“Sayonara” is the debut single by Wah Together which features Phil Mossman (ex LCD Soundsystem), Vito Roccoforte (The Rapture), Steve Schiltz (Longwave) and front woman Jaiko Suzuki (Electroputas). On “Sayonara”, Infectious Japanese Yé Yé beats swipe right on noisy, noir-tinged motorik excursions to form a psychedelic garage-rock power couple at 45 rpm. “Sayonara” bids a fond farewell to sweet memories of a lost lover with skewed-but-sugary ‘60s pop melodies, swinging, big beat drumming and no-wave guitar rave-ups like The Runners Four-era Deerhoof raining on Broadcast’s Tender Buttons parade. Wah Together is an impassioned defense for a shared act of creation. Tracked spontaneously and principally live, “Sayonara” captures the immediacy and spontaneity of a group of musicians listening to— and playing off— one another with genuine affection, curiosity and joy.
On their debut LP, Let’s Wah Together, the NYC-based quartet revel in the communal delight that happens when happy accidents are caught on tape. Tracked principally live and in close quarters, Let’s Wah Together captures the immediacy and spontaneity of a group of musicians listening to—and playing off— one another with genuine affection, curiosity, and joy. From the skronk n’ stomp of “I’m A Swimmer” to the Japanese Yé Yé beat inflected “Sayonara,” the dense ear-busting wistfulness of “Teen Vito” and the storming acidic drive of “Out! Out! Out!,” Let’s Wah Together is a loud and commanding recommitment to the cooperative spirit and familial love that always marks New York’s most vital eras.
New York City might be a gilded husk of its former self, but Wah Together have blown out a hole in the sweat-stained wall, churned up the asphalt and uncovered untrammeled layers of the city’s garage/psych-underground. No mere ruddy-cheeked baby-band, Wah Together instead assembles a loose group of friends and musicians, each seminal to the city’s musical legacy. The band met-cute in 2019 at a “chance” jam session Mossman slyly arranged in his dark DUMBO basement studio roping in long-time friend and drummer Vito Roccoforte to play with guitarist and producer Steve Schiltz.
The sound the three produced that day was an emphatic mix of contorted rave-ups, feedback drenched space oddities and pulsating Krautrock but it might have only remained a sprawling and allusive project the three conjured periodically if not for Jaiko Suzuki. Suzuki, former go-go dancer, avant-garde percussionist and occasional Coney Island “mermaid,” leant vocals to a variety of projects but never really sung in a band until being recruited by her old pal Roccoforte. Suzuki’s voice, at once both effervescent and direct, digs into her bandmates tightly linked motorik and shoegazed jams, coaxing out hooks and adding ballast to the shattering volume they produce.
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Steven at Dedstrange.]