Miho Hatori is best known for her work as vocalist in the groundbreaking group Cibo Matto. The name means something like “food crazy” in Italian, and although
the Hatori-penned lyrics on the first album are largely focused on food, their concerns were always much broader-—the food references operate as complex metaphors for all kinds of topics, from sex to politics and beyond. Musically, Hatori and Yuka Honda drew upon hip-hop, metal, soul, punk, and other sources too numerous to mention. The result might be expected to be a pastiche, but Hatori and Honda instead infuse these forms with a great deal of originality and freshness, as well as with good doses of humor and magic. All of this variety and intelligence makes Cibo Matto a favorite at HoW.
In addition to Cibo Matto (now broken up), Hatori has been busy recording and performing with a large number of other groups: Gorillaz, the Beastie Boys, Medeski, Martin, and Wood, and the Handsome Boy Modeling School, to name just a few. While Cibo Matto were on tour some years ago with Beck, Beck’s guitar player Smokey Hormel gave Hatori a tape of the classic 1966 Baden Powell album Os Afro Sambas. Inspired by that album, she and Hormel decided to launch a side project, Smokey and Miho, devoted to Brazilian music, both their own and that of others. The Baden Powell devotion shows up most strongly on their E.P. Tempo de Amor, a partial reworking of Os Afro Sambas. HoW caught their June 26 show in Seattle and later had the chance to talk with Miho Hatori via email and telephone.
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I wanted to say to start with just how much I enjoyed that show in Seattle. I was really struck by it because I didn’t know what to expect; I hadn’t heard any Smokey and Miho stuff before I heard your concert. Primarily, I was really amazed by the warmth of the show. You and Smokey just really seemed to be happy to be sharing this music. There was a wonderful tone to it all. Is that something that you feel as you’re playing this music?
Yeah, I think that’s the whole reason we started doing this project, is that, what can I say, the texture of the music is very different from a lot of more modern American pop music or rock or something like that. At the same time it has a very strong strength as well, and that’s the good thing. I think it’s very challenging to do this music.
I recently heard Os Afro Sambas, but it was the rerecorded version. The version you first heard, was that the original 1966 recording?
Yeah.
How is that different?
Well, it’s not that polished.
Do you like the older one better?
Oh yeah, really.
Well, copies of it go for $200 now, so I’ll have to keep on searching to see if I can find a cheap copy.
You can get it in Japan, on CD, it’s like $30.
Getting back to the Seattle show, it was so different than most concerts I go to. It didn’t seem to be about impressing people, it was about sharing this thing that you and Smokey love.
Yeah. That show was especially mellow compared to other shows, I think.
Are your other shows more uptempo?
I think sometimes it depends on the day. I think that, especially with this band, everything is acoustic, so it’s like a play. When you go to see some play, it’s live and there’s only one time that you can see it, you can’t go back to the first anything. Our shows depend on what we feel; that night was mellower because we traveled a lot so we were a little bit tired, so we felt more like chill out, so that affects the music.
I noticed that there wasn't much dancing in Seattle. Do people dance at your shows?
That was so strange. Seattle people don't dance? C'mon, yo!
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