myspace band of the week

Girls like things that are pretty and smell nice, which is the only intro I can come with for the four girls of INCENSE.

INCENSE formed in 1998 with Aki and Maki and two other people who left the band.  They mix together ambient and experimental music with shoegaze.  It might come off as alarming that they just throw all those elements together in “Aquamarine,” but it gets better.   “If you (for Yoshiki)” and “I love you now” are nice ambient tunes.  You almost can’t tell that they’re whispering  in the background.  “I Miss You” and “Christmas” are borderline twee pop.  They’re not exactly catchy, but they’re trying. “I don’t care” probably describes their music best.  If you don’t like their music, they don’t care.

But my favorite song of the bunch is the appropriately titled “Backwards,” which plays the song in reverse (along with “Side B”).  It’s creepy, distortion filled, and fascinating.  I’m not sure where my love of songs played backward came from.  It must be from that classic episode of Eerie, Indiana when Marshall’s friend buys a record by some hair metal band and it starts playing backwards late at night and turns him into a rebellious punk rocker.

It doesn’t appear that INCENSE has actually released any albums in the past 12 years, which is a shame.   I guess the next best thing is to catch them the next time they play in Tokyo.

http://www.myspace.com/incensejp