Japanese Math Rock pioneers LITE rework their recent seventh album for a live audience.

Release Date:  15^th May 2024

Label: I Want The Moon

Formats: Digital

Formed as long ago as 2003 in Tokyo, LITE are a pioneering group of exponents of the genre that some observers like to call Math Rock.  Generally recognized as one of the most exciting bands to emerge from Japan in the last 20 years, LITE – Nobuyuki Takeda (guitar & vocals), Kozo Kusomoto (guitar & synth), Jun Izawa (bass) and Akinori Yamamoto are all highly skilled practitioners.  They’ve toured extensively in the USA and Europe as well as in their Japan/ Asia homeground and their 7^th full-length album, Strata, was released in January 2024.

And here’s where the story starts to get a little complicated, so bear with me….

Either they keep getting new ideas that they feel can’t be omitted from their product, or they’re keen to take their admirable perfectionism to the point of obsessiveness; whatever the reason, it seems that LITE are not easily persuaded to let sleeping dogs lie.  Let me explain.  Earlier this month, LITE released the second version of Strata – Strata (Bonus Version) – a reissue of the January album, expanded to include an additional song, Sousa.  And now, barely two weeks later, comes a third version of the album, this time a live recording.

Details surrounding this latest offering are a little thin on the ground – I’ve been unable to identify when, or where, the recording was made.  The venue sounds like it’s a fairly intimate one and it also sounds like LITE are performing the songs in front of a committed audience, judging by the whoops of recognition that greet most of the numbers, and hearty applause that each song earns.  Be all that as it may, this live performance of Strata is a deeply rewarding listen.

The songs are performed in the same order as they were sequenced on the original album, so it’s Upper Mantle, a short introductory collage of bubbly synth and scatty keyboard sounds that gets this live album underway.  The segue into Deep Inside brings a Hawkwind-like space theme into play, as barely-decipherable spoken-word vocals introduce a fast, rocky tune, awash with Yamamoto’s crazed drums.  And the audience love it!

Repetitive and full of excitement, the spluttering Crushing is an early album highlight.  It’s an engaging tune, especially once Izawa’s bass – sometimes deep and resonant, sometimes trebly and trilling – joins the party, and it’s that same precise bass that provides the funky, even ja zzy, drive to Thread, another of the album’s outstanding tracks.  And, it’s Izawa once again who starts the ball roiling on the aptly-entitled Dark Ballet, a sinister-sounding tune with a distinct Beefheartian feel about it.

Sosue, the only track not to appear on the original issue of the Strata album, is a frantic affair indeed.  Surpassing 190 BPM, it’s now officially recognized as the fastest song in LITE’s history, and it’s definitely a breathtaking piece of music.  The band merge to form a single entity around Yamamoto’s Dervish-inspired drumming and I was left wondering how on Earth LITE could even contemplate following such a hyper-powered number.

But, follow it they did, and they gave the gentle Endless Blue the onerous task of bringing their listeners back to solid ground.  It’s a piece of sequencing that works; Takeda’s vocals are delivered to a soft keyboard backing, before Yamamoto steps up the pace once more to transform the song into a lush jazzy number.  And then – another change of mood: Breakout is a surprise detour into classic rock territory.  Yamamoto covers every inch of kit, Izawa lays a solid foundation and Takeda’s and Kusumoto’s guitars riff contentedly on a deeply satisfying tune that rocks along at lightning speed.

A bookend to the album’s opening track, Lower Mantle reintroduces Kusumoto’s bubbly synth on an intriguing tune that becomes quite rocky – in an ELP kind of way – without ever falling into the ‘noodling’ trap.

And so, to close the album, the futuristic Left Unsaid sees LITE exploring territory that is certainly closer to that trodden by Gary Numan than by any of the album’s other detectable (or imagined) influences.  It’s actually quite a poppy tune, despite the undercurrent of sizzling synth and the dystopian vocals, and the final couple of minutes almost recall the closing credits of an epic movie.

When I sat down to listen to Strata (Live), I admit to having felt a little outside my comfort zone but, as I listened, I felt that comfort zone expanding to welcome the sounds I was hearing.  Strata is that kind of album; maybe it could the same thing for you…

And, to introduce Strata formally to their European audiences, LITE are about to embark on their 2024 European Tour.  Following appearances at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton, UK, on 16^th and 17^th May, they head off to the mainland for shows in Denmark, France, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and Luxembourg, then concluding the tour at The Portals Festival in London on 25^th May.

Watch the official video to Endless Blue – a track from the album – here:

LITE online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / X (formerly Twitter) / YouTube / Spotify

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