The members of LITE are arranged on a brown L-shape sofa in a windowless room behind the main stage at The Independent, a mid-sized music venue near downtown San Francisco. Suitcases are pushed up along one wall, and a handful of backpacks are arranged haphazardly in the corner of the couch. On the counter to my right are two open Coke cans (one diet, one regular) next to an untouched Keurig machine. Some bags of chips sit half-eaten on a hassock in the middle of the room, accompanied by a mostly-full container of salsa that seems unlikely to be finished before the Japanese math rock quartet takes the stage with covet in a couple of hours.
Lack of windows aside, LITE is quite happy with their accommodations on this tour. “It’s actually the first time to do the tour with a big bus,” says Nobuyuki Takeda, whose English is the strongest of the four and as such has become my default interlocutor. “It’s kind of easier than usual.” They share the bus with covet, a band who needs little introduction either on this site or on the road, particularly here in the Bay Area, where Yvette Young’s rotating trio of math rock mavens initially got its start. “There are lots of covet fans on this tour,” says bassist Izawa (translated by LITE’s tour manager Yugo Kamoshita). “But they see LITE playing and they all come along. They were just like, ‘oh, we became a fan of LITE.’”
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The crossover fans are no surprise considering the similarities between LITE and covet’s hyper-angular guitar styles. The two bands have previously toured together in China, and both recently released collaborations with each other. LITE’s release, which landed on their latest EP The Beyond, is appropriately called SUNSET. “We knew we were supporting a West Coast tour, and I imagined, like, good weather, which is a California thing,” Takeda explains. “I imagined a sunset when I was making this song, I needed someone to put some essence on it. So I just asked [Young] to do something.” Anyone who’s ever lost themselves in the polychromatic hues of a covet song would probably understand this choice.
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But while covet has largely focused their career on refining and perfecting this particular style, accelerating their finger-tapped riffs to the point where the edges begin to soften and blur into something approaching psychedelia, LITE has proven much harder to pin down. Each album across their two decades of activity has taken a markedly different approach to the “math rock” frame, moving from post rock through progressive metal into artsier Battles-type stuff before landing on the post-punk tinged STRATA, the latter of which was driven partly by Takeda’s desire to give singing and rapping a try. (Read more about it on Bandcamp here.)
“The motivation of keeping the band is to do new things,” says Takeda. Their latest EP, The Beyond,is appropriately eclectic. Some songs (“The Beyond,” “Plastic News”) feel like a return to LITE’s roots in instrumental math and post-hardcore, while others (“Daydreamer,” “Low Tide”) sidle all the way up to the border with ambient electronica. The unifying factor, according to Takeda, was a focus on their live show, which had been forced to take a back seat during the pandemic. “We like a gig,” Takeda quips, then continues to explain in Japanese. “All the songs on The Beyond are meant to be played at a gig,” Kamoshita translates. “The songs are meant to be played live, rather than on your phones or vinyls or whatever.”
I smile as I write this last quote down. Clearly I’m in for a great show.
I leave LITE for their pre-show rituals and head out into the venue’s main room. Most interviews take place after sound check but before the doors open, and I still have at least an hour to kill before the first performer starts. Behind the bar, the bartender is busy slicing limes into wedges, prepping for the night ahead. I buy a beer and head up to the balcony area, which I’m pleasantly surprised to find I’m sharing with Yvette Young’s parents. It’s a relatively short drive for them from San Jose, and they’ve come with a handful of other relatives—aunts, uncles, cousins—all excited to watch their peripatetic daughter perform in their metaphorical backyard.
The Youngs are unsurprisingly also quite musical: her mom played music in rural Guangxi for over a decade, while her dad was a conductor for the Beijing Symphony. The rock world, even one as proggy as covet’s, isn’t one he’s too familiar with, but like any proud parent, he’s here to support. When he finds out I’m covering the show for a music site, he suggests I write about the San Francisco Symphony sometime. I’m flattered but reply that I’m not a good enough musician to do that genre justice. Honestly, I’m still shocked that anyone even lets me write about math rock.
