SOUNDTRACK: KIKAGAKU MOYO-“Gypsy Davey”/”Mushi No Uta” (2020).
Japanese psych rock band Kikagaku Moyo (who are amazing live) were picked for the new Sub Pop 7″ singles cub release. I’m not part of that club, but the tracks are available to stream. Here’s what the band says:
This is a limited release as a part of the Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 4, and physical copies will only be available to subscribers of the series. As such, it won’t be available at our shows or in stores…but you can listen now on streaming sites.
The first song, “Gypsy Davey,” is a reworking of the traditional British folk song by the same name. We referenced Sandy Denny’s arrangement from the 1971 album Fotheringay for our performance. We recorded the track in London with guest vocalist Kandice Holmes, aka Bells @be__lls.
The second song, “Mushi No Uta,” was written by Tomo and Go and recorded last summer in their living room.
Both of these were recorded in brief windows during our touring in 2019. We are very happy with opportunity hope you enjoy the songs.
I love the way they have taken this old English folk song “Gypsy Davey” and added some great psychedelic elements. First off it starts with drums and some very cool sitar work. The guitars are slow and echoing. Then after the first verse, the full band joins in with a slow 70’s sounding folk rock (with electric guitars) song. By the third verses, the two guitars are doing different things and it all works together very nicely.
I had never heard of Kandic Holmes (aka Bells) but her voice is perfect, sounding old school and like she has heard this song a million times and can’t wait to sing it again.
The middle of the song has a wonderful, slow sitar solo. I love that they have taken folk and made it international folk.
“Mushi No Uta” is a slow ballad. It does sound a bit like a home made recording (or else it is recorded deliberately close-sounding). The vocals are whispered and the guitars intertwine nicely. After a minute and a half, expansive, echoing guitar chords come rumbling through totally changing the atmosphere. The second guitar plays some wild lines. After about a minute, it all fades out and the original sound returns–gentle folk acoustic guitar and falsetto vocals.
It’s a nice single and shows a different side of the band.
[READ: February 20, 2020] Princeless: Raven Book 1
I really enjoyed Book 3 of the Princeless series in which Adrienne encountered Raven locked up in a castle.
I thought Raven was a pretty awesome character and I was really happy to see that Jeremy Whitley had created a series just for her.
This series is a lot less light-hearted than the Princeless series and definitely skews a bit older than Princeless. It’s also not quite as funny (by design, I assume). However, it features a wonderfully diverse crew of women and all of the great feminism that Princeless is known for.
As this book opens, we see Raven’s father showing her how to shoot an arrow–how she came to be known as Black Arrow and how fearsome she was even as a child.
The story of the excitement she had as a child on her father’s ship is contrasted to the drudgery of the present–fixing up the ship that she has commandeered from her brother’s mates. She realizes that if she is going to get revenge on her brothers for locking her up, she needs a crew. So she heads into town where she bumps into (literally) a woman who barely speaks English and is down on her luck. She says she ate today, but has no money left. Raven gives her some coins and the woman replies, “You give me to have these?” She gives Raven a huge kiss and walks off. That’s when Raven realizes the woman stole her purse.
The rest of the chapter shows some excellently drawn chase scenes from Rosy Higgins and Ted Brandt in which the thief (who we will learn is a half-Elf named Sunshine) is impressed by Raven’s tenacity and in which Raven is impressed by Sunshine’s physical abilities. Sunshine runs into a bar and as Raven is about to tackle her, the bar owner points a crossbow at her. (more…)
