$45.00
Kikagaku Moyo here sound anything but lost, their child-like wonder manifested in a confident, courageous exploration of sound. Labels – psychedelic, folk, prog-rock, psychedelic-folk-mixed-with-prog-rock – do little to accurately reflect the spectrum of influences on display, let alone the more impactful realization of completeness in Kikagaku Moyo’s songs.
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Kikagaku Moyo is the musical union between five free spirits. Go Kurosawa (drums, Vocals) and Tomo Katsurada (Guitar, Vocals) formed the band in 2012 as a free artist’s collective. They met Kotsuguy (Bass) while he was recording noise from vending machines and Akira (Guitar) through their university. Ryu Kurosawa had been studying Sitar in India, upon returning home he found the perfect outlet for his practice.
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Since 2013 the band has released three full-lengths, an EP, and several singles. They have toured Australia, the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan extensively. Kikagaku Moyo love to connect with people through performing, whether they are playing in a barn deep in a Swedish forest, on a desolate Mediterranean beach, or beside a sleepy river at 2014’s Levitation Fest they bring out the magic in everyone present.
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Their delicate use of melody and soft vocal harmonies contrast seamlessly with fuzzed out sitar riffs and feedback. To Kikagaku Moyo a song is like a breath of wind through the leaves or a fish jumping from the water. Their music is a conversation—sometimes delicate and tender other times explosive, but always human and always changing. – Bandcamp
$45.00
Though it seems contradictory to search for the ethereal in genres as utterly human-made as synthwave and video game soundtracks, there's no shortage of modern artists doing just that and succeeding. Independent artists mainly drove the vaporwave craze that peaked a few years and showed a knack for transforming the accessible into something transcendent, playing with the opulent aesthetics of Tokyo city pop and the ease of modern technology to evoke an imagined past in creating the modern.
Taipei-based trio Mong Tong is of this decade-spanning ilk, making music that wavers like a well-played audio cassette and sounds like it belongs in the dramatic cutscenes of an early 1990s Capcom installment. On full-length debut Mystery, the group's human members, brothers Hom Yu and Jiun Chi, put together seven tracks of a thick atmosphere, taking concrete media influences and creating something celestial. The trio's third member is a noncorporeal computerized member, as they tell it -- just as important a component in the creative process. The album sees them joining the Guruguru Brain label that serves as home to psych-rock group Kikagaku Moyo (two members of which founded the label).
Largely based around samples and synths, Mystery is nonetheless richly multi-instrumental. That is clear from the ornate "Intro" that opens the album, where Hom's bass adds an urgent undertone to darkly ornate keys. The title track follows, and here, Chi's guitar goes heavy on the wahs, sounding like back alleys and neon lights over a melody that sways upward. Both are equally important in driving forward the shimmering "Chakra". Vintage vocal samples open ominous "Jou-tau", on which the occasional soaring of synths cuts through the languid wailing of guitar. – Pop Matters
Label: Guruguru Brain – GGB-022LP |
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition |
Country: Europe |
Released: 19 Jun 2020 |
Genre: Electronic, Rock |
Style: Psychedelic Rock, Experimental |
$39.00
On ‘Sewele’, Peters explores different themes on four extended juju workouts, showcasing his incredible guitar work and his sense of fun as the odd Bob Marley and Abba riff pops up in the grooves. The title track means ‘shower of blessings’: “it’s like a prayer for my fans throughout Nigeria and the diaspora.” The funky Afrobeat of ‘Yabis’ is about being proud to be African and not to follow American ways and ‘Agbe’ere De’ states proudly that Peters is coming again with something different: “I always wanted to get the message across to my fans that I was keeping things fresh and creating melodies and music that people would enjoy.” The final track, ‘Late Aboderin’, is a moving tribute to Peters’ mentor, the late Chief Aboderin: “He helped me in many ways including legal aid in a court case against a record label. He also bought a van to carry the band to concerts. - Bandcamp
Label: Strut – STRUT202LP |
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue |
Country: Germany |
Released: Jan 2019 |
Genre: Funk / Soul, Folk, World, & Country |
Style: African, Psychedelic |
$45.00
The UK’s cosmic, psychedelic-funk ensemble issue their first album on maverick producer Madlib’s label, Madlib Invazion. The Heliocentrics’ albums are all confounding pieces of work. Drawing equally from the funk universe of James Brown, the disorienting asymmetry of Sun Ra, the cinematic scope of Ennio Morricone, the sublime fusion of David Axelrod, Pierre Henry’s turned-on musique concrète, and Can’s beat-heavy Krautrock, they have – regardless of the label on which they’ve released their music – pointed the way towards a brand new kind of psychedelia, one that could only come from a band of accomplished musicians who were also obsessive music fans. Drummer Malcolm Catto and bassist Jake Ferguson are the Heliocentrics’ masterminds and producers, and they are obsessive weirdos in today’s musical climate, searching, progressive humans who are often out-of-time with current trends. - Bandcamp
Label: Madlib Invazion – MMS 037 |
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
Country: US |
Released: 07 Feb 2020 |
Genre: Electronic, Hip Hop, Funk / Soul |
Style: Broken Beat |