Kikagaku Moyo
Oct 26, 2022 20:21:51 GMT -5
Post by Daytol on Oct 26, 2022 20:21:51 GMT -5
It sure is a treat when you find the rare band where the members are stuck in a time warp, creating music that happened a few decades before they were even born.
And they do it just as good, if not better than groups back then.
Kikagaku Moyo is one of those bands. These are reborn hippies that do 1960s-70s psychedelic rock, modern day folk and 60s-70s hard rock. Well, on their House in the Tall Grass album, at least. At one point they took some album's worth of material to their record company but they just wanted a carbon copy of their previous one and refused to print it, so one of the members started his own label and they released stuff from there. This could be one of the reasons why they broke up, although that could've also been from touring, all members being multi-instrumentalists (which you'd have to keep on going in and out of the studio doing all your stuff), recording albums, being the guy who was *also* running a label AND they worked regular jobs (I assume but I could be wrong).
Whatever the story is, the opener of "Green Sugar" starts off a bit loud, but then it mellows out. The singer's way in the background on everything. During the last minute or so it goes into 70s-like feedback hard rock but that's just at the end, so you can just skip that part if it's not your thing.
Most of the rest of the album's mellow. "Old Snow, White Sun" is an interesting mix of sounding like a free-for-all, clean guitar jam but then the singing has a mystical quality to it. I smiled several times during this when that happened.
However, there's the trio of instrumentals that really shows the diversity.
All of them...are totally...different. That's something you just don't hear with bands.
"Melted Crystal" sounds like wind chimes made into music (and nowhere near as annoying for those that don't like them). The only thing is there's only like 10 seconds' worth of music but it's repeated for over five minutes. I thought this was just ok but a bit too repetitive but someone on Bandcamp said it was their favorite track so what do I know. The next one though, "Dune", has a bass/guitar basis but then the lead guitar is pretty interesting, and "Fata Morgana" is mystical ambient, of all things. Just try finding another instrumental band that does a variety like this.
"Silver Owl" is another one that, oddly, has a heavy jam for only a few measures (to wake us up?), then it goes back to being mellow, but also like "Green Sugar", it also delves into what I swear is Jimi Hendrix reborn feedback wailing at the end. It's surprising how heavy it actually gets during the last few minutes, but again, anyone who's not into that can just skip the rest, as that type of music genre doesn't even take up a third of the song (as it's 10 minutes long). The mellow majority of the song has been what's been going through my head the other evening when I got this in the mail on that day and listened to it to make sure the disc wasn't defective.
"Trad" surprisingly opens with what sounds like a fast Western done on guitar! But of course, it mellows back out, and the closer of "Cardigan Song" has clean guitar picking, which the song is totally 60s music worship. This is another one that put a smile on my face with the high-pitched singing, although the whistling at the end sounds kind of off in places.
This expands my music collection in two ways: one, this is my first cd from a Japanese band. In the 90s I got the debut (and next two cds) from a metal band called Bal-Sagoth. Due to the advent of cd and Quicktime technology, if you put the cd in a computer you were given previews to three other bands. One of them was Sigh. As the BNR Metal encyclopedia site described them:
the trio constantly throws in oddball riffs, instruments, and interludes, from odd female backing singing to weird piano breaks, to hand clapping, jazz breaks, country (!) interludes, and a host of various where-did-that-come-from sounds that can often baffle the listener
yeah, as when the brief clip started, there was the croaking of a couple of death metal lines from the vocalist, then some slow, bizarre, doomy guitar came in, and then...a piano? I guess the Japanese just do things differently.
And two, this is my first ever psychedelic/at times hard rock/60s-like folk cd. Even if I had Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits (always meant to get it) S&G never sounded anything like this. Nothing I have sounds like this.
Also, if anyone were to check out any of their other stuff, let me know what its like. All else I've heard is their Gypsy Davey ep (complete with a totally groovy, 60s-influenced cover), with a happy opening track with a female singer and the second one is the usual good 60s-like mellow stuff. Worth the $2, so I'll snag that too at some point, if not their whole catalog eventually.
Anyway, PEACE, man.
