Bleach are self-described as “three Japanese girls from Okinawa… young and small but they make a very large explosive roar”. The band consists of Kanna on guitar and vocal, Shuku-Suke on bass and Sayuri on drums. Kanna is the band's main lyricist, and is almost always photographed wearing a knit hat, which is puzzling given that she is from the notoriously warm island of Okinawa. The band is proudly from Okinawa, which historically has not always been part of Japan, and has its own distinct cultural aspects. The three members originally all played in different bands but became friends through meeting at livehouses. They made their debut EP
Otokoichokusen (A Man’s Way) in 2000 on the tiny Ripley label, and the full album
Kibaku-Zai (Triggering Device), later that year. Japan has had plenty of cute girl pop punk bands, but Bleach’s more hard-core approach, coupled with their accomplished playing skills allowed them to quickly carve out a place for themselves. While the band has a fairly unique sound, they are most often compared to the adventurous, hard-hitting now defunct Japanese female group
Super Junky Monkey. Bleach played some gigs on the main island of Honshu early in their career, but seemed anxious always to get back to Okinawa and did not tour widely. In 2001 they signed with Toshiba-EMI and released Hadaka No Jo (Naked Queen). This album brought them much more widespread attention, but it seems that being on a major label did not agre...
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Bleach are self-described as “three Japanese girls from Okinawa… young and small but they make a very large explosive roar”. The band consists of Kanna on guitar and vocal, Shuku-Suke on bass and Sayuri on drums. Kanna is the band's main lyricist, and is almost always photographed wearing a knit hat, which is puzzling given that she is from the notoriously warm island of Okinawa. The band is proudly from Okinawa, which historically has not always been part of Japan, and has its own distinct cultural aspects. The three members originally all played in different bands but became friends through meeting at livehouses. They made their debut EP
Otokoichokusen (A Man’s Way) in 2000 on the tiny Ripley label, and the full album
Kibaku-Zai (Triggering Device), later that year. Japan has had plenty of cute girl pop punk bands, but Bleach’s more hard-core approach, coupled with their accomplished playing skills allowed them to quickly carve out a place for themselves. While the band has a fairly unique sound, they are most often compared to the adventurous, hard-hitting now defunct Japanese female group
Super Junky Monkey. Bleach played some gigs on the main island of Honshu early in their career, but seemed anxious always to get back to Okinawa and did not tour widely. In 2001 they signed with Toshiba-EMI and released Hadaka No Jo (Naked Queen). This album brought them much more widespread attention, but it seems that being on a major label did not agree entirely with their nature. Bleach returned with new material later that year, the 3 song EP
Canary Teikoku No Gyakushu (Canary Empire Strikes Back), on the indie Highwave label. Highwave, like the band based in Okinawa, had previously enjoyed multi-million sales with the young male three piece Okinawan rock band Mongol 800. Later in 2003, Bleach released an album simply called
Bleach, also on Highwave, which saw the band expand their sonic arsenal to a more diverse sound, but one still frequently brutally hard. Also in 2003 the UK label Arriverderci Baby! released
Three Girls From Okinawa, which consisted of
Naked Queen plus three cuts from
Triggering Device. Although Bleach sings almost entirely in Japanese, and has a bit of a reputation as not liking to tour, they seemed to have targeted and/or enjoyed playing in the States, and have played there at least four times. A Christian band somewhere in America also uses the name Bleach, so for awhile the band toured internationally as Bleachmobile. More recently they have adopted the name Bleach03, and have released material under this name on the U.S. indie label Australian Cattle God.
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