Monday's Long Song

 

Since 2011, Mannheim had what was perhaps the best open-air festival in Germany. It was a playground for many mostly unknown indie bands from around the world. Unfortunately, it was not possible for the organizers to host the festival again in the future. As usual, financial uncertainties and declining visitor numbers were the reason for this. I attended most of the events together with my youngest brother, who lives locally, and was able to enjoy numerous musical highlights from many different genres. 

Their music is diverse and has clear references to Krautrock and the West Coast sound of the seventies. But fuzz, wah-wah, and folk influences can also be heard repeatedly in their songs. Live, they thrilled me with their sprawling jams. Dripping Sun is from what I consider their best album, Masala Temples, and is a highlight of current psychedelic rock. Unfortunately, the band broke up indefinitely two years ago.

Kikagaku Moyo - Dripping Sun

Truth

No, this is not a post about Jeff Beck's first album (but has to be featured at this place during the next weeks). It is a song by Bristol's Wax Machine from their first album released a few days ago. It is the project of Lau Ro and Isobel Jones and I ask myself if it is a parody or a tribute to psychedelic hippie music. It is a kind of vintage psychedelia with support of a Jethro Tull flute and freaky folk vocals brewed together to an amazing sound by Kikagaku Moyo's Go Kurosawa. Truth is built on thick grinding bass riffs and guitar-driven folksiness and not too bad to start on Saturday.

Psychelic From Japan

In three weeks I will join my youngest brother again for the annual open-air festival in Mannheim. Bands and timetable are out now and I have to deal with the bands because a lot of them are new to me. They announced a band from Tokyo, Japan called Kikagaku Moyo. Wiki describes them as a Japanese psychedelic band. Their name means translated 'geometric patterns' - whatever they will tell us with this name. And indeed it is psychedelic music that was made in the late 60's. I ever called this music drug music because if you were on an other level you might not understand what it means. Anyway, not only a retro band, actually a band that lives this sound.