Gallery/review: Cibo Matto tastes better with age

Kelsey Heng on
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Cibo Matto-18

Story and photos by Kelsey Heng

Sugar water rained heavy on Monday night at the El Rey Theatre as Cibo Matto resurfaced after a long and dry 15-year hiatus. Supporting their new album”Hotel Valentine” – which might have been the best thing to happen on Feb. 14 this year – Yuka Honda and Mito Hatori have picked up where they left off.

The band, formed in 1994, comes across as a wildly intriguing combination of ethnicity and sound. After all, they are a band based in New York, fronted by Japenese women, with a name that means “Crazy Food” in Italian, who continually meld avant-garde synth breakbeats with jazzy hip-hop for mass appeal.

The night began on a nostalgic note, as the duo started with “Sugar Water,” the beloved hit from 1996’s album “Viva! La Woman” that came with an even better music video directed by Michel Gondry. Cibo Matto cast a hypnotic spell over the crowd, the mellow pace only deviating when Hatori broke away from her sweet vocals to interject short rapping. For a band that rose to fame through a ’90s music video that featured the tale of life-sized magenta chickens gone rogue set to jazz trumpets in step with the colorful choreography of two grinning Japanese girls, the show’s visual performance paled in comparison.

Through new and old material, the crowd tried everything they could not to blink. Whether they were new supporters grateful to have the chance to see this mystically weird pair perform, or longtime cult fans who felt a personal connection (Hatori thanked Los Angeles for the city’s initial support two decades ago), everyone was hungry for whatever they were to be fed.

After their jazz-infused “10th Floor Ghost Girl” and that long encore plead, the women returned to the stage in matching “Hotel Valentine” maid outfits. The first chords of “Housekeeping” earned a deafening reaction. Finally the crowd’s dancing matched the vibrant electronica beats as the night ended in mass sing-along to “Birthday Cake” with fists pumping along to screams of “extra oil and MSG.”

For those who mumbled their disappointment over not seeing Sean Lennon, former bandmate and label owner, take part in this reunion tour, Rivers Cuomo’s appearance in opening band Scott & Rivers was some consolation. The Weezer main man and Scott Murphy, from band Allister, threw in a “Buddy Holly” cover for good measure – but in Japanese, of course. Salt Cathedral, a New York synth-pop group, opened.