Forty Five Minutes Of Japanese Psyche

For the last two months Ernie of 27 Leggies and myself have been engaging in a long running duel- think Ridley Scott's masterful 1977 film The Duellists where Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine engage in a long running feud during the Napoleonic Wars. 

Mine and Ernie's duel is not due to an imagined slight and a stain on an officer's honour- at least I don't think it is- but is a duel of Japanese psyche bands, a to and fro  between two music blogs, each raising the stakes slightly with a post featuring obscure Japanese rock bands playing psyche, acid, prog, punk, ambient, psychedelic, noise and jazz inflected rock. Ernie went last with a post in May celebrating Kuunatic. Today's Sunday mix is something of a post holder while I consider where to go next, forty five minutes of music made by a variety of Japanese psyche bands featured either here or at 27 Leggies. Three quarters of an hour of Japanese psyche may not be your Sunday morning cup of green tea but in the spirit of adventure and experimentation I offer it up anyway. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Japanese Psyche

• Boredoms: Free (End Of Session Version)
• Kikagaku Moyo: Zo No Senaka
• Bo Ningen: Triangle
• Kuunatic: Desert Empress Pt. 1
• Yura Yura Teikoku: Dekinai (Extended Remix)
• Kikagaku Moyo: Majupose
• Yura Yura Teikoku: Sweet Surrender (Remix)

Boredoms are from Osaka, a noise rock band who formed in 1986 and have a huge, rambling back catalogue. They formed a friendship with Sonic Youth and as a result got exposure in the USA and played 1994's traveling circus Lollapalooza. Free is a cover of a song by Phish,  a rather lovely and chilled ambient track that leads us gently into the mix...

... whereupon Kikagaku Moyo take over- heavy, overloaded psychedelic rock, drums and guitars, wah wah pedals and valve amps pushed to their limits, chanted vocals, sitar, theremin. Kikagaku Moyo formed in 2012 and went on hiatus in 2022, a decade of psyche. Zo No Senaka is a live recording, the band playing a wedding at Hasenheide near Innsbruck and the album recorded and given to the guests and helpers with a further 300 copies made available to fans via the band's website. 

Bo Ningen's Triangle is the fifteen minute closing track from a 2021 re- recording of the band's 2011 debut album, a rebuild. I shaved four minutes off the start here, so that Bo Ningen kick in where Kikagaku Moyo left off. Bo Ningen are a fearsome live band and have found many supporters in the UK and Europe. They've played with Damo Suzuki, Savages and Faust and Bobby Gillespie has sung with them. 

Kuunatic are an all female trio from Tokyo who make 'tribal, dramy, tale music' (their description not mine) with keys, bass and drums and three way vocals. Experimental prog and psyche merged with sci fi and Japanese folk while wearing robes and headdresses. What's not to like?

Yura Yura Teikoku (translation- the wobbling empire) formed in Tokyo in 1989, underground psychedelia but with a commercial edge that led them to New York's DFA who put out a 2007 EP with Dekinai on one side and Sweet Surrender on the other. Terrific James Murphy endorsed electro/ punk funk. 

Mata ne.