Tomorrow arrives today!  Japanese Television – the UK’s ‘No.2 Space-Surf Band’ – open the door to the future with their second album – Automata Exotica

Release Date:  22nd March 2024

Label: Tip Top Recordings

Formats: Vinyl / Digital

Every so often, an album comes along that collects strains from all the music you’ve ever known, remodels it, runs it through a car-wash and relaunches it as something new, fresh and ready for the new age.  Automata Exotica, the second album Japanese Television – the band that bill themselves as ‘The UK’s no.2 Space-Surf Band,’ is one such album.  It takes slices of Krautrock, Northern Soul and 70s prog rock, dust the mixture with assorted flavours of Joy Division and Stone Roses, extracts any sense of yesterday’s weariness and delivers eight instrumental tracks that ooze intrigue and burst with vitality.

Japanese Television formed in London in 2017 – a bunch of like-minded musicians, all with a penchant for the likes of Can, Circle, Neu and Brian Eno.  The band are: Eléa-May Bonnet (bass), Tim Jones (guitar), Al Brown (drums) and Ian Thorn (keyboards).  This time out, they’re also given a helping hand by extra drummer Kevin Barthelémy and keyboard/harp player Riko Fango.  They’ve been turning a few influential heads with their unique musical blend – of that, there’s no doubt, with figures that include Steve Lamacq and Marc Riley, and publications like NME and Clash falling over each other to lavish their praise.  And, on the evidence of Automata Exotica, such praise is thoroughly due.

The band say that the material on Automata Exotica is “informed by UFO encounters, ritualism, robots, Northern Soul and nuclear weapons” and, believe it or not, those inspirations come across loudly and clearly – quite an accomplishment on an album that is entirely instrumental.  The album was recorded live to tape in three all-night sessions in Homerton, East London, by Kristian Bell, frontman with The Wytches – another of the UK’s psychedelic surf outfits.  Japanese Television guitarist Tim Brown provides an insight into the sound that the band were after: “We wanted to make a tighter, more compact record.  We whittled the songs down to be as lean as possible.  All the tracks are first or second takes, all of us recorded live playing together, with limited overdubs.  No fat, just the energy captured.”  And those are objectives that have been met.  110%, I’d say…

And if, after reading Tim’s manifesto for Automata Exotica, you’re left in any doubt with regards to what he means, then those doubts will be blown to shreds by the first bars of opening track (and current single), Golden Birds – they’re a statement of intent if ever there was such a thing.  The keyboard backing shifts and surges as Tim’s clunky guitar holds the listener’s attention.  Eléa-May’s bass is rock-solid with a few throaty slides thrown in for good measure and Al’s drums run riot.  Think of The Stone Roses’ debut album after it’s been force-fed steroids and clipped to an electric fence, and you’ll get the idea.

Tim suggests that, with Typhoon Reggae police, the album’s lead single, the band have achieved a sound reminiscent of Link Wray playing in ‘Afghan Elvis’ Ahmad Zahir’s band – and I can honestly see where he’s coming from.  Behind Tim’s echo-y, spacy guitar, there’s loads going on – tinkly keyboards, percussion a-plenty and it’s all built on a bass foundation of solid concrete.  Inspired by “3am drives in the group van, listening to a Nigerian funk compilation,” Death Waltz II is, in so many ways, the kind of tune that encapsulates what Japanese Television are all about.  It’s a tune that spans the decades – in this case it combines a Hank Marvin-like guitar figure with the keyboard innovation of The Doors to come with something new and remarkable.

Inspired by eyewitness reports of UFO sightings and encounters with “beings with large black eyes coming from a silver disc that had landed nearby,” Ariel School Sighting takes the 60s naiveté of The Tornados and Telstar and mixes it with a healthy dose of Rain-era Beatles.  Eléa-May’s bass is as whoopy and loopy as Paul’s was – she even takes over the tune’s driving seat for a short spell – whilst Ian captures that special Joe Meek vibe on his keyboard and Tim fills in the gaps.  Tim and Ian elucidate: “[The sighting reports] describe the unnerving, juddering way the beings move, which I (Tim) tried to relay with a heavily-deployed, shuddering guitar line.  We were aiming for the right combination of robotic and groovy – that’s a recurring theme for the whole record – so obviously we went with a bossa nova feel.”

We’ve already heard quite a bit about the album’s Northern Soul influences, and those influences are particularly prevalent on Fantasia.  The band’s description of the track as “a Northern Soul stomp in a space-surf style,” is right on the nail for a tune that coalesces around a fast-flowing, soulful, thudding bassline and a tight, crisp drumbeat, whilst sparkling guitars and glittering organ assume the responsibility of beaming Wigan Casino all the way up to Mars.

According to the band, the take-no-prisoners fury of Uranium Knights was inspired by the no-frills r&b of bands like Dr Feelgood.  Likened to “an unstoppable army of nuclear weapon-equipped robots charging across the desert,” it is, without doubt, the most frantic track on the album.  Tim’s guitar licks bridge the primitive electric experiments of the early 1960s with the post-punk thrash of the late 1970s, whilst Ian and Eléa-May and Ian lock horns as the pace gets crazier and crazier.

It’s been brief, but, by heck, it’s been a breath of fresh air.  It what has seemed like no time at all, we’ve reached the album’s closing track, the spacey foot-tapper, Tabadaboum.  The title is a made-up French onomatopoeia, intended to replicate the sound of the tune’s main riff.  I suppose it does – well – to an extent, at least.  Eléa-May employs a Joy Division twangy tone for yet another stonking bassline, Al ‘s drumming is as manic as it’s been throughout the album, whilst Tim and Ian deal with the serious spacey stuff, and there’s a further echo of The Stone Roses, particularly during the tune’s layered outro.

Link Wray, Northern Soul, The Beatles, Hank Marvin, The Tornados, Dr Feelgood, Krautrock, Joy Division, The Stone Roses and even a few ventures into the territory previously occupied by Genesis, Yes and ELP – all brought stunningly up-to-date by Japanese Television…  Automata Exotica is a superb album; Gosh! I feel sooooo refreshed!!

Watch the official video to Golden Birds – the album’s opening track and the current single – here:

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