Blonde Redhead
Biography
Moving from Sonic Youth-like art punk to eclectic pop over the course of their decades-long career, Blonde Redhead remained one of indie rock’s most creative acts. The band formed in 1993 after Japanese art students Kazu Makino and Maki Takahashi randomly met Italian twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace at an Italian restaurant in New York. (The name was taken from a song by the ’80s no wave band DNA.) With Makino and Amedeo on guitars and vocals, Simone on drums, and Takahashi on bass, the band’s chaotic, artistic rock caught the attention of Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, who produced and released the band’s debut album, Blonde Redhead, on his Smells Like Records label. Shortly after the album’s release, Takahashi left the band. The remaining members continued as a trio, releasing a second album, La Mia Vita Violenta, on Shelley’s label in 1995.
For their 1997 release, Fake Can Be Just as Good, recorded for Touch & Go, the trio was joined by guest bass player Vern Rumsey from Unwound. By 1998, the band eliminated bass and scaled back to guitars, drums, and vocals for In an Expression of the Inexpressible. Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons and the Melodie Citronique EP followed two years later. The band’s first for 4AD, Misery Is a Butterfly, was released in spring 2004. For 2007’s 23, the group opted for a mix of dream pop and delicate electronic textures. Three years later, Blonde Redhead delivered Penny Sparkle, a more stripped-down, even more electronic-leaning set of songs the band recorded in New York and Stockholm with Alan Moulder, Van Rivers, and the Subliminal Kid. In 2014, Blonde Redhead returned with Barragán, featuring production from Drew Brown (Beck, Stephen Malkmus, Radiohead).
The band revisited its early days in 2016 with the Numero Group box set Masculin Feminin, which collected Blonde Redhead and La Mia Via Violenta along with demos, singles, and radio performances from that era. That year also saw the release of Freedom of Expression on Barragán Hard, a collection of Barragán remixes including contributions by Deerhoof, Van Rivers, Nosaj Thing, and Connan Mockasin. Blonde Redhead returned with new music in 2017 in the shape of the EP ‘3 O’Clock’, which they released on their own Asa Wa Kuru Records.
Video & Press
The Shoegaze Revival Hit Its Stride in 2023: Blonde Redhead, Slowdive
[Pitchfork] The 30-year-old subgenre has found new life in the hands of indie rockers, digicore artists, TikToking teens, and reunited first-wavers. By Philip Sherburne A monkey in the zoo, defiantly staring down passersby. A woman trembling as she reveals her injuries from a horrific car accident. A lovelorn soul eating ice cream and crying. A masked and helmeted man smashing bottles in […]
Blonde Redhead, boygenius on Vogue’s Best Albums of 2023 So Far List
[Vogue] BLONDE REDHEAD, SIT DOWN FOR DINNER Circa 2000, I wore a groove in my CD of Blonde Redhead’s “Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons.” Now their new album Sit Down for Dinner is on high rotation on my Spotify account. Once a dream pop fan, always a dream pop fan. —Nicole Phelps BOY GENIUS, THE RECORD From […]
Blonde Redhead Are Inquisitive and Inviting on ‘Sit Down for Dinner’
[Exclaim!] By Dylan Barnabe Blonde Redhead invite you to share a meal on Sit Down for Dinner. Kazu Makino and twin brothers Amedeo and Simone Pace return with the band’s first new music in nine years, partly inspired by Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. The memoir, which Makino read in spring 2020, meditates on the sudden loss […]
Blonde Redhead Entice Ears Through Technicolor Melodic Lens On ‘Sit Down For Dinner’
[Glide Magazine] By Ryan Dillon The obnoxiously enticing pink that graces the cover of Blonde Redhead’s latest studio album sums up the music better than any paragraph could. The blinding artwork for Sit Down for Dinner exemplifies the sonic juxtaposition that flows through these songs. Plush textures that evoke the feeling of biting into a marshmallow get painted […]
Blonde Redhead Release “Melody Experiment”
[Paste Magazine] By Miranda Wollen Indie-rock three-piece Blonde Redhead are back with the latest single off their upcoming LP Sit Down for Dinner, out September 29 via section1. The hypnotically trippy “Melody Experiment” swirls and careens through a conversation between two interlocutors, one overly questioning and the other inching toward peace with their reality. Between the duo […]