I like to listen to a lot of instrumental music. I know that a lot of people think that instrumentals are boring, and I can see where they’re coming from.
But for me, instrumental music is great. Once the lyrics get out of the way, you can really zone out and get into the music itself instead of focusing on a singer’s words or ideas.
That’s why I was really happy to find the Japanese band LITE.
LITE is a sparse outfit: two guitar players, a bass player, and a drummer. In an age where a lot of music is created by an army of producers and engineers, LITE is refreshingly simple.
It’s especially cool when I stumble upon instrumental musicians from another country or culture. My Japanese isn’t always good enough to follow along with Japanese lyrics, but I don’t have to worry about it with LITE.
LITE is really interesting to me because they fall under a musical genre called “math rock.” Math rock has weird, irregular time signatures, and really focuses on technique over lyrics or showmanship. With no lyrics whatsoever, you can definitely say that LITE sweats the technique.
Ultimately though, who really cares what genre LITE is? People can get really caught up in classifying music and miss out on the actual music.
LITE has been around since 2003, and has a pretty extensive catalog. With four LPs and a smattering of EPs and miscellaneous releases, there’s plenty of LITE to go around.
Their newest release, “Past, Present, Future” came out earlier this year, and can be found on iTunes.
Saturday Timewaster is a weekly post that features Japanese videos, music, images, or games that will certainly waste your time (some weeks more than others). We hope you enjoy!