Super Junky Monkey

Screw Up (Sony Japan)
by Karl Geising

Remember a time in our not-so-distant past, when the entity that aroused America’s ire was not the liberal Zionist oppressor-government but the Japanese? When fear of an imminent Asian economic takeover was enough to send the rednecks and good ole fashioned white trash folk into near-Nazi nationalism? Remember “Buy American” bumper stickers? Well, they were right. Japan is going to rule the world. When America is nothing but a burnt-out wasteland of decomposing race wars, Japan will be going through a Golden Age. And they’ll do it not because they’re sneakier, not because they stole our ideas and ran with them, but because they’re better than we are. Because they deserve it. Anyone in the know will tell you that Japan is the place to be: They’ve long since surpassed us, not only in technical prowess, but in snuff films, animation, entertainment, action movies, and all-around fucked-upedness.

If you need proof, listen to the new CD by Super Junky Monkey – which has to be the worst name for a good band that’s come about in a really long time. The opening song is a bastardized cross between the Boredoms and Steve Reich, and it gets better from there. They combine the blender-music aesthetic of Zorn and their Jap-noise equivalents with the Kraut-rock noodlings of Faust. Not that there’s not pop culture music aplenty; most of the CD echoes with white-boy funk, while other parts are reminiscent of Napalm Death (as on the 11-second song “Revenge.”) No, it’s not without its flaws, and not everyone will like it; but at its best, it still kicks the shit out of anything put out this year on this side of Estonia.

Fuck it. I’m learning Japanese and moving to Osaka.