Cibo Matto

Cibo Matto, Italian for "crazy food", started in New York City in 1994 when two Japanese expats, Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda, cooked up a band that sounds like a record shop run through a blender. Hatori sang and handled guitar and percussion; Honda ran the keyboards, organ, harpsichord, synths and, crucially, the sampler. Their debut, Viva! La Woman, arrived in 1996 with songs almost entirely about food, and the Super Relax EP, home of "Sugar Water", came the same year. It sold better in America than it did back in Japan.

By 1999's Stereotype A they had grown into a full band, adding Sean Lennon, Timo Ellis and Duma Love, and widened the subject matter to match. "Sci-Fi Wasabi" is the calling card: trip-hop beats, acid-jazz swing, Shibuya-kei cut-and-paste and a sly grin running through all of it.

Then came a hiatus of nearly a decade. Honda and Hatori got back together in 2011 for shows and new songs, signed to the Japanese label Commmons in 2014 and put out their third and last album, Hotel Valentine, that same year. They called it quits in December 2017.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.