Profile of Phnonpenh MODEL

KOTOBUKI HIKARU who was a keyboard player in P-MODEL (*) at its peak period (1987-1993/gathered an audience of 3000 at a live performance) called Taniguchi 'MARUTA' Masaaki who has a career as an actor of avant-garde drama and a voice performer, and LION MERRY who's been an able keyboard player in drag for 20 years in Tokyo live house scene, and they formed Phnonpenh MODEL in 1994. (LION MERRY and MARUTA are playing also in ECHO-U-NITE that is psychedelic folk rock band.) Three of them named themselves 'KOTOBUKI HIKARU with Phnonpenh MODEL', and produced their first album called 'Desk Top Hard Lock'(SYUN-004). After that KOTOBUKI sold all his musical instruments and stopped playing, but in spring in 1997, somehow he got instruments back again (nobody knows the reason), and suddenly called MARUTA, and they started playing again.
Then, they started producing their 2nd album. It's called 'PATCHWORK'. MARUTA recorded voices, pieces of songs, and sounds in town at random. LION MERRY improvised keyboard playing. KOTOBUKI and MARUTA took kinds of sounds from Aian countries through their trips. KOTOBUKI edited those sounds and made a patchwork. They succeeded in getting a very unique sound images. They developed an original interpretation of the current collage music or music concrete, and created a new sound. Three of them, however, say that it's not too avant-garde and it could be barely pop music. It has Mongoloid sound spirit of Mandala. It freaksout with mantra. Now they're planning 'Phnonpenh MODEL PATCHWORK TOUR E toJ' (Erfurt-Berlin-Paris-Nagoya-Oosaka-Sapporo-Tokyo)with teir latest album. This is their first live tour as Phnonpenh MODEL. The performance is very expected because of the unique personality of each of them and the unconventionality of their lastest CD.
*P-MODEL was a greatly popular techno pop band in Tokyo from the beginning of 80's.

Tour members:
KOTOBUKI HIKARU--------------------Key, G, Prog
LION MERY--------------------------Key, Prog
Taniguchi'MARUTA'Masaaki-----------Vo
Hacchaki(support member from Hz)---Ds