Stranger Corners: Praha Depart

Though the furthest physical distance I often travel while writing is to the refrigerator to grab a Kraft Single to nibble on (the life of a blogger!), I do take on all sorts of endless journeys across the Internet, specifically the wasteland known as MySpace, in order to find exciting Japanese music. For the most part, the majority of pages exist as a Firefox tab for about a minute at most, quickly discarded the moment it becomes clear I’ve found yet another rock band equating “alternative” with “boring Weezer rip-off.” Thankfully, my reckless clicking has led to plenty of good discoveries (at least in my opinion), which you can read over the 30-some pages of this blog.

The rarest occurrence (besides being paid for this BAH-DUM-BING) comes when I find a good band that’s also kinda out there and near impossible to explain in words besides “whaaaaaa.” Enter Praha Depart. Leaving me at a loss of adjectives, this band claims “new wave” as the appropriate tag of choice but listening to their recorded output throws that one into question. The shrill “Akiko Song” tightropes between downright annoying and hypnotic, a stream of chirped vocals matched up against a manic set of guitars and percussion. Even more of a challenge to approach is the seven-minute long “Bird Strike.” Set against sharp-strike guitar, Praha’s lead singer again breaks out a guaranteed-to-be-divisive voice, but this time in an unflinchingly raw style. Her singing, impassioned as can be, becomes the center focus and wows because of it. It’s a strange little epic one wants to write a lot about but finding the right words becomes a monumental task.

Which is to say….wahhhhhhhhhh?!