Gate of Kluna

KUUNATIC is a thrilling Tokyo based tribal-psych trio bolstered by diverse global sonics and powerful female vocals. Drawing on the members’ different musical and cultural perspectives, their music explores ritual drumming, pulsing bass lines, atmospheric keyboard sounds and Japanese traditional instruments.

Having previously released an EP (“Kuurandia” / 2017) as well as a split 7” (with Taiwanese fuzz psych garage band Crocodelia), “Gate of Klüna” is KUUNATIC’s much awaited debut album. Produced by Tim DeWit (Gang Gang Dance) the record reveals a mesmerizing soundworld that transcends genres and hemispheres and succeeds in being both boldly experimental and wildly catchy.

Creating a world has many advantages. Notions of time and space can be bent, Urizen-like, to the will and reasoning of the creator. Although formed in Tokyo in 2016, a city that is very much on this planet, Kuunatic first looked to another heavenly body to shape their project. In interviews the band have cited that their name is drawn from kuu, the Finnish word for the moon; inspired in part by original Finnish guitarist, Sanni. Keyboardist Fumie helps guide the uninitiated. “Kuunatic’s musical concept is a fantasy. Our first EP’s title ‘Kuurandia’ is the name of the fantasy planet we live on. The EP was a prologue. And this \[debut album\] is a concept album about how the planet began, evolved and was explored. It consists of eight songs and each song has a story to tell.”

Julian Cope once wrote that Japanese rockers “thrust everything they discover from the outside world through their own singularly Japanese filter, \[…\] often bringing forth something magnificent and wholly better than that which had first inspired it.” Given we are dealing with a band whose drummer, Yuko Araki, proclaimed (in an interview with African Paper) that they are “ultimately unclassifiable – though I could say we are Kuurandian,” it is futile to give Kuunatic any anchoring in terms of style or scene; though recognizing fragments of other sounds is great fun. Fumie considers Cope’s premise. “It applies to us in some sense. We like to mix and experiment with everything we saw, heard, experienced and thought, not only in Japan but elsewhere, to create a unique world. During long tours we always talk a lot, experience the same things, play around, come up with very bizarre ideas and make them into songs. Kuurandia is like our imaginary utopia. We don’t think we are excellent players, but we believe that we always passionately embody our ideas and our adoration for fantasy.”