Budokan Boys excel at making really weird music. Comprised of two Americans, Jeff T. Byrd and Michael Jeffrey Lee, who met in New Orleans but have since expatriated to Europe, their music touches on no-wave, post-rock, industrial, and absurdist pop, and they always seem to enjoy pushing the envelope and disarming listeners. Their latest album, Are You Sick? shows that the duo have no interest in making any “normal” music – which is excellent news for fans of their darkly comic, truly oddball style.
An EP consisting of five tracks, Are You Sick?, released on the German-based cassette label Strategic Tape Reserve, is filled with synthesizers that teeter somewhere between retro-leaning and terrifying, adding in bits of percussion, Byrd’s saxophone squeals, and Lee’s off-kilter, often spoken-word vocals. The opening track, “Kiss”, unfolds like some bizarre short story, with Lee recalling a night of dancing with a mysterious stranger. Synths pulse, beats punctuate, and Byrd’s saxophone gives off an aura of atonal noir.
Like Budokan Boys’ previous albums – So Broken Up About You (2020), Dad Is Bad (2019), and That’s How You Become a Clown (2018), Are You Sick? plays like some horror show mashup of David Lynch and Captain Beefheart, with synth tones replacing blues licks. Their world is mysterious and foreboding but unique enough that it’s hard to look away. “Good Time Street Revisited” is another story without much resolution, but that’s OK; their songs are often about the journey, not the destination. The track’s harsh effects collide with Lee’s narrative about a man thinking about going out on the town to a neighborhood that previously resulted in disturbing but unspecified consequences.
The synth-addled paranoia that has become the duo’s defining sound is on beautiful display on the simmering, industrial-leaning “Demon”, but unlike “Good Time Street Revisited”, it ends not in somewhat disappointing normalcy but utter madness. As usual, the sonic architecture of the song is meticulously and uniquely crafted. “Heartswell General” is less a story song and more of a mood – a sort of futuristic, industrial torch song with Lee moving away from the narration style and engaging in more of a singing mode, albeit of an aching, tortured style.
Are You Sick? concludes with more emotional turmoil in the form of “Maurice”, as Lee sings sneeringly to the (possibly) titular character and synths, percussion, and saxophone drone on seductively around him. “It don’t bother me none,” Lee sings. “You do what you want.” It’s probably a break-up song, but Lee sounds like he’s already moved on, even though it may all be an act. Lee’s ambiguity mirrors the mysterious air of the music, and it’s a delicious combination.
For Budokan Boys fans let down by the EP length of this latest release, the good news is that a full-length follow-up (Magic Powers) is set for a March 2025 release. In the meantime, enjoy this brief foray into Jeff T. Byrd and Michael Jeffrey Lee’s strange world.