On their final album, the Japanese psych rockers push beyond the horizons of their previous records. The songs are compact in comparison to their side-long odysseys, but they continually keep you guessing.
Kumoyo Island is a full-circle moment for Kikagaku Moyo, but the circle continues to widen. Earlier this year, the long-haired Japanese psych-rock unit announced an indefinite hiatus to follow the release of the LP, their fifth and final album. They’ve accomplished a lot in their decade as a band, earning fans worldwide thanks to sprawling, spellbinding live performances with two guitars and a sitar, and launching a label, Guruguru Brain, to document a growing crop of Asian psych acts. Returning to the studio in Tokyo where they recorded their earliest material, Kikagaku Moyo were given an unrestricted time limit, and the quintet used this opportunity to venture outside of its already expansive comfort zones. The result is a farewell album that feels like both a reinvention and a culmination.
Kikagaku Moyo began in 2012 as the duo of drummer/vocalist Go Kurosawa and guitarist/vocalist Tomo Katsurada. While spending time in the U.S. during college studies, they attended their first DIY house shows, which contrasted strikingly with venues in Japan charging musicians $300 to perform a 30-minute set. This inspired them to write lyrics in an imaginary language of invented syllables in the attempt to make their music universal, as they played early gigs busking under cherry-blossom trees and outside of train stations. Go’s brother Ryu was asked to join after he returned from India to study the sitar, while bassist Kotsuguy was invited when they found him recording the sound of vending machines for his drone project. This fusion of classical training and playful experimentation is partly what makes the band stand out from legions of stylistically constrained, retro-cosplaying psych acts.
Recent releases have included Kikagaku Moyo’s 2018 album Masana Temples—a relatively mellow collection of songs produced by Portuguese jazz guitarist Bruno Pernadas—and 2021’s Deep Fried Grandeur, a live collaboration with Ryley Walker. Kumoyo Island stands out from both with its busy instrumental arrangements and newfound embrace of Japanese cultural traditions. Taking its name from a wafer sweet, opener “Monaka” augments min’yō folk music with slinky electric guitars. “Yayoi Iyayoi” is a rare song from the band with lyrics in Japanese, beginning as a gentle lullaby before switching into minimalist garage rock. Midway through, it changes once again, adding chiming percussion and airy gang vocals before the riffs soar into the stratosphere. These songs are compact in comparison to the band’s side-long odysseys, but they consistently keep you guessing at what’s coming next.
“Dancing Blue” is one of the funkiest jams Kikagaku Moyo have laid to tape, layering a chicken-scratch wah-wah riff over handclaps and chanted vocals. Unlike other songs on the album, it maintains a consistent mood across its six minutes, making for a nice contrast with the more complexly structured patchworks. “Cardboard Pile,” on the other hand, fades in with a heavy, Boredoms-style groove that sounds like it’s already been building for several minutes, then abandons it completely. The song’s second half cycles through Tuareg-like guitar riffs and regal blasts of brass inspired by the funk music that Kikagaku Moyo encountered during their trip to Lisbon to record Masana Temples. The horns are a natural addition to the band’s wanderlusting sound, and could provide thrilling hip-hop sample fodder in the hands of an adventurous beatmaker.
“Meu Mar” continues to blur the boundaries between cultures. Originally written by Brazil’s Erasmos Carlos, the song’s Portuguese lyrics were first translated into English, then to Japanese. No matter what language the band sings in, “Gomugomu” is a psychedelic pop wonder, shifting between key changes as it bobs down a lazy river of warbling riffs and wailing guitar harmonies. Other short songs like “Daydream Soda” and “Field of Tiger Lilies” feel more like interludes than proper compositions, but they provide a welcome respite from the furious riffage. “Maison Silk Road” sails the album to a blissful ambient conclusion, with heavenly piano chords and curlicues of sitar that circle back to the sound of the band’s 2013 debut.
Kikagaku Moyo’s name translates to “Geometric Patterns.” This came to founding member Go Kurosawa during an all-night jam session when he was so tired that he began seeing grids of shapes when he closed his eyes. It sounds psychedelic, but it’s also something of a misnomer in terms of the band’s unstructured approach, which entails never taking more than two takes for any given song. “Even if someone makes a mistake, that’s the real us and mistakes can sometimes turn into really interesting peculiarities,” Kurosawa has said. As one of the most consistently thrilling representatives of a global psych community, Kikagaku Moyo continue to make unpredictable choices, even on an album that didn’t need to be more than a celebratory victory lap. Kumoyo Island is the apex of their journey, introducing new musical territories while surveying just how far they’ve traveled….By Jesse Locke….pitchfork…..~
“The fifth studio album & last euphoric mind-trip to Kikagaku Moyo’s imagined island.
