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Japanese dream pop originators, Sugar Plant return with their first album in 18 years!
Japanese cult band Sugar Plant return to release a full album. It seems that in many countries the overdue re-evaluation of shoe gaze and dream-pop of bands such as Ride and Slowdive has come as well as being reflected in the sound of current artists such as Rhye, Bonobo and Cigarettes After Sex.
Similarly in Japan, the cult underground band Sugar Plant has been garnering more and more attention with their one-off pop-up live shows over the past year and now culminating in their first album in 18 years, "headlights" .
Sugar Plant formed in 1993 and released their first album "hiding place" in both Japan and the US (via Boston' s Pop Narcotic label) in 1995. A dream-pop sound, influenced by electronic trance music as much as the Velvet Underground, the band quickly drew a core live following. That year they also toured the US to play, then releasing the mini album "Cage Of The Sun" with songs recorded in the US, with a second tour of the US followed in 1996. Meanwhile in Japan, their profile continued to grow, opening for bands such as Yo La Tengo and the cult band Silver Apples for their Japan live shows. Their second full album "after after hours" pursued a deeper sound and crossed over from indie rock to also the club scene. A US release followed with the band touring again for the third time. After an amazing mini-album "Happy" in 1998, the band returned with a new album "Dryfruit" , with legendary Japanese dub band Dry & Heavy' s Naouyuki Uchida as the engineer. A German release of "Dryfruit" followed in 2002. After Sugar Plant' s song "Rise" being included in the smash hit Japanese movie "Ping Pong" in 2002, the band entered into an extended hiatus. After some sporadic live shows in Tokyo, the band found their following was still there and embarked on recording for their fourth album, "headlights" . They are influenced by US independent rock bands such as Yo La Tengo and Galaxie 500 and focused on perfoming and releasing outside of Japan, with all titles being released on overseas labels. On their 3rd US tour they performed with artists such as Silver Apples, Low and Yo La Tengo. Their music, while having a rock-base sound, brings the influence their members had on the Tokyo clubbing scene to the music and their music is highly rated in the Japanese post-rock and experimental scenes.
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