Autopsy Report of Drowned Shrimp

If there was a Weird Band Olympics, Japan would rack up medals like some monster combination of Chinese swimmers, Norwegian skiers and U.S. men’s basketball players. Every time we think we’ve found the musical pinnacle of Japanese weirdness, somebody points us to another band that makes the other ones look like Air Supply.

So with that, we give you a band from Osaka called Oboreta Ebi No Kenshi Houkokusyo, which translates to “Autopsy Report of Drowned Shrimp” or possibly “The Autopsy Report of a Drowned Shrimp” or maybe even “An Autopsy Report of Shrimp Drowning.” They’re seven(ish)-member experimental jazz/funk band who dress up in giant shrimp masks with light-up eyes and play long, droney jam sessions that sorta sound like The Residents meets Primus meets a Japanese horror movie soundtrack. Their leader, who seems to be known as Boss Shrimp, plays something called a Kydd bass, which looks like a Chapman Stick but is really just a super stripped-down upright bass mounted on a tripod. He’s like a Japanese Les Claypool with that thing, only he’s wearing a giant fucking shrimp mask.

And that’s pretty much all we know about them. There’s virtually no English about these guys on the web. We did manage to track down their official website, which is all in Japanese, and with the help of Google translator, we got this description of the band:

Shrimp head, human body. Identity … is a mystery. Multi-group leader Art [Phantom], led by shrimp drowned. Participate in a number of musicians and performers in Japan has been revamped to human shrimp. The number of members is unspecified.

From what heavy music such as music monster movie, anime cartoon comical things like run around rapidly, its means of expression are diverse techno innocent.

All members, wearing a mask – a very elaborate shrimp. Difference, protean, infinite variety and musical instruments also configure the number of members in each performance. Live, called the “Report” and has a reputation to produce three-dimensional that you take full advantage of the floor and other seats as well as stage, exclamation from celebrities from various fields, there are many voices of praise.

All clear? Good.

Fortunately, you don’t need a translator to enjoy videos of the Drowned Shrimp in action. As you’ll see from the clips below, their live show is pretty insane. If anyone knows anything else about these guys, please tell us, because they seriously might be our new favorite band. Big ups to reader Oscar for turning us on to them. You’re right, Oscar…it doesn’t get any weirder than this:

Links:

• Autopsy Report of Drowned Shrimp official site (in Japanese)
• Autopsy Report of Drowned Shrimp YouTube Channel