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Your lyrics might have some mean cuisine references, but they are no match for the queens of “crazy food”, Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto.
In a year that has seen an uptick in long-overdue returns to the national stage, from Neneh Cherry to the Afghan Whigs, for longtime fans of the Downtown NYC artpop scene, the return of these lovely ladies after a 16 year absence comes as a particularly pleasant surprise. And the surprise follow-up to 1999’s Stereotype A does not disappoint in the least, as the ladies make LP no. 3 a concept album about ghosts in the halls of a fictional hotel.
Backed by an absolute money session group that includes Yuka’s husband Nels Cline on guitar, his fellow Wilco bandmate Glenn Kotche on drums, Atoms for Peace percussionist Mauro Refosco and my old buddy Jared Samuel of Superhuman Happiness on keys, Cibo mine the odder ends of modern R&B radio for such key cuts as the Salt-n-Pepa saluting opener “Check In”, the Lorde-esque “Empty Pool” and “Housekeeping”, a song that finds Miho trying on a Young Money-esque flow for size. Elsewhere on the likes of “Emerald Tuesday” and “Lobby” stand tall as some of the most sonically rich and complex work of their twenty-year partnership.
New York City might have changed a thousand times over since the last Cibo Matto LP. But as Hotel Valentine attests, the spirit of old school downtown is alive and well in the heart and soul of its most gifted adopted daughters.
