Mysterious, captivating Maher Shalal Hash Baz seem suddenly to have appeared out of nowhere, lighting up all our lives with a fabulous retrospective and twisted history that seems to root them in the fall-out of political events that took place in Japan 20 years ago. Now partly excavated, leader Tori Kudo has been enjoying the chance to reflect on his beautiful sophisticated-naive musical style, while laying down a few false trails. In a recent Japanese interview he claimed that the only current members of Maher are Masami Shinoda and Koichiro Watanabe, two great players who are sadly now dead. Explaining the groups name he suggested, 'Be quick if you steal something'. We very much look forward to further Kudo musings.