As wonderful as running a site like Joyzine is, sometime it can be a bit of a slog. There are days when you’re a couple of hours into sifting review requests, having found nothing of any great interest, and click the next email introducing you to the new EP Standing by a Wall Looking into The Distance Wearing T-shirts from ‘sensational new indie rock outfit’ Identikit Bloke Band #471, it can leave you wondering whether the time might have been more enjoyably spent regrouting the bathroom. But then, every once in a while you get something that makes your auditory cortex stand up and say “What the fuck was that?” Something new and unusual and wonderful and confusing that immediately makes you want to listen again and again until your tangled brain can start to make sense of it all.
In the 22 years that I’ve been doing this, no band has epitomised that sensation to quite such an extreme as Japanese sextet Kōenjihyakkei and their album Angherr Shisspa, a record which laughs in the face of any music journalist that’s ever described another record as unpigeonholeable. Smashing together a punk energy with elements of jazz fusion, opera, prog and a hundred other genres, some of which I don’t even know the name of, and some of which might not even exist, lurching forward at breakneck speed then throwing a handbreak turn and hurtling offroad in another completely unexpected direction, a Koenjihyakkei record is a dizzying, thrilling prospect, loaded with possibility. They are the kind of band that makes your heart, your brain and your feet dance, each performing an entirely different step at an entirely different tempo on an entirely different dancefloor.
During the pandemic the band played a live set from an empty Club Goodman in Tokyo and streamed it across the world. That set has now been mixed and mastered and will be released via SKiN GRAFT Records on 23rd May – order your copy on double gatefold vinyl, CD or digital download here. We’re thrilled to bring you an exclusive first listen of ‘Grembo Zavia’, (the origial version of which is from Kōenjihyakkei’s second album Viva Koenjiin released in 1997) all its theatrical 10 minute long glory on Joyzine today. Strap yourself in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Catch Kōenjihyakkei live across Europe at the following venues:
5/22 Vienna / club1019 https://club1019.at/
5/24 Brno / Ponava Festival https://www.facebook.com/ponavafest/
5/25 Praha / Punctum https://punctum.cz
5/26 Berlin / Neue Zukunft https://neue-zukunft.org
5/27 Hamburg / Stubnitz https://www.stubnitz.com
5/28 Würzburg / Immerhin http://www.immerhin-wuerzburg.de
5/29 Brussels / Archiduc http://www.archiduc.net
5/30 Paris / Le Triton https://www.letriton.com
5/31 London / Cafe OTO https://www.cafeoto.co.uk
6/01 Genova / Villa Rossi
Kōenjihyakkei: Facebook
SKiN GRAFT Records: Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
Article by Paul Maps
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