Kikagaku Moyo, meaning \"geometric patterns\" is a psychedelic rock band from Tokyo, Japan, founded in the summer of 2012 by Go Kurosawa and Tomo Katsurada.
When one talks about Psychedelic Rock, Japan is one of the last places that will ever come to your mind. For the ones who haven’t unraveled Kikagaku Moyo’s sublime sound, they dazzle to the raw nectar of bands like Hawkwind and Nektar. The sophomore full-length offering, “Forest of the Lost Children” opens with “Semicircle”, rushing in like an improvisational premise for the soothing vibe that you experience throughout the album. It is like an open ended preface to a journey which adds enough substance for the listener to expect for more.
“Kodama” suddenly shifts the whole perspective into a jam track with a faster tempo adding more weight to the next track, “Smoke and Mirrors”. It is here where the multifaceted being, Kikagaku Moyu transforms from a psychedelic folk-band over through mellow, chanting drones and into full-on improvisational psych escapades. It completely transforms from subtle, underplayed beginnings to a kaleidoscopic bombardment of guitar solos, punchy bass earthbound drumming – topped off with wordless vocals that are simply pleasing to hum along to.
“Streets of Calcutta” is a cover of Ananda Shankar’s classic from the 1970s - propelling the band into a strange garage-punk meets eastern-tinged folk-rock hybrid. It’s an interesting combination and quite appealing when the sitar acts as a prominent flavour to the mix.
“Hem” continues the album with an ever enticing groove yet raw to its soul. The album closes with a serene melody “White Moon” concluding the journey with a foreboding yet satisfying feeling of inevitable death.
The band seems to have taken one step further from their previous releases implying that Japan is a criminally underrated psychedelic destination. If you’re a psych fan and you’re not on board with this yet, we suggest you should be.
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