BIRD by TaikuhJikang

On the fictional island of Walak, a geopolitical orphan off the coast of Indonesia that through thousands of years of territorial disputes has formulated a distinct culture of its own, traditional Indonesian gamelan music fuses with krautrock writing sensibilities to create a strange post-folk music style with strong ties to psychedelia. Japanese band TaikuhJikang invented all the lore behind Walek over the course of their previous four albums, and their new record BIRD extends the impressively detailed storyline further. Though the island may feel lonely in the ocean under the thumb of many competing empires through the centuries, the islanders have always shared birds with their neighbors, animals that traverse national and cultural boundaries without a second thought. Similarly, the band through their simultaneous use of traditional Japanese melodies, traditional Indonesian steel drums, and progressive psychedelic repetition spreads their own wings to fly from style to style, uniting all under an individual creative vision that makes perfect sense in the quaint, outlandish, wonderful world of Walak.