Avant-garde trio does the math rock
Japanese art-rock trio Kukangendai create music like you’ve never heard before.
Arts
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Kukangendai look like a typical rock band: three guys – guitar, bass and drums.
However Kukangendai definitely don’t sound like a typical rock band.
To listen to their music is take a deep trip through multi-layered soundscapes and odd time signatures.
The vocals are sparse, if not non-existent, and elements of jazz, math rock and dance music combine to create something completely unique. Not bad for three kids from Tokyo who’ve had literally zero formal musical training.
“We’ve had no education,” bass player Keisuke Koyono says.
“None at all! We’ve never studied music.”
This is the punk element to Kukangendai. What’s better than breaking the rules? Not learning the rules in the first place.
Guitarist and vocalist Junya Noguchi and drummer Hideakio Yamada are the other members of the group, the three first meeting at elementary school and coming together as a band in their early twenties.
Together they realised that their musical and artistic dreams were going to be much harder to fulfil in the overpriced city of Tokyo, so they turned their attention south to Kyoto.
There they founded Soto, a performance space and recording studio that has become a key venue in that city’s underground scene.
Noguchi says Soto was created in the spirit of co-operation.
“We invite artists there that we would like to see perform, but also artists that we would like to collaborate with,” he says.
“We are often working with other bands and artists to create new things.”
Earlier this week Kukangendai played a 60-minute long piece at the Melbourne International Arts Festival to rave reviews, but tonight’s Adelaide show as part of Oz Asia will follow a more traditional path, made up largely of tracks from the band’s new record Palm.
“We are enjoying Australia a lot,” Noguchi says.
“The audiences here are very focused, not like Europe. It’s great.”
SEE: Kukangendai, tonight, 7pm, OzAsia Festival, Lucky Dumpling Market, Riverbank Lawns
TICKETS: Free
HEAR: Palm, out now