Discovering a band on their farewell tour is a strange kind of introduction.
Back in 2022, we got to see Kikagaku Moyo in Berlin while they were saying goodbye. We were only just arriving. What should have felt like an ending became a full welcome into their world and the beginning of our journey backwards through everything that had brought them to Kumoyo Island.
It is an album, but it is also somewhere to go.
The idea emerged while the five musicians were scattered between Japan and Europe: an imaginary island where they could meet, exchange ideas and continue making music together. Somehow, that separation produced something that feels remarkably shared:
A home floating above them, waiting whenever they close their eyes.
That is what the album became for us too. We returned to it during difficult times because it offered somewhere else to be. Somewhere with enough rock and roll to shake you awake, enough calm to let you breathe, and enough detail to keep revealing new corners.
You can hear the island forming in “Monaka”, where chimes, min’yō-inspired melodies, sitar and funk gradually settle into the same groove. “Cardboard Pile” shows its less peaceful terrain, tearing open with fuzz and percussion before suddenly rebuilding itself around brass and wiry guitars. “Effe,” “Daydream Soda” and “Field of Tiger Lillies” sometimes feel more like corridors between rooms.
Then comes “Maison Silk Road.”
Written entirely by sitarist Ryu Kurosawa and named after his former apartment building, it is the perfect wake-up scene. Piano, sitar and distant sounds slowly bring the real world back into view. It’s descending from the floating island, opening your eyes and noticing the room around you again.
And some wouldn’t call it a”song” per se, but we’ve found ourselves more than once hitting the repeat button on it.
Kikagaku Moyo may have said goodbye just as we found them. Fortunately, we’ll always be able to visit their island.
Listen where you listen:
