Montreal-based Japanese psych-rock band, TEKE::TEKE, have just announced their upcoming album Hagata. Their hotly anticipated second album will be released on 9th June via Kill Rock Stars. They have revealed its hard-charging lead single and opening track ‘Garakuta‘, which roughly translates to ‘goods of no more use nor value,’ alongside a music video animated and directed by TEKE::TEKE’s own Maya Kuroki (vocals) and Sei Nakauchi Pelletier. ‘Garakuta‘ matches muscly intensity with moments of cloudy meditation- like a world-class high jumper finding bliss at the apex of their leap. Watch here:
Framed by regal flute and guitar, a thumping rhythm section, and gravelly backing vocals, Kuroki delivers a reverb-drenched rallying cry, which she calls “A song of rebellion for all that has been thrown out of this world.” And as the band’s psychedelic roil comes to a climax, her Japanese dips into a mellifluous breath to paint a landscape of plastic flowers, polystyrene snow, and mountains of cell phones. “Indeed, it’s a sort of anthemic song for the rebellion of wastes…” expands Kuroki. “I imagined a world where everything we throw out came back to protest… And I’m not necessarily only thinking from an environmental perspective, it is rather an analogy for anything or anybody that is cast out of society because they are considered useless by the norm.”
As for the album, Kuroki says, “‘Hagata’ is a very deep word, something present but also something leftover from someone or something no longer there…It’s like waking up from a dream, or being connected to the other side of something.”
TEKE::TEKE are intimately familiar with that duality, of splitting reality between past and present, complex melodies and hushed interludes, intense action and lingering response. After building their sound on Shirushi through careful assembly of countless splinters of Japanese folk, psychedelia, Brazilian surf rock, and other far-flung touchstones, the seven-piece indulged in and learned from stretching out in free-floating experimentation both on the road and with Hagata’s producer Daniel Schlett (The War On Drugs, DIIV, CHAI), recorded in a scenic studio in Mountain Dale, New York.
The band will also support the recently reunited, legendary post-hardcore band, Unwound for shows in New York and Philadelphia and will be returning to the UK in September to perform at End of the Road and Manchester Psych Fest with more UK dates to be announced.
Second album Hagata will be released on 9th June via Kill Rock. Pre-order here: TEKE::TEKE – Hagata (pocp.co) TEKE::TEKE- TEKE::TEKE (teketekeband.com)
TEKE::TEKE Live Dates:
March
12th – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza*
15th – Philadelphia @ Union Transfer*
24th-25th – Boise, Idaho @ Treefort Music Fest
April
8th April – Iowa City, Iowa @ Mission Creek Festival
September
2nd – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Psych Fest
3rd – Dorset, UK @ End of the Road Fest
* – Supporting Unwound
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