Cactuses Come in Flocks
Cactuses Come In Flocks is an album by Melt-Banana. It is their second full-length release, although the band refers to it as their "1&½nd album". The album was originally released on cassette by Chocolate Monk, and was later re-issued to CD and LP by A-Zap. "Cactuses Come in Flocks" contains an early live performance in November 1992 at an improvisation festival at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. None of these songs ever made it to any studio recording although the song "To the Core" has the same lyrics as "Chicken Headed  Raccoon Dog" on their debut album "Speak Squeak Creak". The other half of the album is a studio session from July 1994 soon after the recording of the first album. These songs were recorded specially for this release. The sound is some of the rawest of Melt-Banana. This recording also marks the debut of Melt-Banana regulars "Ketchup-Mess" (in a much slower version) and "Picnic in Panic" (in a much faster version). The CD/LP re-issue also contains a song not featured on the original cassette called "Interval". This song was usually played on tape at the  beginning of almost all their shows during the 94-95 period. On the original cassette release the 15 studio songs were on side A and the 16 live songs were on side B. The re-issue has them switched with "Interval" in the middle. Track listing (Original cassette version). Side A. Side B.