Formed in 2006 with Noguchi Junya on guitar and vocals, Koyano Keisuke on bass guitar, and Yamada Hideaki on drums. Performing as a three-piece, its tracks are made through a process of editing, replicating, and deliberate error.
The music played in the form of three piece band (guitar, bass and drums) is created based on their idea of mixing edit, copy, repeat and error. Such twist and musical restraint in live performance makes their music to be strict, but humorous. The works has released on many labels such as Ideologic organ (Editions Mego) in Paris and ULYSSA in USA.
There are also many collaboration works, with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Gozo Yoshimasu have been announced.
In 2016, a creation studio and concert venue “Soto” that Kukangendai is running at Kyoto. In 2023, newest AL “Tracks” released from HEADZ (JP).
Kūkangendai is a kick ass rock trio from Kyoto (Tokyo transplants). When I first hear this band live I was instantly transfixed by their minimalist yet illusory primitive, polyrythmic and structural, memory evoking rock narratives. Their energy is completely and transparently palpable yet handled with restraint of the pleasure of a disciplined form dealing with time and articulation. They are a power trio of bass, drums and
guitar but the music they play is as much the limbic system of a forest than it is a geode. They started in 2006. They left Tokyo to Kyoto and started the cult venue Soto (‘Outside’) ‘to listen to music they hadn’t heard yet’ a few years later. They collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto last year. They reminded me of James Brown on a heavy binge of Bastro, there’s a deep current of both archaic musical tastes and the
human desire for articulating that archaism in there, but you shake your ass and get the shouting in… in a punk basement 13th century version of Breadwinner, the bare soul version. I’m honoured and proud to work with this tribe, and to count them
amongst friends.
–Stephen O’Malley
Releases
2009 Kukangendai 2012 Kukangendai 2 2013 LIVE
2016 Jimen
2019 Palm 2021 Tentei
Compositions for Live performance
“Sakka”(2016) “Organ”(2017) “Zou”(2020)
Collaborations
ECD + Kukangendai “Live at Waseda ”(2010)
Kakuya Ohashi & Dancers × Kukangendai ”Whispers”(2012)
“Dangai”(2012)
“Rhino”(2013)
Moe and ghosts × Kukangendai “Rap Phenomenon”(2016)
Gozo Yoshimasu × Kukangendai
”The Voice Between : The Art and Poetry of Yoshimasu Gozo” Perfomance at
MOMAT(2016)
Ryuichi Sakamoto × Kukangendai “ZURERU”(2018)
Ryu Mieno × Kukangendai “ZOU”(2020)
Exhibitions
contact Gonzo × Kukangendai “Aftermath”(2018)
Ken Furudate × Kukangendai “Mure”(2019)
Gozo Yoshimasu × Kukangendai “Reverse”