![]() ![]() Kurosawa attributes the growth of psych rock in the country to a backlash against Japan’s “strong society.” Later groups - most notably the the long-running collective Acid Mothers Temple - took a more experimental approach and cultivated an underground fan base. ![]() Early Japanese psych acts like the Flower Travellin’ Band sang in English and covered popular songs from abroad. came just as Western rock exploded in popularity among Japanese youth. ![]() The genre’s late-Sixties emergence in the U.S. Japan has developed its own small psychedelic-rock scene. “Psychedelic rock originated and it has lots of background like roots, like country music, blues music, lots of influence,” Kurosawa says. And rather than the classics of the Sixties, Kurosawa cites krautrock and more obscure crate-digging finds as key influences. Indeed, growing up, Kurosawa thought jam-band godfathers the Grateful Dead were a fashion label when he first saw their famed skull-and-rose merch in the vintage boutiques of Harajuku. “Japanese psychedelic bands kind of imagined what is psychedelic culture not knowing and not really experiencing exactly what happened in San Francisco, for example,” Kurosawa says, “but kind of imagining … and then trying to create our original.” Part of what makes their sound unique is the fact that the band formed in Tokyo, more than 5,000 miles from psychedelia’s Bay Area birthplace. They play an expansive take on psychedelic rock that ranges from metallic to meditative. Indecipherable lyrics are just one of many things that makes Kikagaku Moyo - which translates to “geometric patterns” - unique. “It’s amazing that the music we play echoed,” Kurosawa explains. Two of the band’s five members - drummer Go Kurosawa and multi-instrumentalist Tomo Katsurada - spoke with Rolling Stone about their approximately decade-long run and the decision to call it quits. Now, they’re planning to go on “indefinite hiatus” following a final album Kumoyo Island, out May 6, and an international farewell tour. Since getting together in 2012, the band has gone from playing small bars to amassing more than 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, selling out major venues, and becoming a fixture on the jam-band circuit. But singing in tongues hasn’t stopped this Japanese quintet from connecting with audiences around the world. The group’s lyrics consist entirely of invented syllables - phonetic sounds that complement their intricate looping riffs. We had an afternoon of rehearsal and it mostly just drinking espresso, smoking cigs and saying ‘man, we'll be fine.Kikagaku Moyo literally speak their own language. He shaped the raw recordings into a cohesive piece that works for a 40 min slab. So we passed the live recordings off to cooper crain of CAVE and bitchin bajas to tweak the levels and add some sprinkles. So with KM and me, 9 mother fuckers total on stage wailing. ![]() I was in the middle of a european tour, so had my full backing band. Seemed like the most fun and natural thing to do. We share similar guitar scuzz and riff heavy improvising when playing live. I was immediately drawn to Kikagaku Moyo. I was asked by the organizers to find another group on the festival to collaborate with for a one off performance. “So, the group game together at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands in 2018. Acquired direct from the artist! We are pleased to stock this, the standard black vinyl edition. ![]()
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