Following their formation in 2016 and the release of two EPs, Yuko Araki and Kuunatic bandmates Fumie Kikuchi and Shoko Yoshida are about to release their debut album Gate Of Klüna. Outer space and fantasy inform their psych project – their band name is drawn from kuu, the Finnish word for the moon, and they have identified as “Kuulandrian” when speaking about their sound. That said, Kuunatic are still very much involved in Japanese music scenes on the ground, demonstrated here through Araki's selection of music from various hardcore communities.

“This mix includes tracks mostly released in the late 1990s to mid-2000s and most of them are the bands I used to go to see at live shows, at venues like 20000V, Earthdom, etc, in Tokyo and sometimes at open air parties,” says Kuunatic drummer and vocalist Araki. “These times of hardcore music in Japan are one of my favourites.”

“My most personal connection to the hardcore music, is the song I put as the 28th track, “Left Eye On The TV” by Jurassic Jade, a thrash metal band with a great female vocalist. Their bassist George Enda is the owner of a rehearsal studio in my home town in Ibaraki, and he is the one who introduced me to loud music.”

Tracklist

Vivisick “Distort World, Distort Future”
I Don't Care “Uncontrolled”
BREAKfAST “Vote”
Struck “Earth = Mother”
Colored Rice Men “Cheap Ideal”
Fasts “ID”
Nice View “Deaf Ear”
​​Nada Cambia “ビレビレ”
Struggle For Pride “Summer Never Ends”
Slight Slappers “My Reality And My Ideas”
Kuunatic “Dewbow”
Paintbox “因果応報 (Retribution)”
Little Bastards “Greed Slaves”
Gore Beyond Necropsy “Magnified Inner Friction”
Red Ran Amber “Demitri”
AKBK “無明の夜明け (Avidya)”
Butcher ABC “Vice”
Brob “Propaganda”
324 “Terminal Chamber”
Nunchaku ‎“ヌンチャクラ”
Framtid “Curse”
Life “A Collective Of Individual”
Abraham Cross “In There”
Gloom “Morbid Education”
Disclose “Brutalities”
Kuunatic “Desert Empress Pt 2”
Black Ganion “Exfoliation”
Jurassic Jade “Left Eye On The TV”
Shikabane “Repeat.... And Repeat It Again”
Swarrrm “Scilence”

Kunaatic’s Gate Of Klüna is released by Glitterbeat on 29 October. Wire subscribers can read Mariam Rezaei's review of Yuko Araki's solo release End Of Trilogy in The Wire 447 via the archive.