The song’s second half cycles through Tuareg-like guitar riffs and regal blasts of brass inspired by the funk music that Kikagaku Moyo encountered during their trip to Lisbon to record Masana Temples. “Cardboard Pile,” on the other hand, fades in with a heavy, Boredoms-style groove that sounds like it’s already been building for several minutes, then abandons it completely. Unlike other songs on the album, it maintains a consistent mood across its six minutes, making for a nice contrast with the more complexly structured patchworks. “Dancing Blue” is one of the funkiest jams Kikagaku Moyo have laid to tape, layering a chicken-scratch wah-wah riff over handclaps and chanted vocals. These songs are compact in comparison to the band’s side-long odysseys, but they consistently keep you guessing at what’s coming next. Midway through, it changes once again, adding chiming percussion and airy gang vocals before the riffs soar into the stratosphere. “Yayoi Iyayoi” is a rare song from the band with lyrics in Japanese, beginning as a gentle lullaby before switching into minimalist garage rock. Taking its name from a wafer sweet, opener “Monaka” augments min'yō folk music with slinky electric guitars. Kumoyo Island stands out from both with its busy instrumental arrangements and newfound embrace of Japanese cultural traditions. Recent releases have included Kikagaku Moyo’s 2018 album Masana Temples-a relatively mellow collection of songs produced by Portuguese jazz guitarist Bruno Pernadas-and 2021’s Deep Fried Grandeur, a live collaboration with Ryley Walker. This fusion of classical training and playful experimentation is partly what makes the band stand out from legions of stylistically constrained, retro-cosplaying psych acts. Go’s brother Ryu was asked to join after he returned from India to study the sitar, while bassist Kotsuguy was invited when they found him recording the sound of vending machines for his drone project. This inspired them to write lyrics in an imaginary language of invented syllables in the attempt to make their music universal, as they played early gigs busking under cherry-blossom trees and outside of train stations.
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during college studies, they attended their first DIY house shows, which contrasted strikingly with venues in Japan charging musicians $300 to perform a 30-minute set. Another Bandcamp holiday is upon us, the least you can do is give some love to this near-perfect documentation of mind-fry goodness.Kikagaku Moyo began in 2012 as the duo of drummer/vocalist Go Kurosawa and guitarist/vocalist Tomo Katsurada. This performance proves essential for both KM fans and collectors of Ryley’s ever-growing pieces of his live improv pantheon. Sometimes the best phrase is already cast.
![ryley walker and kikagaku moyo ryley walker and kikagaku moyo](https://imbrems.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/et5tzmzuyaem-p3.jpg)
Molten wax guitars, percolating sweat rhythms, sonic symbiosis and, well as the band so succinctly puts it - deep fried grandeur. The pieces are truly two halves of a whole experience, the time needed to flip is just a breath between sonic sculptures, haunted and hungry.
![ryley walker and kikagaku moyo ryley walker and kikagaku moyo](https://section-26.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/166635259_290415169120207_2141804054894032575_n.jpg)
There are no surges of applause, no banter, just the assembled players finding their way around the cosmic cloud for a touch under an hour.
![ryley walker and kikagaku moyo ryley walker and kikagaku moyo](https://www.dansendeberen.be/wp-content/uploads/Ryley-Walker-Course-In-Fable-1000x694.jpg)
With Cooper Crain mixing it down in Chicago post performance, the record quite honestly bears few hallmarks of a live record. This is exactly the argument for live records done right. The Utrecht festival boasts a long history of collaboration and genre-defining/defying performances, and the meeting of Walker and Kikagaku Moyo on the stage is a performance that practically beged to be documented, pressed and pondered. The set on Deep Fried Grandeur was recorded live at Le Guess Who? in 2018. As Ryley’s Husky Pants label continues to bloom into a fertile ground for experimentation, here it becomes a necessary hub of documention some of the guitarist’s historical high water marks as well.