Yamantaka - Sonic Titan

C

anadian experimental music and performance art collective Yamantaka - Sonic Titan formed in Montreal, Quebec but soon later moved to Toronto, Ontario and was founded by Ruby Kato Attwood and Alaska B, both former members of the defunct Montreal noise rock band Lesbian Fight Club. The band would slowly grow to include Joanna Delos Reyes (vocals/guitar), Hiroki Tanaka (guitar), Ange Loft (vocals/percussion), Brendan Swanson (keyboards), Aylwin Lo (lights) and Brandon Lim (bass). Founding member Attwood would leave and over time other members, John Ancheta, Walter Scott, Shub Roy, Alana Ruth, Daniel Ellis and Chase Lo, would come and go also.

The group was originally conceived of as an art project exploring and subverting the cultural signifiers of their shared Asian Canadian heritage through the lens of their own mixed Asian-European heritage. They developed a music and performance style incorporating aspects of Asian C-pop and J-pop, progressive rock, heavy metal and industrial music, with roots in Haudenosaunee and First Nations culture, as well as Buddhist philosophy, anime and manga, Chinese opera and Kabuki and Noh theater.