We all have our little rituals. Whether it’s how we make the morning’s first cup of tea, place a record on the turntable or fold our t-shirts, these minor rites help us to navigate the day-to-day. Bands are no different. Think of pre-gig warm-up routines you might have heard about, or how your favourite guitarist throws the exact same shapes each time they launch into that killer breakdown.
Some bands, though, take it to a whole other level. Take Kuunatic: an experimental, moonworshipping, science fiction-inspired trio for whom ritual is a powerful guiding force. It runs through everything, from the music they make – a unique blend of fuzzy psychedelia, prog rock, foreboding drone and traditional Japanese instrumentation – to their richly detailed stage garb and make-up. For many bands, this might be mere schtick or affectation, but for Kuunatic it’s an essential part of their DNA.
“I come from a very traditional Japanese household and my parents were very, very religious,” explains keyboardist/vocalist Fumie Kikuchi. “Growing up, I’d watch my parents chanting in front of our ancestors’ altar. My mom was an actual shaman – or a medium, I guess you might say. She’d communicate with her ancestors, with things you cannot see. That’s just how it was, and the made-up language we use in Kuunatic is very influenced by the chanting I grew up listening to.”
While Kuunatic’s music might seem light years removed from the traditional Shinto music Fumie heard and played growing up, there are plenty of links to be uncovered.
“For our new album, we used a traditional Japanese hand drum, which is the same instrument my grandmother would play when she chanted,” Fumie recalls. “I told my sister, and she found it funny, because of how it relates back to our family and our past.”
Though Kuunatic began to take shape in 2016, it wasn’t until bassist/ vocalist Shoko Yoshida joined the fold in 2017 that the band properly burst into life. The members’ musical tastes and experiences are wildly varied – Fumie, for example, enjoys 60s psychedelia and 70s prog, while Shoko grew up surrounded by classical music. Meanwhile, drummer/vocalist (each member of the trio sings, Mastodon style) Yuko Araki is a producer and noise artist, who has collaborated with the likes of Taichi Nagura from grindcore act Endon. And yet, despite these differences, they soon discovered deeper, more important commonalities.
“We found that we all love mythology and science fiction and that we all worshipped the moon,” says Fumie. “It made perfect sense for us to create a fantasy world that was connected to the music we made.”
The band’s second album, Wheels Of Ömon, continues a story they began to weave with their Gate Of Klüna debut: a fantasy saga set on the planet Kuurandia, now expanding outward to encompass its moon Klüna and sun Ömon. It’s an epic, comprising nature myths, magic, mysticism and fierce battles between the planet’s inhabitants.
“This album is a bit more grounded – it’s a bit more ‘hard sci-fi’ or ‘science fact’,” explains Yuko of its themes. “We describe a planet which experiences four seasons in one day, so the weather keeps changing. The story does reflect our concerns about what’s happening in the world, but we’re not trying to warn or preach – we just want to let the facts mix with our sci-fi ideas.”
As the band’s imagined world expands, so too does their day-to-day reality. Fumie now resides in Taiwan, Shoko in London and Yuko in Tokyo. While bands creating music remotely is hardly unusual, it does raise the question of how this physical separation might impact a band so reliant on ritual, intuition, personal harmony and a communal sense of closeness.
“It was a little bit challenging,” admits Fumie. “We put everything together online first, and we had two weeks before we went into the studio to focus on rewriting, re-editing, and putting all our ideas together to make them make more sense.”
Prior to recording, the band took part in a one-week residency at the PALP Festival in Switzerland – a serendipitous turn of events that meant they could connect, find their rhythm, and immerse themselves both in their music and the area’s incredible alpine surroundings.
“We really needed that time to focus,” Fumie remembers. “There were instruments in a room, nice scenery and nothing else. We’d wake up, have our breakfast and then go to compose. We didn’t need to think about anything else – just writing.”
The results are epic, expansive and frequently startling, the band bringing together elegant flute motifs, moments of fuzzed-out riffing, and folk-style choruses that often feel out of step with the timeline most of us seem to be travelling.
“It’s like ancient times, but retro style,” is how Fumie neatly sums it up.
Wheels Of Ömon is at once futuristic and yet somehow ancient – an engrossing saga that loops through the ages, told by old souls who’ve already seen how everything is ultimately destined to play out. As regards to their future, however, things are somewhat vaguer. They are currently hatching plans for a video game based on the world and lore of Kuurandia, while also eyeing something a tad more obliterative.
“For the next album, we want to destroy something,” says Yuko. “Yeah,” agrees Fumie, with a disarming smile. “We haven’t come up with what we’re going to destroy, but we want to destroy something.”
Wheels Of Ömon is out now via Glitterbeat.
