By Daniel Rafferty, First Year, Maths and Philosophy
The internet has changed music forever. The instruments are the same, yet anyone with a TikTok for-you-page similar to mine could relate to the deep, unnerving feeling that there’s a different hand plucking the strings. At some point in the last twenty years rock bands moved out of their parent’s garages and onto our phone screens, where word of mouth is replaced with virality, live performances with 20-second videos, and whole albums with post-able snippets. Mass of the Fermenting Dregs sit firmly in the middle of this divide, not quite an organic, homegrown indie rock band rooted in a musical community and not quite an overnight viral success.
Whilst they have the fervor and vitality of a new band, Mass of Fermenting Dregs have in been around for a while – formed in 2002 as an all-girl band, the only remaining member is lead vocalist and bassist Natsuko Miyamoto. They spent their first 10 years within the insular boiling pot that was Japan’s millennial indie rock scene, growing their audience through shop-window-posters and taking inspiration from bread-and-butter Japanese rock acts such as Number Girl and The Pillows.
They dissolved in 2012, expecting their music to slowly fade into obscurity. By the pandemic, their streaming numbers were off the charts. ‘Our YouTube comments were all in English, and we didn’t know why’ says drummer Isao Yoshino in the documentary ‘World Is Yours’. The Internet was breaking down musical circles and pushing music from Japanese recording studios onto Western ears.
In 2022, they played their first festival outside Japan in Fernhill Farm, just outside Bristol. Walking into the Fleece on Tuesday however, Mass of Fermenting Dregs are not the band initially on my mind. Waldo’s Gift, the chosen openers, are a Bristol-based math rock trio with an act that demands my attention and consumes it like a vortex.
The band seems less like they’re creating music rather than controlling and molding the stream of red-hot noise that flow from their instruments. The band has such an intense sense of animation that not even the drummer can stay in his seat, frequently getting up to emphasize either the catastrophically ground-shaking beat-drops, or the oceanic ambient section with an impassioned monologue.
The sense of freshness their music suggests is not an illusion either – in fact, the band had written a song specifically for the night and frequently seem to erupt into prolonged improv sessions. The talent on display is raw and bloody, and the sense of violent catharsis it provides has the crowd eager to experience the main act.
Mass of The Fermenting Dregs is a band with only three members, yet their live sound goes far beyond this relative shortage of instrumentation - vocals, guitar, bass, drums and something else, an elusive musicality and presence that is difficult to describe but impossible to ignore. The trio opens with three songs off their iconic 2009 EP ‘World is Yours’, songs which are at once chaotic and impulsive and sharp and intelligent, Naoya Ogura’s twangy Stratocaster riffs which slice the air leave the audience gasping for breath. One can tell from only the audience’s reaction alone that these songs are their masterpieces.
After the room settles down and the chaos of the opening songs subside, Natsuko turns to the audience with a smile seems to contain within it the feeling of the entire gig – without an understanding of the rambling Japanese sentences that pour out of her mouth, the band’s feelings of joy and gratitude are felt implicitly. From the back of the room a drunk fan yells ‘daisuke!’ and the compliment is returned.
They continue through their catalogue of newer, post-reformation songs, which maintain the lucid energy of their earlier work, albeit with a sense of maturity and creative restraint. Whilst the new music is ostensibly very similar to that of their pre-internet breakthrough (the classic indie formula of one singer, one guitar, one bass, one drumkit), there is an sense in which this widening of physical horizons has widened their musical horizons as well.
Imogen Day
They deliver an 8-minute long instrumental from their 2022 album, Awakening:Sleeping, in which the guitarist begins to resemble Johnny Greenwood in more than just his haircut. Through a combination of masterful playing and use of effects pedals, he makes the guitar sing, contorting the instrument into a vehicle for all manner of sounds, giving the performance an air of experimentation that is missing from their raw, early sound.
The band leave the stage after performing the title track from their 2009 EP. The audience erupt into chants of ‘one more song’ and Mass of Fermenting Dregs take to the stage one last time to perform ‘delusionism’, the first song off their first EP, released back in 2006.
The world is smaller than it was when that song was released - Japanese indie rock, no matter how groundbreaking or inventive, would never be found in such an intimate Bristol venue. ‘delusionism’ might just be my favorite Mass of Fermenting Dregs song, and hearing its beautiful guitar riff being playing only a few feet from my face reminds me that in a world where artists are being continually pushed around by the demands of our new digital culture, the internet can bring the musical world together just as much as it can push it apart.
Featured image: Epigram / Daniel RaffertyHow do you discover new artists?