(goes to get a flashlight to find some flowers)
(remembers it was the women in the 60s who put flowers in their hair, not the men)
(changes mind)
And they do it just as good, if not better than groups back then.
Kikagaku Moyo is one of those bands. These are reborn hippies that do 1960s-70s psychedelic rock, modern day folk and 60s-70s hard rock. Well, on their House in the Tall Grass album, at least. At one point they took some album's worth of material to their record company but they just wanted a carbon copy of their previous one and refused to print it, so one of the members started his own label and they released stuff from there. This could be one of the reasons why they broke up, although that could've also been from touring, all members being multi-instrumentalists (which you'd have to keep on going in and out of the studio doing all your stuff), recording albums, being the guy who was *also* running a label AND they worked regular jobs (I assume but I could be wrong).
Whatever the story is, the opener of "Green Sugar" starts off a bit loud, but then it mellows out. The singer's way in the background on everything. During the last minute or so it goes into 70s-like feedback hard rock but that's just at the end, so you can just skip that part if it's not your thing.
Most of the rest of the album's mellow. "Old Snow, White Sun" is an interesting mix of sounding like a free-for-all, clean guitar jam but then the singing has a mystical quality to it. I smiled several times during this when that happened.
However, there's the trio of instrumentals that really shows the diversity.
All of them...are totally...different. That's something you just don't hear with bands.
"Melted Crystal" sounds like wind chimes made into music (and nowhere near as annoying for those that don't like them). The only thing is there's only like 10 seconds' worth of music but it's repeated for over five minutes. I thought this was just ok but a bit too repetitive but someone on Bandcamp said it was their favorite track so what do I know. The next one though, "Dune", has a bass/guitar basis but then the lead guitar is pretty interesting, and "Fata Morgana" is mystical ambient, of all things. Just try finding another instrumental band that does a variety like this.
"Silver Owl" is another one that, oddly, has a heavy jam for only a few measures (to wake us up?), then it goes back to being mellow, but also like "Green Sugar", it also delves into what I swear is Jimi Hendrix reborn feedback wailing at the end. It's surprising how heavy it actually gets during the last few minutes, but again, anyone who's not into that can just skip the rest, as that type of music genre doesn't even take up a third of the song (as it's 10 minutes long). The mellow majority of the song has been what's been going through my head the other evening when I got this in the mail on that day and listened to it to make sure the disc wasn't defective.
"Trad" surprisingly opens with what sounds like a fast Western done on guitar! But of course, it mellows back out, and the closer of "Cardigan Song" has clean guitar picking, which the song is totally 60s music worship. This is another one that put a smile on my face with the high-pitched singing, although the whistling at the end sounds kind of off in places.
This expands my music collection in two ways: one, this is my first cd from a Japanese band. In the 90s I got the debut (and next two cds) from a metal band called Bal-Sagoth. Due to the advent of cd and Quicktime technology, if you put the cd in a computer you were given previews to three other bands. One of them was Sigh. As the BNR Metal encyclopedia site described them:
the trio constantly throws in oddball riffs, instruments, and interludes, from odd female backing singing to weird piano breaks, to hand clapping, jazz breaks, country (!) interludes, and a host of various where-did-that-come-from sounds that can often baffle the listener
yeah, as when the brief clip started, there was the croaking of a couple of death metal lines from the vocalist, then some slow, bizarre, doomy guitar came in, and then...a piano? I guess the Japanese just do things differently.
And two, this is my first ever psychedelic/at times hard rock/60s-like folk cd. Even if I had Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits (always meant to get it) S&G never sounded anything like this. Nothing I have sounds like this.
Also, if anyone were to check out any of their other stuff, let me know what its like. All else I've heard is their Gypsy Davey ep (complete with a totally groovy, 60s-influenced cover), with a happy opening track with a female singer and the second one is the usual good 60s-like mellow stuff. Worth the $2, so I'll snag that too at some point, if not their whole catalog eventually.
Anyway, PEACE, man.
(goes to get a flashlight to find some flowers)
(remembers it was the women in the 60s who put flowers in their hair, not the men)
(changes mind)