Best-suited for counting stars, looking at the ocean, and dancing in one’s daydream.”
In many ways ‘Kumoyo Island’ represents the culmination of a journey for Kikagaku Moyo. While their decade-long career can be summarized as a series of kaleidoscopic explorations through lands and dimensions far and near, there’s a strong intention in each of their works to take the listener to a particular place, however real or abstract they may be. In that sense, the title and cover art for the band’s fifth and final album draws you into a magical mass of land surrounded by water—but the couch suggests that ‘Kumoyo Island’may not be a fleeting stop, but rather a place of respite, where one could pause and take it all in.
Reconvening at Tsubame Studios in Asakusabashi, Tokyo, where their earliest material had been recorded, the five members of Kikagaku Moyo found new inspiration in a familiar and comfortable environment. With their adopted homebase of Amsterdam under lockdown and their touring activities halted due to the pandemic, the band felt a renewed sense of freedom being back in shitamachi, or the old downtown area of their hometown. With unrestricted time in the studio, they began to build upon the demos and song fragments they’d amassed since their last tour. In the 1.5 months spent in Tokyo, everything started to come together.
“Monaka”, its name taken from a type of Japanese wafer sweets, takes melodic inspiration from traditional minyofolk styles, while “Yayoi Iyayoi” is a rare instance of the band singing in their native tongue, its evocative lyrics utilizing archaic words taken from old poetry and nature books found in one of the many second-hand bookstores of Tokyo. For “Meu Mar”, an Erasmos Carlos cover, the original Portuguese lyrics were translated into English, then to Japanese. Strangely enough, the words seem to conjure an image of the protagonist floating among the clouds, looking down upon Tokyo Bay.
In fact, it may be possible to draw a parallel between the topography of the band’s home country—an island nation, surrounded by bodies of water—and the mysterious isle of Kumoyo. Are they one and the same? Has the band finally made it back home? It’s up to the listener to decide. ….~
A five-piece group that looks as if they have stepped back in time from the 1970s, with a geometric pattern. He has been active mainly overseas for the past 10 years, has a close friendship with artists who are at the forefront of the current indie scene such as Kluang Bin and King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, has performed a series of sold-out performances around the world, and recently announced his appearance on Fuji Rock, which has become a hot topic. Their new album “Kumoyo Island” is the third album to be released on their own label “Guruguru Brain”, and their first original album in about four years since their previous album “Masana Temples”, with a collaboration live album “Deep Fried Grandeur” with guitarist Riley Walker from Chicago. It will be released simultaneously worldwide digitally and via streaming on May 6 (Fri), and a Japanese CD and a limited edition T-shirt set will be released on May 25 (Wed).
To coincide with the announcement, a new song, “Cardboard Pile”, was released along with a music video. The psychedelic images that seem to be geometric patterns are handled by up-and-coming creators from Katsushika.
With unusual names, including sitar players, they are known only to those in their native Japan, but they have appeared at psychedelic festivals around the world almost every year, including “LEVITATION” hosted by the Black Angels and “Desert Daze” starring Tame Impala and My Bloody Valentine in the past. They have sold out with more than 100 gigs a year, collaborated with fashion brands such as Issey Miyake and GUCCI, and continue to work freely beyond the boundaries of indie bands.
Originally a geometric pattern that started quietly on the streets of Takadanobaba in the summer of 2012. They were just like beginners in their instrumental playing, but when they posted their first album “Kikagaku Moyo”, which recorded all the songs in just one take, to Bandcamp, they were contacted by an Australian band and decided to embark on their first overseas tour. On the other hand, in Japan, when the self-planned event “TOKYO PSYCH FEST” was launched, its DIY spirit gradually began to attract attention among core music fans. <
After that, the leaders Go Kurosawa (D, Vo) and Tomo Katsurada (G, Vo) moved their base of operations to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and shifted to a free and international style of activity where they usually communicate on the Internet and get together just before recording and touring. With Portuguese jazz musician Bruno Pernadas as producer, Masana Temples evolved into an increasingly categorizable soundscape with the essence of Brazilian music added to the musicality of the previous mix of garage psychedelics, jazz, Indian classical music, and folk songs. This work is a further push of their concept.
