Artist Spotlight: February- Polysics

Welcome to my Artist Spotlight, every month on my World Tour show (Wednesday's 3-4pm KCC Live) I select an musician or band and play tracks from their discography, and on this blog I'll be writing about the artist or band in question. This month's Artist Spotlight is Polysics from Japan.

Inspired by the New Wave group DEVO, lead singer and guitarist Hayashi formed the group back in 1997 and released their first album 1st P in 1999. To date they have released 10 albums and several EPs and Mini-Albums, some of which have found their way to the UK including Now Is The Time and We Ate The Machine.

The vocal duties are split between Hayashi and synth player Kayo who is often backed up by bassist Fumi while Yano provides backing vocals while playing the drums. Polysics have a unique look, they're often clad in orange jumpsuits and are wearing sunglasses which look more like visors though they have experimented with other outfits such as sailor outfits. Their musical style is as unique as their uniformed look, utilising vocoders, sharp guitar sounds and a bass that doesn't get hidden in the background.

The music video's of Polysics often have dancers doing either body popping (such as the song I My Me Mine which features Japanese dancer Strong Machine 2) or doing the robot (Domo Arigato Mr Roboto which actually features someone dressed up in a robot suit doing the robot).

All of the Polysics songs that I have listened to have been full of energy even the songs which start off slow such as the song Arigato from We Ate The Machine which starts off mellow, really goes frantic and energetic midway through the song and their version of Frank Sinatra's My Way is a more up-tempo electro version of the classic song.

It's not just Sinatra's music which has been covered by Polysics, they have also covered The Knack's classic My Sharona and Metallica's Enter Sandman. Not only that but Hayashi has also remixed tracks from Kaiser Chief's (Na Na Na Na Naa), Bloc Party (Luno), and Japanese pop group Puffy AmiYumi (Teen Titans Theme Tune) which he does so under the name of POLY-1.

Polysics are currently waiting to perform one last show at the Budokan in Japan on the 12th of March before going on a short hiatus, during that time synth player Kayo will graduate from the group.