Melon Soda

Melon Soda hits you with this propulsive, gear-shifting architecture that shouldn’t work as a pop song but does. Tricot, the math-rock trio from Kyoto, has always built their tracks with this relentless intelligence—sudden time shifts, rhythms that feel locked into place until they splinter into something else. But Melon Soda is different. It’s the most immediate thing they’ve done, all guitar shimmer and rhythm that feels simple until you’re three listens in and still discovering new angles.

I found them circling the edges of various playlists when I was hunting for something between the obvious stuff—not prog, not quite pop, but intelligent without feeling bloated. J-rock bands don’t apologize for being complicated, and Tricot doesn’t either. They’re just three people making sharp, strange music that feels like it could fall apart any second but never does. The rhythm section has this telepathic quality, the guitar work constant invention, lines crossing over themselves like someone thinking out loud in real time.

They’ve been working since 2009, releasing on labels that people actually respect. By the time Melon Soda showed up, they weren’t new to anyone paying attention, but they might as well have been to me. I put them on when I need something that won’t let me stop thinking—not background music, not something you half-listen to. Either you follow the structures and the tempo changes and the moments where everything locks into something beautiful and discordant, or you switch away. I don’t blame people for switching. The ones who stick with it aren’t listening to anything simple.