If you’re Go Kurosawa, former drummer and singer for psych-kraut-who knows? rockers Kikagaku Moyo, what do you do after your band’s final tour and album? You create an album on which you play and write everything and it becomes Soft Shakes.
It’s a lovely record of Kurosawa exploring his stunning talent to play anything by ear and to create whatever was in his head at the time without having to shape it with other people. “Moon, please” is a fun yet slightly haunting track layered with hand percussion, clarinet, and other stuff hard to define. “Sada no umi” mixes, I think, found sounds with trippy synths and Kurosawa’s vocal sounds.
Both “Soredesho?” and “Green Thing” show us how well Kurosawa can play acoustic guitar and mix them with various hand percussion instruments to create a relaxing effect perfect for zoning out like Kurosawa seems to be on the album’s cover. “Autowalk” is a good example of krautrock / kraut-electro’s influence on Kurosawa. The looping synths, robotic beats, and mantra-like vocals are already cool enough, but when the trumpet hits? Forget it. It’s almost not fair.
“Jungle Cooking” is downright groovy and would fit onto any trip-hop or 1990s rap album you’d like. Cypress Hill could easily drop several bars on this. “Rice Harvesting Day” almost feels Middle Eastern, and Kurosawa’s electric guitar work takes the main stage this time. Is there anything this guy can’t play well? “Cloud Rock” ends the album with a floating groove.
It’s a great solo debut from Kurosawa. I look forward to more.
Keep your mind open.
[Autowalk over to the subscription box before you leave.]
Today, Go Kurosawa announces his debut solo album, soft shakes, available now on vinyl via Guruguru Brain, with the digital release to follow on September 5th.
Multi-instrumentalist, producer, co-founder of the independent label Guruguru Brain and drummer/vocalist of Kikagaku Moyo, Go Kurosawa has spent the past decade building bridges between East and West, sound and silence, rock and ritual.
soft shakesis something different. A personal chapter in Go’s journey, it marks his first solo album, created entirely by himself and made, for the first time, purely for himself. What comes through is music that feels playful, layered, rhythmic and delightfully unexpected. Just like Go.
Today he shares with the internet a first and only glimpse of the album ahead of the album’s digital release. “Autowalk” is a mellow, understated summer jam, channeling the signature feel-good moods Go has curated throughout his work thus far. He comments: “I am a big fan of moving walkways in airports. Every time I see them, I get excited to choose if I should stand on it or walk on it and go a bit faster than usual. But you are not supposed to go as fast as possible, unlike the autobahn.”
After Kikagaku Moyo disbanded, Go spent some time producing records for other artists, but with soft shakes, there was no plan. Just the instinct to pick up an instrument, play, and see what might unfold.
As he puts it, “The whole framework is new. When I made music for the band, I always knew who would play what. This time, it was just me. No plan, no expectation. And weirdly, that became the concept: doing it all myself, for the first time.”
Go has a rare kind of musical instinct. He can play anything, hears everything, and yet never takes himself too seriously. For a long time, making music alone wasn’t part of the plan. Music had always been about connection. But over time, as he travelled, collected instruments and set up Guruguru Brain studio in Rotterdam, the sound of a solo voice emerged.
soft shakes came together between January and June in Rotterdam, through dark, rainy, quiet days. Each day, Go would head to the studio, pick up whatever instrument was around and simply play. The process was slow and instinctive. “If something still moved me the next day, I’d add to it. If not, I’d start something new. One step at a time, without pressure.”
Even as a solo record, the music doesn’t feel tight or controlled. It has the looseness of jamming, the joy of following where the sound wants to go. “I wanted that feeling, even if I was jamming with myself.”
The album artwork was created by his partner Ao, her first time doing artwork for a record. “It captures the freedom and boldness of trying something new and I love it,” he says.
soft shakes arrives at a moment of transition. Go recently relocated to Fukuoka, Japan, after years of living and working in Europe. “While making this album, we were deciding where to move. I knew it would be my last creation while living in Europe. When I listen back, I can hear that longing for something, towards a far away home.”
The record feels like the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another. “Now I’m excited to build a studio in Japan and start again. I don’t know what will come next, but I want it to be shaped and influenced by new surroundings.”
And while this record might be personal, Go hopes it offers something to others too. “I wish people would travel somewhere else through music. You float around, lose track of time, and when the record ends, you feel the soft comfort of coming home again.”
