2000s: A Musical Retrospective in Real Time: Macdonald Duck Eclair

A number of years ago I was turned on to the music coming from an island in the Pacific called Japan. “Wow!” I thought, “This sure is different than the stuff I listen to now.” Little did I know that I had barely scratched the surface of J-Pop let alone any of the smaller scenes going on in the Japanese underground. Fast forward through about a year of virtual immersion in Japanese music scenes and I resurfaced with an adoration for their respective products.
Among all the new (to me) bands and artists I found myself especially impressed by Macdonald Duck Eclair. I simply hadn’t heard anything like it before: super catchy pop melodies sung by delicate whispering vocals against a backdrop of noisy guitars and chiptune sounds all fused together. Over time I collected their second album The Genesis Songbook and their split EP with Micro Mach Machine (now sitting among my small stack of 45s in all it’s yellow vinyl glory) but was missing their debut, Short Short. The few YouTube videos that featured Macdonald Duck Eclair music were of songs I was already familiar with. I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that the only way to get a copy of Short Short was to fly to Japan and scour stores for it…until today.
So while I can go on gushing over the music (incredible as it may be), it would be a nice opportunity to instead reflect on a band (and the closely associated label Usagi-Chang Records) that has apparently faded into indie music history. With little news to come out of the MDDE camp for a while, I’d like to believe that this all part of an extended hiatus or something because these three people NEED to make music together.
So here’s to Macdonald Duck Eclair wherever they are:
Mac Teenage Riot

My Honey Dip