After creating an unparalleled body of work under the name Birchville Cat Motel, Campbell Kneale embarks on his first tour of Japan under his new moniker, Our Love Will Destroy the World.
Coming from the deep reaches of Lower Hutt, on the rocky coast separating North and South New Zealand, Campbell has made a name for himself worldwide, collaborating with Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Steven Stapleton (Nurse with Wound), Anla Courtis (Reynolds), Neil Campbell (Vibracathedral Orchestra), Matt Bower (Hototogisu, Skullflower) and many more.
His loud and glorious compositions/dronescapes have been acclaimed by many (gaining huge support from UK-alternative music magazine The Wire), and his legendary live performances are renowned for being ‘challenging, brash, fragile, evocative, haunting, breath-taking’ and utterly timeless.
This is a rare chance to see a crucial figure in the modern noise/drone/psych scene at his heartiest and heaviest, and his first performance in Japan for several years.

* As a special bonus, there is guaranteed to be a number of rare Birchville Cat Motel releases (and others from Campbell’s Celebrate PSI Phenomenon label) for completionists who never got the Screamformelongbeach mini CD-R when it first came out.

Once described as the sound of a György Ligeti choral piece being performed on the rim of an active volcano, this unique collaboration between legendary improvisor Haino Keiji and sonic iconoclast Akita Masami (aka Merzbow) has made its way across the globe, but has rarely been seen in Japan.
Kikuri is the latest in a wellspring of collaborative activity for both artists, with Haino matching minds with the likes of Faust, The Melvins, Pan Sonic and Peter Brotzmann, and Akita’s work with Mike Patton (as Maldoror), Lee Ranaldo and Otomo Yoshihide. The two of them facing off is destined to epic in some way.
It would seem at first that self-described ‘bluesman’ Haino Keiji might make strange bedfellows with noise juggernaut Merzbow, but setting them together has resulted in a singular sound that captures the best of both artists. Haino’s explosions of raw emotive power seem to have found a tumultuous yet fitting home in Akita’s tectonic plates of sound. Akita’s penchant for instant composition and his remarkable sense of form makes a perfect foil for Haino’s spiritual intensity.
With their intense touring schedules, it may be some time before Kikuri surfaces in Japan. Don’t miss it this time around.

Japanese free psych/drone unit Tetragrammaton is one part 70s free improv (from the school of Kaoru Abe and Masayuki Takayanagi) and one part new millennium blissed-out drone/noise (a la Hototogisu and Vibracathedral Orchestra).
With a choice mix of hurdy-gurdy, soprano saxophone, drums, percussion and (tabletop) guitar, the instrumentation might be well-suited to the folk-music of Eastern Europe, but falls more decisively into the camp of Fushitsusha or Borbetomagus.
The band has previously supported the legendary Keiji Haino, and frequent guest spots have included Chie Mukai, Mitsuru Tabata (Acid Mother’s Temple, Zeni Geva), Damo Suzuki (ex. Can) and improvising cellist Yasumune Morishige.
The three members, TOMO, Cal Lyall, and Ken Nobunaga are also involved in a number of other projects, ranging from harsh noise to world folk music to electronica.
Forming in 2006 with a bare-bones free improv lexicon, the band has moved towards dense drone-based structures and an increasingly multi-layered approach to thematic development, most evident on their most recent double-CD release from Subvalent, Elegy for Native Tongues.

Having already received the thumbs-up from New York luminary John Zorn with a release on his benchmark Tzadik label, and following an appearance at Austin’s preeminent SXSW festival, Muddy World continue to move into fresh new territory, without any signs of slowing down.
Their sound somehow manages to mesh tight rhythms and complex song structures with passages of guitar wizardry, played deftly in a style that seems to have descended from psychedelic gypsies. If you picture Battles hiring Gabor Szabo or Sir Richard Bishop for a one-off gig, you might be getting close.
An inspiring and original band that isn’t afraid to take the next step forward.

Forever defying the laws of genre or pigeonholing, L?K?O has redefined the turntable for a younger generation of Japanese DJs. With a boundless array of projects that spread from hip hop to Krautrock to noise, he has made the evolved vocabularies of turntablism, from the accesible sounds of dance to hip hop to the sound experiments of Otomo Yoshihide and Martin Tétrault, a vehicle for improvisation. Much in the same way that Christian Marclay forced us to re-listen, L?K?O forces us to re-think the turntable’s role in creating new sounds. Unpredictable, mercurial and totally heavyweight, L?K?O is truly the finest of the new breed of turntable musicians.

Taking their inspiration from moments and objects from everyday life, visual unit Onnacodomo make the ordinary decidedly extraordinary. Eschewing computer-generated graphics or recorded material, the three members (DJ Codomo, Yasuko Seki and Ruka Noguchi) perform in real time using a video camera to capture their spontaneous creations.
Shimmering projections are created using water, mirrors and an array of lights, while a world of fantastic images is constructed with found photos, kitchen utensils, toys, stationary and improvised artwork.
Kaleidoscopic, absurd and unreal, onnacodomo takes you into a slightly-unhinged world that is absolutely original in its conception.