Word: mattos
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...drums and bass, he makes his solo debut next week with Into the Sun, an album that should lift him from the purgatory of hereditary celebrity and establish him as a promising if not fully matured songwriter. Produced by his girlfriend and roommate, Yuka Honda of the band Cibo Matto, the album explores a single subject: their love affair. This may sound familiar, yet Into the Sun has a sturdy, radiant optimism all its own. Home and Bathtub, two of the finest songs on the record, are typical: Lennon uses the warm sounds of acoustic guitars and glowing synthesizers...
...churning, mid-tempo guitar rock (Lennon's guitar work was blunt and unobtrusive). Ono's best moments came on Will I--a mournfully pretty spoken-word piece--and on Rising's anthemic title song. For the latter, she was joined by the Japanese-American hip-hop duo Cibo Matto, who added some energy and emotional focus (the pair also appear on an enhanced CD of Rising featuring remixes of Ono's songs as well as graphics that can be accessed via a CD-ROM drive). As the music swelled, Ono sang, "Listen to your heart/ Respect your intuition...
...cliche that music is the universal language. Often, in fact, it is an expression of what divides us--Shania Twain and Tupac Shakur don't share much of a crossover audience. It's therefore a delight to encounter two engaging, offbeat new rap groups, the Japanese-American duo Cibo Matto and the Haitian-American trio the Fugees. Neither makes overtly integrationist music--no hip-hop covers of We Shall Overcome--but both of them cross cultural and musical boundaries to create a sound that is bold and fresh...
...Cibo Matto's blissfully oddball music, by contrast, is free of any overt social agenda. The duo's impressive debut album Viva! La Woman is a seductive mix of hip-hop beats, jazzy instrumentation and goofy yet provocatively surreal lyrics. "The velocity of time turns her voice into sugar water," sings lead vocalist Miho Hatori on the genially bizarre Sugar Water. Food--apples, artichokes, white-pepper ice cream, beef jerky--is the album's constant, almost perverse preoccupation. "When Miho and I used to hang around before we started this band, we became close friends because we love...
...everyone will relate to updating Sammy Davis Jr.'s schmaltzy Candy Man, but Cibo Matto puckishly turns it into an eerie, atmospheric dirge. Like the Fugees, Cibo Matto provides a twist on rap, a genre in which groups seem to have the shelf life of yogurt. No need to try to identify the taste--from Tokyo or Trenton or Port-au-Prince. As Hatori sings on Cibo Matto's Birthday Cake: "Shut...