I stay in the balcony for the first act, a younger artists named Wylie Hopkins who opens the show with a relaxed, heartfelt take on shoegaze. When he finishes up I head downstairs to find some friends who are holding down space in the middle of the floor. This isn’t my first LITE concert, and I know that the pit is where I’ll want to be for this. I find my friends, one of whom is tall and bald and helpfully easy to spot from above. We catch up over the buzz of pre-show conversation. My tall friend says that he hopes LITE comes on soon because he wasn’t prepared to be out this late on a Wednesday. It’s 8:50, and Kamoshita told me that LITE was coming on at 9. I look at the stage, which is brightly lit and lifeless, and conclude my friend is out of luck.
Then at 8:56, the lights abruptly dim and LITE steps out from the back, taking their positions in a matter of minutes. At 9pm sharp, they launch into “Ef,” a banger of an opener that supplies the crowd with a shot of sonic Epinephrine. The energy shifts sharply away from chill as Takeda and Kozo Kusumoto trade blows on the guitar. They move from there into “Deep Inside,” the STRATA cut where Takeda shows off his pipes, and then through “Plastic News,” “Sosue,” and “The Beyond.”
The songs from The Beyond EP are indeed fantastic live, but it’s “Sosue” that unexpectedly wows. A largely unknown (to me) track from an extended “bonus” version of STRATA, it’s a synth-heavy number with relatively simple guitar parts, but it turns out that just provides more space for the drums and bass to shine. Akinori Yamamoto is a wizard on the sticks, and Izawa—who has always been one of the most dynamic pieces of LITE’s live shows—absolutely rips, diving into his solos like he’s on a one-man quest to tell anyone that calls bass a rhythm instrument to go fuck themselves. Check out a brief clip here.
From there, LITE keeps the energy going with their math-funk masterpiece “D,” moving from there into SUNSET (which Young, of course, joins for a cameo) before ending on the classic LITE singles, “Bond” and “Infinite Mirror.” I make sure to get some video of the latter, capturing for posterity the guitar hook that’s the entry point for many a descent into LITE fandom (it certainly was for me). No moshing, but I have to imagine that LITE left with quite a few new fans by the end of the show.
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Covet’s on next, and they make their way cleanly through their first song before technical difficulties hit. One of their loop machines refuses to shut off, stubbornly continuing a bass vamp long after the song has ended. The band’s new bassist, Claire Puckett (of Hikes), eventually pulls the plug on the machine, which shuts off with an electronic “zip” sound.
While Puckett resets the system, Young uses the delay as an opportunity to pull off some of the craziest crowd work I’ve ever seen. Apropos of nothing, Young asks the audience if anyone would like to let her call their mom, and when one woman says yes, Young takes that woman’s phone and actually calls her mom. Before I know it, Young and the rest of the audience are waving hi to an extremely confused woman over Facetime.
The conversation doesn’t last long (apparently Young’s call had woken the fan’s mom up), but it lasts long enough for the equipment to reset, and covet continues the show without any other hang-ups. Despite Young’s highly percussive guitar style, their songs feel less punchy than LITE’s, unfurling gently against multicolored silhouettes of birds and running horses that the band projects behind them. At some point, my friends get separated and I decide to head back to the balcony to grab a few pics of covet from above. Soon after, Young slows the energy down with a piano interlude; I wonder vaguely if it’s something her dad might recognize.
Near the end of the set, Young announces that their next song is called “lovespell” and offers the audience some extra guidance. “Everyone last night formed a pit,” says Young from the stage. “I don’t know if that’s the vibe tonight, but do with that information what you will.” The crowd takes up the invitation. About thirty seconds into the song, bodies in the center of the floor begin bouncing into each other with an energy that looks more joyful than aggressive. From my place on the balcony, I watch the most pit spread to the spot where I’d been standing before, and silently wish I’d never moved.