Sounds from Underground / File No. 69

Great noisy stuff from Romania. The story is about the group called «Makunouchi Bento» and we gonna trip into their world. Another wonderful psychedelic trip. From the eternal music journey with love.

1. Name of the band

Makunouchi Bento.

2. Where are you from?

Piaţa Bălcescu. Piaţa Unirii. Timișoara, Romania, specifically.

3. What kind of instruments/equipment you use? Do you use some particular record technique? Which is your method of composition?

Computers and software, mostly. Reaper is our DAW of choice, we use Native Instruments Kontakt a lot, Reaktor and many other VST instruments and effects - some of which we also betatest or help developing. We record our own field recordings with a Zoom H4 and Olympus LS-10. Sometimes, we play around with iPad apps and various toy instruments, acoustic or electronic. Not sure if our "method" of composition has a name, call it Dinsdale if you wish. We make music, we experiment with sounds, pass audio bits forward and backward until we're pleased with the mess we made. One thing is sure, we experiment a lot and we are having fun.

4. What do you think about the music context nowadays and how you place yourself in? Do you feel a part of any scene?

We don't really feel part of a particular scene nowadays. 15 years ago, we were indeed part of the netlabel scene. Or simply, _the_ scene, as they called it. Today, almost everything is online, a lot of music is computer-made, the line between genres is increasingly fuzzy. We listen to tons of music, but never found anything that sounds really similar to us, so we're probably a small speck of dust in the big "music scene". And feel ok about it. 🙂

The music context? Well, a lot of music is being made, thanks to the available technology. It's easy to release it, even independently, to reach a potential audience. In the same way, it's very easy for people to discover new artists and interesting music, without paying attention to the mainstream media. The negative effect of all that, however, is that music became less valuable. Having so much music everywhere around, and being "bombarded" from all sides by artists trying to promote their stuff, people tend to care less. We won't complain much about it, though, we're mostly doing it for ourselves.

5. Do you think that nowadays has still sense talking about "underground"?

Not really. It made sense when the major labels and mainstream media used to control which music reaches the wide audience. Since the rise of the Internet, everything changed. YouTube can give birth to bigger "stars" than the major labels, independent artists can have millions of fans, electronic music DJs can (absurdly) become superstars - what are we talking about? Can you draw a distinct line between mainstream and underground anymore? Does anyone still care about it anyway?

6. Do you play live? How public react to your music?

We do, now and then. Our music is more quiet and contemplative, it's certainly not for dancefloors, so our audience is mostly made of people who like to sit down, listen and daydream. We don't have loud hyped crowds, but smaller groups of quiet music lovers. Never had girls flash before us, while playing - that's the drawback. 🙂

7. Genesis P-Orridge said "Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant.". What do your records represent to you?

Who's Fashion? 😛 Our music doesn't have enemies. We live in perpendicular realities. There are some Japanese monsters in there, but they're certainly tomodachi! What do our records represent to you? That's the question! 🙂 And yes, we are dramatic but not "P-Orridge dramatic", you know...