Recording was done at the Swallow Studio in Asakusabashi, which they used in the early days of their activities. Having chosen Amsterdam as a base during lockdown and pandemic tour hiatus, they said they felt a renewed sense of freedom when they returned to the old downtown area of downtown or their home town. DDuring his stay in Tokyo for about a month and a half, he completed the film by identifying fragments of ideas that he had been stockpiling up and building them in the studio.
The opening song “Monaka” is a departure from the grand opening like progressive rock of the 60’s, and the unique lyrics are whispered in his ear as if he focuses on the comfort of the words, “Mo, Na-ka, Nakanakano.” As he writhes around the ASMR-like sound and unique wordplay, the ensuing “Dancing Blue” features a wow guitar reminiscent of Kluang Binh dancing lightly on a rolling rhythm. Just when you thought it would continue with a minimalist ensemble stripped down in the number of notes, the third track, “Effe,” fills the space with a heavenly riverb that leads the listener to “Haraiso.”
“Meu Mar” is a cover of Brazilian singer-songwriter ERASMO CARLOS. The original Portuguese lyrics were translated into English and then translated into Japanese. One of the charms of this album is that you can enjoy this song and the fact that they sing Japanese in a rare way in the album’s climax “Yayoi Iyayoi”.
The first half is like riding a roller coaster through time and space, and the psychedelic second half is reminiscent of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”, the “Cardboard Pile” whose drop is spectacular, and the lo-fi tune “Gomugomu” that seems to play frayed tape, “Daydream Soda,” which seems to be an explosion of love for Bose of Canada, and “Field of Tiger Lilies,” in which the intertwining of odd time signatures and guitar riffs loops narcotically, each song has a completely different approach, but each song has a strong originality that can only be described as a geometric pattern.
With the afterglow of the beautiful ambient song “Maison Silk Road”, the album closes. Was this work, “Kumoyo Island,” inspired by the image of Japan, an island nation through clouds, glimpsed from the sky as they were on their way home? Although they have no choice but to confirm their true intentions directly with themselves, there is a horizon here that can only be reached by those who have persisted in being “alternative” wherever they are in the world…..~
So, that’s the way it is. Kikagaku Moyo decided to bow out after a decade of good and loyal service. It must be said that the Japanese psychedelic rock quintet has accomplished a lot in ten years and they intend to broaden their horizons with their fifth and final album called Kumoyo Island.For this last odyssey, Kikagaku Moyo fills our ears with this opening so heavenly named “Monaka” where all the ingredients are gathered to make us dream once again. The Tokyo quintet favors travel and tranquility through atmospheric and instantaneous melodies such as “Dancing Blue” and “Meu Mar” with arrangements playing rain and good weather as they see fit.The further we go, the more we have a pinch in our hearts when we know that Kikagaku Moyo will probably no longer be with us. Anyway, we feast with a little sleight of hand with the almost Tuareg riffs of “Cardboard Pile” gaining momentum or the fascinating and harmonious psychedelic pop of “Gomugomu” where the Japanese quintet shows that they have more than one trick in their pocket with “Yayoi, Iyayoi”.Following this, the hour of farewell is confirmed with a touching instrumental conclusion called “Silk Road House” with its vaporous and throbbing piano notes. For a decade, Kikagaku Moyo has fascinated us and continues to do so on this farewell record that adds to a perfect and impressive discography. What is certain is that the quintet will have marked the local psychedelic rock scene with their innovative and traveling melodies…..~
Since getting their start busking on the streets of Tokyo a decade ago, Kikagaku Moyo have built up an increasingly vivid discography, given hundreds of acclaimed performances around the world (as documented on various live LPs), and shined a light on a vast constellation of their fellow East Asian psych upstarts via their Guruguru Brain label. Their legacy is already secure, yet it’s a bummer seeing them call it quits at a time when they seem poised to enjoy a more significant explosion in popularity. If they have to end their run, at least they’re putting an exclamation point on it. “We have come to the conclusion that because we have truly achieved our core mission as a band,” the group wrote early this year, “we would love to end this project on the highest note possible.” The new Kumoyo Island lives up to that billing; it rivals 2018’s Masana Temples as the group’s finest album, and it may well be the most fun.
