Space Streakings was a noise rock band from Japan formed in 1993 by four video game programmers. Very little information is available about them, not even their real names.

Space Streakings:

• Captain Insect – bass guitar, vocals, programming
• Kame Bazooka – alto saxophone, vocals, horns, illustrations
• Karate Condor – turntables, vocals
• Screaming Stomach – guitar, vocals, trumpet, kazoo

As those pseudonyms may suggest, the group took a cavalier attitude to their craft, producing a series of unclassifiable songs which have confused critics in and outside of Japan’s borders – the band themselves dubbed it ‘Cyber-punk-techno-core’. They had unusual instrumentation. No drums, for one thing. But, they also featured a gasoline-powered guitar and flamethrower trombone.

In 1994, musician and music engineer Steve Albini flew to Japan in order to record the band’s second album 7-Toku.  Shortly after the album’s release Screaming Stomach, who had grown tired of the band’s cacophonous sound, left the band. This resulted in a collaboration with Mount Shasta of Chicago, forming the supergroup Shakuhachi Surprise:

• Jason Benson – drums, percussion
• Carl Brueggen – guitar
• Captain Insect – bass guitar, vocals, horns
• John Forbes – vocals, guitar, harmonica
• Kame Bazooka – alto saxophone, vocals
• Karate Condor – turntables, guitar, horns
• Jenny White – guitar, bass guitar, vocals

I actually like this collaboration even more than Space Streakings itself. The addition of a real drummer smoothed out the jagged edges of the stiff-sounding drum machines. Space Streakings Sighted Over Mount Shasta is the sole album recorded by Mount Shasta and Space Streakings together, released on October 1, 1996 through Skin Graft Records. It is a shame that they didn’t make any more.

After a brief tour of the United States, Space Streakings disbanded.