Psyched! Fest 2025 Ends with Melt-Banana at Cornerstone

by Roy Scopazzi

I’ve never been an enormous fan of the genres used to describe Melt-Banana. One of these is “Noise” Rock, which always felt like a lazy cop out. Obviously all music is “Noise” but it’s supposed to vaguely describe a kind of atonal cacophony that separates itself from more normalish music. “Experimental” also feels like it sells them short, as experimenting could refer to nearly anything when you’re innovating a sound of your own. The truth of the matter is that seeing them live at Cornerstone felt like a stripped down version of a rock band. The only two members are Ichiro Agata, whose guitar wails pierce through every thing, and Yasuko Onuki, whose chipmunk-esque vocal is both easily recognizable but also at the same time shoved into the fuzz and distortion.

The midi-controller she wields acts as the drummer, and the way she moves it’s almost an extension of her arm. She commands attention with it like a conductor’s baton, and even though it’s always in view, trying to notice when she actually pushes the button was more difficult than I thought. She’s always moving around the stage nervously with her hair covering her eyes around half the time and her thumb seemingly does all of the work setting up each and every drum beat, each of which moves at lighting speed. They haven’t had a proper drummer since 2013 and their album Fetch, and it allows them to write drum parts that would make even the most seasoned veteran pass out in minutes.

Deaf Club was right before them and they put on their own incredibly fast paced hardcore punk that easily got the crowd going.

Coffin Prick was the second band up and while not as incredibly loud or fast paced as the bands that followed them, they still brought a lot of energy to rev up this show. Also their name is Coffin Prick! That in itself is an eye opener.

And finally, DREAM_MEGA opened up the show with a fascinating performance of improvisational synth and voice, along with a hulusi which was a first for me, but I’m always for seeing unconventional instruments in concerts.