27 September 2023

TO YO – Stray Birds From the Far East (2023, LP/CD King Volume/Kozmik Artifactz)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: King Volume/Kozmik Artifactz

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Mountain Peak White vinyl (comes in single sleeve with insert), 400 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Psychic Spring Splatter Vinyl (comes in single sleeve with insert), 400 copies

Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition

Release Date: 14 Aug 2023

Tō Yō is a new Psych band hailing from glorious Tokyo’s underground. This quintet from Japan released (this August) their debut album, “Stray Birds From The Far East”. The band consists of Masami Makino (vocals, guitar), Sebun (guitar), VINCENT (bass), and Hibiki Amano (drums, percussion). Tō Yō describe themselves with these four words Chill acid world vibes and here’s some info taken from their Bandcamp page:

“Tō Yō, the Tokyo-based psychedelic quartet, has announced their debut record Stray Birds From the Far East—a dreamy, pop-infused psych/acid rock concept album about nostalgia for a place yet to be discovered—to be released through King Volume Records on August 18, 2023.
The Tō Yō sound is simultaneously unique yet familiar but also moving. “Our psychedelic sound is at times violent and at times naive,” says vocalist and guitarist Masami Makinom, “but we also believe our sound is meant to awaken the most primitive senses in order to sublimate the rise of the soul and its uncontrollable impulses.”
“Stray Birds From The Far East” contains just 6 songs, 3 on each side of the LP album, and it kicks off with “Soaring”… Well, 7962,30 miles is the distance from Japan to Mali, a distance that is covered in just 5 minutes and 11 seconds, and that’s exactly the song’s duration… Wow, this is a fantastic Groovylicious and ultra rhythmic Psychedelic piece of musical creation that perfectly melts/bends two different Musical Worlds, the West African one and the one from the Land of the Rising Sun! A magnificent song that sounds more than a lost Tinariwen song than a Kikagaku Moyo one, simple Amazing, one way or the other! “Hyu Dororo” has the same colorful musical background with the previous track, with a kind of mellow Funky rhythm, some echoed electric guitar, sounds like Ali Farka Toure doing lead vocals on a Far East Family Band track, that’s Groovy Baby! “Twin Mountains” is a mid tempo baladesque tune, and for once more the band ‘leans’ more to West Africa than Japan while the electric guitar sound is so addictive that can rest inside your brain for a long long time! Side ‘B’ opens with “Tears Of The Sun” and just imagine a band like Flower Travellin’ Band traveling to Morocco (or Mali if you wish), becoming residents, absorbing the local culture and then trying to compose a tune… Well, then this wonderful instrumental could easily be this one… Brilliant! Though the track is a little bit Led Zeppelin flirting, you may describe it as a dance-a-delic orgy between two cultures! “Titania Skyline” finely blends Goat and Kikagaku Moyo under a Psych groovy beat with a quite Led Zep-inspired guitar sound… Eventually, the album comes to an end with “Li Ma Li”, a much slower tune, and much more trippier I may say, a late-night mind-melting Psych tune that becomes heavy-licious, flirting with Desert Rock, simply a perfect example of some Modern Japanese Underground Psych music… Surely, “Stray Birds From The Far East” is a lovely debut album, one of the best Underground Psych albums of 2023.Tō Yō will definitely concern us in the future as well… Dig! TimeLord Michalis