Japan’s Kikagaku Moyo stand as one of the world’s greatest psych-rock bands. Psychedelia at its best is an expansive, diverse musical style, and Kikagaku Moyo prove this by transmogrifying their rock from blissful pastoralisms to fiery freak-outs to a cover of Ananda Shankar’s sitar-strafed burner “Streets of Calcutta.” Certainly KM’s records are great—including 2018’s serpentine, diaphanous classic Masana Temples—but you need to catch them live to fully grasp their magical mastery of many forms. Fellow Japanese outliers Minami Deutsch (which joins Kikagaku Moyo on their Crocodile date this Friday) emphasize the second part of their name in their music, manifesting an exhilarating take on krautrock’s driving, metronomic rhythms and sparse guitar coloration. It’s as if Can and Neu! came back to life in the East.

Some media by both below.