# Blonde Redhead
**Blonde Redhead** is an American alternative rock trio formed in New York City in 1993, built around the Japanese-born singer and guitarist Kazu Makino and the Italian-born twin brothers Amedeo Pace (guitar, vocals) and Simone Pace (drums). Starting from a noise-rock foundation and moving through art rock, chamber pop, and shoegaze, the band has spent more than three decades turning its darkly romantic, cinematic pop into a catalog spanning more than three decades of indie rock, taking its name from a song by the no-wave (late-1970s abrasive, anti-conventional New York rock movement) band DNA.[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Origin | Formed in New York, NY in 1993; active from the 1990s through the 2020s[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527) |
| Name | Taken from a song on DNA's 1981 EP *A Taste of DNA*[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527) |
| Core members | Kazu Makino (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and twin brothers Amedeo Pace (guitar, vocals) and Simone Pace (drums)[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527) |
| First label | Smells Like Records, run by Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, who produced the 1995 self-titled debut[2](https://www.sputnikmusic.com/bands/Blonde-Redhead/3079/) • [3](https://www.allmusic.com/album/fake-can-be-just-as-good-mw0000090524) |
| Signature run | Seven albums from 1995's *Blonde Redhead* to 2007's *23*, pivoting from no-wave noise to arthouse indie[4](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/blonde-redhead-sit-down-for-dinner/) |
| Comeback | *Sit Down for Dinner* (2023), their first album in nine years, followed by the 2025 companion *The Shadow of the Guest*[4](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/blonde-redhead-sit-down-for-dinner/) • [1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527) |
| Recent attention | A viral resurgence made one of their songs their most-streamed by far, leading the runner-up by a 65-million-stream margin on Spotify[4](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/blonde-redhead-sit-down-for-dinner/) |
## Formation and early years
The band's origin is a chance meeting. Kazu Makino, born in Kyoto, Japan in 1969, had grown up in a household where her classical-music-fan father allowed little besides Mozart and Bach, and she moved to New York in the early 1990s as a twenty-something looking for change.[5](https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/blonde-redhead-kazu-makino-on-the-music-that-made-her/) She met the twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace, and with Makino's friend Maki Takahashi on bass, formed the band almost on the spot in 1993.[6](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-02-ca-hochman2-story.html) Makino plays keyboards and guitar and sings alongside guitarist Amedeo Pace.[6](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-02-ca-hochman2-story.html)
They took their name from a song on DNA's 1981 EP *A Taste of DNA*, a nod to the New York no-wave band whose discordant legacy reviewers would lean on for years.[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527) • [3](https://www.allmusic.com/album/fake-can-be-just-as-good-mw0000090524) The connection to [Sonic Youth](https://www.edgepedia.org/sonic-youth) was more than sonic: after a show with [Kim Gordon](https://www.edgepedia.org/kim-gordon)'s project Free Kitten, the band gave Gordon a copy of a single, which led to a gig opening for Sonic Youth on a tour of Italy.[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527)
**Smells Like Records.** Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley caught the group's chaotic, artistic rock and signed them to his Smells Like label, producing and releasing their self-titled debut album there in 1995.[2](https://www.sputnikmusic.com/bands/Blonde-Redhead/3079/) The pair of LPs from this period, the 1995 self-titled debut and 1995's *La Mia Vita Violenta* (whose title paid homage to the writer [Pier Paolo Pasolini](https://www.edgepedia.org/pier-paolo-pasolini)), plus associated singles, outtakes, and radio sessions, were later compiled by the reissue label Numero Group as *Masculin Féminin*.[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527) • [7](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22315-masculin-feminin/)
From the beginning, reviewers compared them to Sonic Youth and a roster of No-Wave acts, comparisons the band members largely ignored.[8](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/807-misery-is-a-butterfly/) AllMusic's review of *Fake Can Be Just as Good* observed that while they borrowed an anti-pop stance and atonal tension from the New York noise tradition, their clean sound, direct attack, and tense delivery were their own.[3](https://www.allmusic.com/album/fake-can-be-just-as-good-mw0000090524)
