Onsoku Baba, or Sonic Grandmother, is a fresh-faced foursome out of Ibaraki. Friends since middle school, which wasn’t that long ago for these 20 year olds. And first things first, Sonic Grandmother is an amazing band name. But that’s not all! They actually packed a pretty big punch, starting sparsely with dance-y backing track and timid vocals only, with growing distortion and effects on the prerecorded track.

After this intro song the full band took to the stage and the real set began, a nice bait and switch. Their main set had a droning quality reminiscent of late 90’s alt rock (in a good way), with just the right amount of fuzz and grit to make their relatively simple songs stand out, with nice guitar solo work in the Yo la Tengo or Jeff Tweedy vein. It was a fast, breezy set that went down a treat, drawing a bigger and bigger crowd as they went.

In the end Sonic Grandmother showed that even the younger Rookie a Go-Go generation knows that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to make some great music, and at least they know which wells to draw their inspiration from.