If you were to glance at Kikagaku Moyo's tour itinerary for 2017, it would be easy to forget that the group was Japanese at all. The psych-rock quintet recently completed the second leg of a European tour that encompassed nearly 50 dates, having racked up 26 shows around North America earlier in the year. Its five-date Japan tour next month seems a bit cursory in comparison.
The band belongs to a select club of Japanese acts that command significantly larger followings overseas than in their native country. Much like Acid Mothers Temple, Kikagaku Moyo (whose name translates as "geometric patterns") has discovered that there's robust international demand for a bunch of shaggy-haired Japanese dudes rocking out like it's still 1973. But Go Kurosawa, the group's drummer and de facto spokesperson, stresses that they're keen to avoid being seen as exotic outsiders.
"Then it becomes more of a 'Japan' thing, and we didn't want to fall into that category," he says. "We wanted to be actually involved in the scene."
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