Cibo Matto Announce October Aussie Tour

New York-based Japanese expatriate avant-garde trailblazers Cibo Matto have announced that they will be making their inaugural visit to Australia for a three-date run of shows this October.

Comprised of the formidable pairing of Miho Hatori and Yuka C. Honda, Cibo Matto have long been a venerated fixture of the New York avant-garde scene, since both women met in the city in the 1990s. They would release two widely noticed and critically acclaimed full-lengths that decade – Viva! La Woman in 1996, and 1999’s Stereo Type A – as well as swiftly becoming inextricably involved with the Lower East Side art scene alongside contemporaries such as Sean Lennon, the Beastie Boys and John Zorn.

Over the course of their colourful, genre-bending career, the duo collaborated with the likes of Yoko Ono and French director Michael Gondry, and even popped up on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, before announcing an extended hiatus in 2001.

In the ensuing decade, Honda kept busy with experimental works and collaborations, as well as stretching her production muscles, while Hatori dropped a solo album, collaborated with Beck guitarist Smokey Hormel and percussionist Mauro Refosco, and filled up her calendar with guest-vocal appearances for luminaries such as the Beastie Boys and Gorillaz.

The ladies are back in the saddle now, though, and with third studio full-length Hotel Valentine freshly doing the rounds in the wake of its release earlier this year, they are primed and ready to bring Cibo Matto’s unique undulations to Australia for the very first time.

“Having spent some time apart, we became more aware of our magical chemistry, our magnetic bond. We both realised we had unfinished business,” Honda said, in a statement, of the reformation and ensuing sojourns.

Said Hatori: “Hotel Valentine is the cinematic bricolage of Yuka and me. Our medium is music. For me, making an album is like raising a child. We don’t know what kind of person (story) they will end up to be.”

Cibo Matto’s inaugural Australian tour gets under way at The Zoo, in Brisbane, on Wednesday, October 29, and includes shows in Sydney and Melbourne. See the Gig Guide or check The Music App for all the details.