(L to R: Bunny, Yoshitaka Kozeni, Keigo Iwami, Mariko Goto, Hajime.)

There are a million bands in Tokyo. Many brilliant, most mediocre, and, like everywhere else, it seems the mediocre bands are usually the ones who take off. A common story anywhere, but it goes double here: in many ways, the Japanese music industry functions in much the same way the rock / pop industry functioned in the 60s. Producers put together bands, labels sign acts for their merchandising appeal as much as any music they might incidentally make, they become the children of the label they sign to…you get the idea. Every record geek of the last thirty years likes to complain about the homogeneity of mainstream music, but it seems so much more accepted here in Tokyo.

Which is why, when I saw Midori, at the time still living in Osaka, at their first Tokyo show in a tiny club in Yoyogi, I assumed they’d be permanently indie. Thrilling, manic, dangerous, joyously abrasive and openly confrontational, they were clearly a great live band, but they sure as Hell didn’t look like a major label band, especially not here.

"First" (2005)

"Second" (2007)

"Shimizu" (2007)

"Hello Eveyone, Nice To Meet You, We're Midori" (2008)

"Live!!" (2008)

"Swing" (2009)

Basically a piano trio with occasional electric guitar and a clearly unhinged singer, they took the simplest pieces of early jazz…thumping, swinging beats, flashy riffs, even an upright bass…and threw in a healthy dose of hard bop, experimental composition, and, most bizarrely, thrash. They were a classic case of a band that shouldn’t work, a noble idea that would never gel past the planning stage. But gel they did, achieving an immediacy that was deceptively easy to swallow, even as the music drew blood. It wasn’t until the analytical part of the brain kicked in, when the adrenaline wore off hours after the show, that we truly understood what we had just seen: a jazz/swing/thrash/pop band, a Frankenstein monster that had no right existing at all, let alone coming out as weirdly unified as Midori.

Running out the next day to buy their debut EP “First,” I was immediately struck at how well their psychotic, primal scream came across in the studio. Their second release, creatively titled “Second,” showed growth, but what was remarkable was where they grew. Instead of getting crazier, they managed to distill their uniquely skewed approach into calmer, yet equally compelling territory. Some tracks were openly child-like, or unironically beautiful, but somehow preserved the freight-train rumble of the band in full flight. A band can steal your heart and drop your jaw, but over time, they can reveal themselves to be one trick ponies: rock history is littered with incredible debuts and bland sophomore efforts. But with “Second,” Midori showed not just raw power, but started flirting with potential brilliance.

Then, the impossible happened: Midori signed to Sony. To say they stuck out is an understatement, and their major label debut, the “Shimizu” EP, made no attempt to hide it. Suddenly, HMV and Tower Records’ racks were displaying “Shimuzu” front and center, the cover of which depicted a middle aged man in a T-shirt that said “I Want To Have Sex With You.”  The music inside wasn’t as nuanced and weirdly fascinating as their previous two releases, but it was hardly watered down. After a brief low-fi intro, “Aitte Kanashii Ne” (“It’s A Sad Love”) sees Midori vocalist Mariko Goto scream “DESTROY!!!” at eye-popping intensity, and any concerns of mainstream pandering fly out the window.

While “Shimizu” put to rest any concerns about the band losing their abrasive edge, it wasn’t quite as focused as the previous two. Was the concept running out of gas, or were the band just getting themselves situated? “Shimizu” was quickly followed by the full length “Hello everyone. Nice to meet you. We are Midori,” and while the material was stronger, the question mark remained. It didn’t help that the album’s final track, “All Nothing,” was an instrumental free jazz excursion, seemingly improvised in the studio. It wasn’t bad…in fact, both “Shimizu” and “Hello…” are quite good overall, containing flashes of brilliance on par with the band’s previous heights. But there was the nagging thought that Midori might be buying time, fumbling a bit, unsure of how to proceed.

“Live,” recorded sans electric guitar (a safety precaution due to rain at the outdoor venue) displayed more improv, especially with “O Saru” (“The Monkey,”) whose greatly extended intro jumped, jived, and vamped until Goto finally stepped in and kicked off the song proper. Encouraging, exciting, but not quite as laser sharp as the band that ripped its way into our group’s psyche on that night in Yoyogi.

Next came “Swing,” Midori’s first single and their fourth release with Sony in sixteen months. The band gives its more sensitive side an airing, and it’s a good, if deceptively simple, pop song. But in the context of Midori’s career, it's the extra tracks that raise eyebrows: “Akan!!” (“No Way!!”) and “Kuchite Wa Hatenu” (“The End Of Decay”) aren’t songs so much as formalized tribal chants, aggressive, confrontational. It’s as if the band has split in two, sweetly disturbed pop on one side, brutal primitivism on the other.

All of which is the windup. On Thursday, Midori played Ebisu’s Liquid Room, a venue in a fashionable section of downtown Tokyo that looks to be ten times larger than the club for that first performance in Yoyogi. Even so, the Liquid Room had been sold out for nearly two months, and evidence of the band’s commercial progress is everywhere: band shirts fill the auditorium, and there are even Goto wannabes, dressed in identical schoolgirl outfits. The band opens with “Swing,” plows straight into  “Aitte Kanashii Ne,” and the growth is amazing. Somehow, we hadn’t been able to see Midori since that Yoyogi show, and we’re now confronted with a full blown, professional, but somehow even more disturbed freight train of a band. The sonic rumble is positively apocalyptic, and Goto makes full use of the expanded space to run, claw, jump, and twitch like a woman possessed.

But here’s the real surprise: “Akan!!” and “Kuchite Wa Hatenu,” the tribal, minimal, and very uncommercial B-sides for “Swing,” are the centerpiece of the show. Where Midori were a corrosive jazz pop band from Hell on their debut, they’re now a fierce, almost barbaric, minimalist thing, a demon blend of jazz chops, thrash aggression, knuckle dragging simplicity, and, impossibly, hooks.

With a flourish, the band stops, lurches, and the ensuing sonic mayhem is met with the light from a huge disco ball, flooding the packed, cavernous venue. Suddenly, it all makes sense: Midori have found their new direction, and it’s as daring as it is simple. They’ve somehow managed to take savage thrash jazz and reinvent it as arena rock...and it’s working. The crowd is whipped into a frenzy, and the band vamps their way into who knows what manner of fresh Hell. Goto, as well as keyboardist Hajime, have learned how to fill a room with their personalities, Hajime sprinting around the stage as he lets out a tormented scream, Goto climbing speaker towers, diving into the audience, clomping herself on the head with the mic only to throw it carelessly into the throng. New song “Sayonara Perfect World” continues in this vein, and suggests…

…what does it suggest? Frankly, it suggests that Midori are teetering on the edge of not being a great live band, but a Great Band, capitalized. The unsettled depth that laced “Second” and “Hello…” has merged with the bruising swing of the debut to produce something that is, literally, unlike anything I have ever heard. And it’s selling, appealing to ever growing crowds and progressively more manic fans. If Midori can keep this trajectory…and that is, admittedly, a huge if…they could grow into one of the most important bands not just in Japan but in the World, dragging a terrifyingly abrasive and unique avant-garde into the mainstream spotlight. Anyone who thinks this statement is hyperbole is invited to witness the band in full flight: both uncompromisingly brutish and stadium ready, Midori are quite possibly one brilliant album away from owning the world. Brace yourselves.