## The turn toward songcraft
The band's sound changed course around the turn of the millennium. By *Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons* (2000), much of the feedback-laced art-rock had given way to brittle pop and what one reviewer called arm's-length romanticism.[8](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/807-misery-is-a-butterfly/) The record also began a productive relationship with Guy Picciotto of Fugazi, who produced *In an Expression of the Inexpressible* (1998), *Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons* (2000), and *Misery Is a Butterfly* (2004); the friendship with Fugazi and Unwound had grown out of a shared 1995 tour.[5](https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/blonde-redhead-kazu-makino-on-the-music-that-made-her/)
For *Fake Can Be Just as Good* (1997), the band had moved to Chicago's Touch & Go with producer John Goodmanson, and Unwound's bassist Vern Rumsey played on the LP.[3](https://www.allmusic.com/album/fake-can-be-just-as-good-mw0000090524) • [5](https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/blonde-redhead-kazu-makino-on-the-music-that-made-her/) On *Misery Is a Butterfly*, released in 2004 on the British label 4AD, the trio worked in a 5,000-square-foot studio in [Hoboken, New Jersey](https://www.edgepedia.org/hoboken-new-jersey) with Picciotto contributing vocals to the track "Futurism vs. Passtime", continuing the balance of delicate beauty and fierce outbursts that AllMusic identifies as the pairing's hallmark.[8](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/807-misery-is-a-butterfly/) • [9](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/music-popular-and-jazz-biographies/blonde-redhead) • [1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527)
Notably, the only language the three members share, and the one in which they write lyrics, is English, their first language for none of them.[6](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-02-ca-hochman2-story.html)
## 23 and the later albums
**23 (2007).** The band's seventh album, *23*, was described by Pitchfork as a mysterious slice of chamber pop and the closest the band had come to mainstream success.[5](https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/blonde-redhead-kazu-makino-on-the-music-that-made-her/) Its title track opens with drifting drones and Eighties alternative-rock bombast, and AllMusic's retrospective biography credits *23* with streamlining and reinventing shoegaze years before the genre's wider revival.[10](https://drownedinsound.com/releases/9376/reviews/1859142) • [1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527)
The following decade drew quieter. *Penny Sparkle* (2010) suggested the band had grown tired of stomping on effects pedals and was finding peace in quieter music.[11](https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/interview-simone-pace-of-blonde-redhead) *Barragán* (2014) took their experiments in minimalism further; by then the band had spent 19 years, eight albums, and three record labels, and struck out on their own for the release.[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527) • [12](https://nowtoronto.com/music/preview-blonde-redhead/)
## The comeback: Sit Down for Dinner and after
After nearly a decade between albums, and following a wave of viral resurgence, *Sit Down for Dinner* arrived in 2023 on the Section1 label as the band's warmest, most welcoming record.[4](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/blonde-redhead-sit-down-for-dinner/) The largely acoustic palette makes the album's fantasies feel more immersive, and the driving, Makino-sung "Kiss Her Kiss Her" stands out as its romantic centerpiece.[13](https://www.allmusic.com/album/sit-down-for-dinner-mw0004017589)
The resurgence had an odd shape. According to the band's Spotify statistics, their most popular song by far, with a 65-million-stream margin over the runner-up, is not really a song at all, a phenomenon Pitchfork called among the strangest cases of veteran acts finding late popularity through streaming.[4](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/blonde-redhead-sit-down-for-dinner/) A companion album, *The Shadow of the Guest*, followed in 2025, and the band supported it with the Shadow of the Guest tour.[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527) • [14](https://kj.de/download.php?artist=Blonde+Redhead-Presseinfo+2026&file=%2Fimages%2Fmedia%2F5137_24840.pdf)
