KIKAGAKU MOYO
VENUE STUDIO 9294, LONDON DATE 28/08/2019 SUPPORT VANISHING TWIN
There’s a distinct whiff of hipsterdom blending with the traces of patchouli and more exotic fragrances floating through the air tonight. There are even the kind of mullets that haven’t been seen since the police used crusties’ heads for baton practice on the A303. And while all that evokes a particular time and place, quintet Vanishing Twin conjure up the more hippie end of the loved-up early 90s with a combination of low-end grooves, gurgling synths, bongos and flutes. The result is music that isn’t half as clever as it thinks it is while being too impersonal to warm to.
No such worries for Japan’s Kikagaku Moyo whose ascending star shines ever brighter with each subsequent visit to the UK. At the heart of their multi-coloured oeuvre is a creaminess that rises from delicate instrumental flourishes through to gloriously heavy freakouts that embrace hot fuzz before coming down again. Witness the opening one-two of Entrance and Dripping Sun that follows its lead from their new album, Masana Temples. Ryu Kurosawa’s sitar is a hypnotic and beguiling guide that leads the audience from this reality into theirs as the band effortlessly segue into slinky, wah-wah’ed funk.
It lollops along in the manner of watching Robert Crumb’s
Keep On Truckin’ poster coming to life after one chuff too many before exploding into a kaleidoscopic miasma of noise, only to retreat once more to those elongated strides. If there is a downside to Kikagaku Moyo then it’s to be found in an over-earnestness whenever Tomo Katsurada leaves his guitar in favour of percussion. Rarely is one privy to such high levels of concentration in the deployment of the triangle.
But these are minor gripes, not least when realising that Kikagaku Moyo are a far more interesting proposition live than they are on record. Not that this is to damn the material captured for posterity, but it’s when they’re pushing air on stage that their music takes on a far more organic personality. Credit is due in part to their soundman who, while making subtle yet palpable changes to their sound, resembles a long-haired version of the USS Enterprise’s Mr Chekov deliberating over which photon torpedo to fire.
It all comes to a head on the stunningly beautiful Cardigan
Song wherein Eastern and Western traditions of drone and folk coalesce seamlessly into a mesmerising and coherent whole. And while the temptation lies to pin them down at this point, they’re off freaking out once again on Gatherings. A night that covers all bases, then.
“LIKE WATCHING
ROBERT CRUMB’S