Yuta Mitsuhashi says he spends a lot of time falling into "YouTube holes": Watch a clip, click on a related link, repeat until the majority of your night has been spent staring at a computer screen. He isn't scrolling through LOLcat videos though, he dives into things like Thai pop music, Middle Eastern rock and the minimal folk of 1960s performer Moondog.
Mitsuhashi is covocalist and guitarist for Tokyo-based five-piece New House, and his Web browsing has turned the young group into one of the most interesting acts in the capital's crowded indie scene. Whereas many Japanese artists' sound can be traced to one or two primary influences, New House pick and choose global styles — a little minimal techno meeting psychedelic Argentinian rock colliding with all sorts of other noises. This approach appears on the band's debut album, "Burning Ship Fractal," and reflects the changing way in which people listen to music in a digital age where everything is available online.
New House formed in 2008 while its members — Mitsuhashi, covocalist and guitar player Yu Kawamata, bassist Akira Morohoshi, keyboardist Kenta Komuro and drummer Seiya Kimura — attended fashion school. When they first started, three of the band members didn't know how to play the instruments they now handle, but they learned as they went along. What they did bring to New House was a variety of musical tastes. Going around the table, members cite Pavement, Can, AC/DC, Sun City Girls and Basic Channel as early favorites.