Formed in by Japanese singer Kazu Makino and Italian twins Simone and Amedeo Pace, and forged in the noisy underbelly of the New York alternative scene, Blonde Redhead has charted a path that has taken it from screeching underground noise rock to fragile, glacial, minimalist melody without ever losing the essential rawness at the heart of its sound. The result promises to be an album in which the band explores new levels of minimalism, with some songs boiled down to skeletal structures featuring just one or two instruments. The increasing availability of digital recording equipment has allowed Pace to retreat into his shyness, and he records his vocals alone at home. As a result, the band will likely not feel the jet lag that has plagued previous tours, which has even gotten to the point where all three members could sometimes be found passed out in the dressing room before shows. The image of the cycle race is perhaps an apt metaphor for the place Blonde Redhead now finds itself, with each new release a small revolution that takes the band forward to the next stage. Once released into the world, though, its shape will start to become apparent.
The band's earliest albums were noted for their noise rock influences, though their sound evolved by the early s with the releases of Misery is a Butterfly and 23 , which both incorporated elements of dream pop , shoegaze and other genres. After earning Bachelor's degrees , they entered the New York City underground music scene. Blonde Redhead formed in New York in after Amedeo and Simone met Kazu Makino, an art student at the time, by chance at a local Italian restaurant. Blonde Redhead's self-titled debut album was released in Yasuda played on the band's second album La Mia Vita Violenta also released in