thing Miho and I can do is kind of dream together; a lot of our album-making happens in a conversation where we sit around and talk about what we’ve dreamt. And it’s very abstract and we run away with our imagination, and I think this time, for the first time, we really wanted to go far with it. There’s two different versions of this band. There’s the album version of Cibo Matto and then there’s the live version of Cibo Matto. And there’s a lot of pleasure involved in both, but the live version is constantly growing and changing its shape. Every night it’s a little different. And we’re very blessed to be able to be playing with excellent players so we get to really explore just how far we can take Cibo Matto in the live situation… When you are playing live, you’re hearing the sounds through the air, vibrating, and it’s a more visual experience and it’s very exciting.”

Honda suggests Cibo Matto live is “always a lot of fun”. “It’s kind of uplifting and hopefully liberating and hopefully a little bit of thought-provoking,” she says.