Anamanaguchi

Anamanaguchi is an American band from New York City. The band has four members: lead songwriters and guitarists Peter Berkman and Ary Warnaar, bassist James DeVito, and drummer Luke Silas.Anamanaguchi combines digital electronic sounds such as those seen in chiptune and bitpop with traditional band instrumentation. As with other chiptune artists, they have created music using video game hardware from the mid- to late 1980s: namely a NES and a Game Boy. Berkman has stated that their music is not solely influenced by video game music and that much of it is inspired by "[s]imple pop stuff, like Weezer and the Beach Boys," as well as Janet Jackson.Berkman also cites J-pop and Japanese producer Yasutaka Nakata as a notable influence. "... for Berkman, the influence of Shibuya-kei style pop from Japan, particularly artists like Cornelius and Yasutaka Nakata (Perfume, Capsule) is particularly important."Berkman stated that his top three influences in order would be "Tim & Eric and that absurd comedy, Japanese music and video games." "Ultimately, Berkman's interest in Japanese pop culture is at the root of his interest in video games."The origin of the band's name is unclear. In one interview, Berkman said the name "Anamanaguchi" came about from a member in one of his former bands pronouncing gibberish in the style of Jabba the Hutt. On several other occasions, the band has explained that their name came about after the members worked as interns at Armani (Berkman and DeVito), Prada (Warnaar), and Gucci (Silas) while studying fashion at Parsons School of Design (though three of the four majored in Music Technology at New York University). People began calling them the "Armani-Prada-Gucci boys," which eventually was elided into "Anamanaguchi."