In the mid-2010s, Kikagaku made a name for themselves refining an especially chilled-out version of psychedelia — “an evocative reinterpretation of stoner rock as something more worldly, ambient, and atmospheric,” as Pranav Trewn put it in his essential guide to Guruguru Brain. Even the songs that built to doom-adjacent guitar crunch had a certain scaled-down, meditative quality. In small increments, the band’s albums became more energetic and less impressionistic while maintaining that old peaceful exploratory spirit, climaxing with the tour de force Masana Temples. By then Kikagaku Moyo were based in Amsterdam and regularly running circles around the globe, winning new converts to their legendary live show. But the pandemic put a stop to all that travel and occasioned a return to Tokyo’s Asakusabashi neighborhood, where the band tracked their fifth and final album at the same studio where they laid down their earliest recordings…..~
Yew Kumoyo Island was born from a return home, it is by no means a back-to-basics effort. Rather, the band has touted it as a destination they’ve been traveling towards all these years, an abstract magical getaway where one can pause, observe, and reflect. Despite the emphasis on stillness and contemplation, this is the most dynamic Kikagaku Moyo album to date. At its calmest, it bursts with energy and ideas. And as implied by the fiery wind-tunnel joyride that kicks off lead single “Cardboard Pile” — perhaps the closest this band has come to the overwhelming surge of their Japanese psych predecessors Boredoms — it often revs up far beyond its placid baseline.
Opening track “Monaka” exemplifies the album’s complex splendor: named for a Japanese wafer sandwich and inspired by min’yō folk traditions, it weaves an increasingly intense groove from strands of funk bass, a menagerie of percussion, half-whispered vocals, Ryu Kurosawa’s darting sitar, and ’60s-vintage wah-wah fuzz guitar. At just over five minutes, the song is a world unto itself but also a portal into Kumoyo Island‘s stunningly varied topography. The sweaty funk vibes continue on “Dancing Blue,” where a droning backdrop and contagious rhythm give way to hypnotic acoustic strums and, eventually, a spotlit guitar/sitar dance.
Loose yet locked-in beats like this abound on this album. I maintain that some rap producer should sample the second half of “Cardboard Pile,” with its tangle of guitars and regal brass; the towering rocker “Yayoi Iyayoi,” with its punchy power chords and hard-slapping drums, could be flipped into a sick breakbeat too. Yet Kumoyo Island is not all so hard-hitting; much of the thrill of the album is hearing Kikagaku Moyo pull off so many different sounds and feelings. The whimsical “Gomugomu” is practically a cartoon. On the interlude “Field Of Tiger Lillies,” a nasty recurring guitar figure hits like a cracking whip. Kikagaku serves up magnificently chill beauty in multiple forms, from the hypnotic ambient folk track “Nap Song” to the subtly epic Erasmos Carlos cover “Meu Mar.” The instrumental “Effe” reminds me of 2000s blog-rock at its dreamiest and most gorgeous, while the softly booming “Daydream Soda” evokes Gold Panda’s liminal-space dance music or an old Radiohead B-side.
In the end, inevitably, Kikagaku Moyo return to the calm. Closer “Maison Silk Road” wraps up this band’s discography with six-plus minutes of eerie glowing synths, plaintive piano, reverb-drenched guitar, and ghostly found sound. It adds up to a monolithic celestial drone, as mesmerizing and serene as any new age recording you’ll find. Consider it the light at the end of the tunnel for a group that is going out in top form, with such a tantalizing collection of music that I wish they’d keep going forever…..~
収録曲:
Kikagaku Moyo/幾何学模様 “Stone Garden” EP 2017 Japan Psych Folk Rock
Kikagaku Moyo 幾何学模様 “House in the Tall Grass”2016 Japan Psych Folk Rock,Kraut Rock,Acid Folk
Kikagaku Moyo “Kikagaku Moyo” 2013 Japan Acid Psych Rock debut album
Kikagaku Moyo / 幾何学模様 “Masana Temples” 2018 Japan Psych Rock,Acid Folk Rock,,Kraut Rock released 05.10.2018 new album recommended….! the best Japanese Psych Rock band today
Ryley Walker & Kikagaku Moyo 幾何学模様 “Deep Fried Grandeur” 2021 Japan USA Psych Rock Psychedelic Folk,Acid Folk,Post-Rock
Kikagaku Moyo”Gypsy Davey”2020 Japan Psych Rock new single
Kikagaku Moyo 幾何学模様 “Island” 2022 Japan Psych Folk Rock, new album is available by Guruguru Brain label … A Japanese Psych Band Says Goodbye the final album
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