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Artist
MAMADRIVE
12+ albums
indiealternativejapaneseJ-rockmath rock
about
Mamadrive are not like other bands. Formed in Kobe and never tempted to relocate to the capital in pursuit of success, they are a band of integrity – but more importantly, they are a blistering rock band, a female-fronted power-trio with a dark, warm sound and brutality to spare. It starts with rhythm, an ingredient that many recent Japanese rock bands forget to include altogether. Drummer Manabu Ougi mixes up tempos and hits heavy, but never disappears into obscurity, keeping the songs tight and danceable and always thrilling. Bassist-vocalist Masako Shibuya (known to fans as “Mako”) capitalises on this with aggressive pop basslines, not too showy, just right to cement an energised groove. Maika Sasakawa’s guitar lines draw from classic Japanese alternative-rock bands such as Number Girl, throwing up jagged riffs one minute and psychedelic washes the next. Mako’s voice is Mamadrive’s other great weapon. She often sings the verses in sultry tone, false innocence dripping and collecting in pools, before she builds to a climax in hysteric banshee wails on the choruses. It’s a raw kind of passion, as direct and sexualised as her lyrics of erotic possession, angst and overwrought desire, of glorious dependence and glorious independence. After all, the title of their 2013 album Ai No Houchou (Knife Of Love) was inspired by Nagisa Oshima’s In The Realm Of The Senses, a 1976 film in which a forbidden love affair results in severed genitalia, while the title of 2014 EP Onna No Ana