## Sound and reception
Critics have struggled to file the band under a single genre for thirty years, and the band's own account is that no album sounds quite like its predecessors.[10](https://drownedinsound.com/releases/9376/reviews/1859142) AllMusic summarizes the catalog as artfully noisy rock and mysterious, bittersweet pop united by a darkly romantic outlook that verges on the cinematic, informed as much by the filmmakers [Jean-Luc Godard](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-luc-godard) and Pier Paolo Pasolini as by My Bloody Valentine or Fugazi.[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527) Pitchfork's review of *Masculin Féminin* places them as a New York band that rendered post-no-wave squall with European art-house sophistication.[7](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22315-masculin-feminin/)
Their influence reaches into later indie scenes: the Montreal duo Bibi Club, opening for Blonde Redhead, was compared by *Le Monde* to the band's arty New York rock.[15](https://www.lemonde.fr/musiques/article/2024/06/10/nos-albums-coup-de-c-ur-charles-aznavour-chanson-italienne-beth-gibbons-vince-staples_6238350_1654986.html) Reception has not always been warm; Sputnikmusic notes that the tail end of their noise-rock era sat at an impasse of reception until *Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons* forced a reevaluation.[16](https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/80124/Blonde-Redhead-In-an-Expression-of-the-Inexpressible/)
## References
1. [Blonde Redhead: Biography, Discography, Albums & Expert Reviews, AllMusic (Heather Phares)](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blonde-redhead-mn0000046527)
2. [Blonde Redhead band page, Sputnikmusic](https://www.sputnikmusic.com/bands/Blonde-Redhead/3079/)
3. [Blonde Redhead: Fake Can Be Just as Good review, AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/album/fake-can-be-just-as-good-mw0000090524)
4. [Blonde Redhead: Sit Down for Dinner Album Review, Pitchfork (Stuart Berman, 2023)](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/blonde-redhead-sit-down-for-dinner/)
5. [Blonde Redhead's Kazu Makino on the Music That Made Her, Pitchfork (Nina Corcoran, 2023)](https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/blonde-redhead-kazu-makino-on-the-music-that-made-her/)
6. [Seeking the unheard of, Los Angeles Times (2004)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-02-ca-hochman2-story.html)
7. [Blonde Redhead: Masculin Féminin Album Review, Pitchfork (2015)](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22315-masculin-feminin/)
8. [Blonde Redhead: Misery Is a Butterfly Album Review, Pitchfork (Eric Carr, 2004)](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/807-misery-is-a-butterfly/)
9. [Blonde Redhead, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/music-popular-and-jazz-biographies/blonde-redhead)
10. [Album Review: Blonde Redhead - 23, Drowned In Sound (2005)](https://drownedinsound.com/releases/9376/reviews/1859142)
11. [Interview: Blonde Redhead's Simone Pace, The Line of Best Fit (2013)](https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/interview-simone-pace-of-blonde-redhead)
12. [Preview: Blonde Redhead, NOW Magazine (2014)](https://nowtoronto.com/music/preview-blonde-redhead/)
13. [Blonde Redhead: Sit Down for Dinner review, AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/album/sit-down-for-dinner-mw0004017589)
14. [Blonde Redhead press information: The Shadow of the Guest Tour 2026](https://kj.de/download.php?artist=Blonde+Redhead-Presseinfo+2026&file=%2Fimages%2Fmedia%2F5137_24840.pdf)
15. [Nos albums coup de cœur, Le Monde (2024)](https://www.lemonde.fr/musiques/article/2024/06/10/nos-albums-coup-de-c-ur-charles-aznavour-chanson-italienne-beth-gibbons-vince-staples_6238350_1654986.html)
16. [Blonde Redhead - In an Expression of the Inexpressible review, Sputnikmusic](https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/80124/Blonde-Redhead-In-an-Expression-of-the-Inexpressible/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musicians and ensembles › Ensembles and groups › Rock, pop, and metal bands › Rock, indie, and pop groups › Indie and alternative bands › Noise and experimental rock bands*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license