Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2010
Photos by Cedric Diradourian
Body painting, pole dancing and the like have become staples of club events over the past few years—after all, watching a DJ twiddle knobs isn’t the most exciting of spectacles. But nothing could have prepared Tokyo for Trippple Nippples. Consisting of Japanese rappers/performers Yuka Nippple and Qrea Nippple alongside Aussie musicians Jim Masheder, Jo Lamont and drummer Elliot Hasiuk, the group have earned a rep for perhaps the most astonishing and humorous performances you’ll ever see at a club in Japan.
“Qrea and I met at a party called Meat, while doing aerobics,” Yuka recalls in an interview in Tokyo. “I’d never met someone like her before—how she dressed, talked, acted was very… inhuman and ‘space-bug kind.’ We started Trippple Nippples as a drink-serving/performance group for Meat.”
Lamont happened to witness one of their performances and suggested he write music for them. His cousin Masheder joined the growing group after moving to Tokyo, and the lineup was completed with the addition of drummer Hasiuk for live shows.
Yuka and Qrea began with simple stunts, such as splashing tequila and milk on people’s faces from fake boobs, but Trippple Nippples gradually morphed into a collective that sets the girls’ shouty bilingual raps against Lamont and Masheder’s bouncy electro soundtracks. Any given night witnesses performance stunts that range from slathering their (often naked) bodies in mud, to creating giant kakigori (a Japanese snow cone).
“The thing that was lacking in the club scene was a spectacle, a performance,” Lamont says about the group’s formation. “Watching a DJ play is pretty boring. On the other hand, I love the audience at a club night being able to express their energy, and be involved in the music and the whole experience by dancing. So I guess it was wanting to fuse the best things about both worlds: live energy and club music.”
“It’s all about fun,” adds Yuka. “I used to and still don’t really like the term ‘art.’ It’s such a masturbation thing. But we still make art and play music, because it’s fun to do. It’s hedonism.”
Three years since forming and with jaunts to Australia and China behind them, Trippple Nippples have finally released their first record. Appropriately titled PPP, it’s a three-song outing that attempts with some success to translate the group’s performance-art esthetic into a strictly musical setting.
“When we are recording, we try to capture the same energy as the live show,” says Lamont. The song “Drink The Haterade,” for example, emerged out of the negative vibes sent their way after a nude mud bath performance ended up blowing out a club’s PA system. “It’s a balance between letting the chaos occur,” he says, “and then refining the ideas and energy without losing the essence.”
“Trippple Nippples isn’t just a visual thing,” Yuka insists. “That aspect tends to attract people’s attention the most, which is OK—people of course can decide what they like about us themselves. But the most important thing is not how we look: it’s the burst of energy, and how we can share that energy together.”
Performance art, songwriting, fashion, filmmaking—Trippple Nippples bring it all together. At the same time, they’re very much of the moment, and the thought of leaving it all behind is constantly present, informing the nostalgic atmosphere of the song “Goldenroad.”
How would they like to be remembered?
“As the greatest Japanese-Australian art-school conspiracy banditos of all eternity,” Lamont answers. “Once we’re done making art, music, films and fashion, we’d like to get into drug development and develop the new crack that destroys the Western world. If everything goes to plan, no one will remember anything.”
3D Garage at Super Deluxe, Nov 19. PPP is available now on iTunes.
