Polysics
Hey! Bob! My Friend!
(hear it)

To listen to Polysics reminds me of the classic computational fun-time in which a person causes a computer to automatically translate a phrase into some foreign language, and back into the original. For example, "my hovercraft is full of eels" might become "my float-make is completely from eels". Or whatever. People enjoy such things.

One question is what phrase have Polysics and I translated into Japanese and back into English? What does it mean? Am I doing something qualitatively different when I listen to foreign interpretation of an interpretaion of my culture than when I simply listen to an interpretation of another culture? Or is it just a second recursion of the same process? Of course, Polysics is a much more active interpreter than, say, Shonen Knife, whose versions of Supremes songs would be indistinguishable from any American groups if not for the Japanese accent. Polysics has a specifically technological accent, and a perspective which distorts and energizes Devo and rockabilly and whatever else while retaining the pop song structure.

They also put on a killer live show.

bb, 12 may 08