It seems like only yesterday, but Koenjihyakkei gave just about every band on Earth a run for their money with 2018’s Dhorimviskha, a frenzied, inter-genre odyssey that had people from Alternative Press to NPR hailing them as one of the greatest active bands of our time. That’s high praise, and of course, the album earns this reputation second by second. Is it a lot? Oh yeah. But is it just enough? Absolutely.
Maybe it feels like yesterday because the speed of 2018 and 2019 was, as we were soon to all agree from worldwide isolation, was the pace of self-destruction. Those were our busiest years, from moving and touring with multiple bands of our own to covering a million others for the blog. It felt good, like when you could maintain it all you had something to be proud of – and you do, of course, productivity is largely good, it’s just all everybody wanted, all the time. No matter how tired you were, you had to keep going or get out of the way, and Dhorimviskha served as an intimidating, if magnificent reminder.
But when things paused for a year or so in 2020 with the pandemic, people explored some particularly novel ways to keep their passions alive. Koenjihyakkei ranks high among them – the band live-streamed an incredible full set to an empty venue. You can still find some clips of it through SKiN Graft Records, but today we’re actually incredibly excited to help SKiN Graft officially announce Live at Club Goodman, a fully-mixed and luxurious double LP of that exact performance.
Get the exclusive first taste of “Angherr Shisspa” below:
Live at Club Goodman has a street date of May 23rd, and as always SKiN Graft Records will have colored vinyl and compact disc editions to choose from when it’s out just over a month from now. Here’s more from the official press release, which you can also check out fully here:
“Live at Club Goodman includes astounding performances culled from Koenjihyakkei’s career to date with selections from all five studio albums represented. The double CD edition adds an additional two tracks, including the live favorite ‘Classical Music Medley’.”
“I’ve been working with Tatsuya Yoshida’s other band band Ruins since the 90’s and with Koenjihyakkei for over 20 years,” recalls label head and co-founder Mark Fischer. “SKiN GRAFT has previously released or licensed all of their albums, but this European tour will be the first time I see Koenjihyakkei live – I’ll be at the very first show in Vienna, Austria!”
Speaking of, in addition to the album announcement, they’re coming back for more live dates as well to celebrate the occasion. Except this time, we have a feeling those seats won’t be empty.
5/22 Vienna @ club1019
5/24 Brno @ Ponava Festival
5/25 Praha @ Punctum
5/26 Berlin @ Neue Zukunft
5/27 Hamburg @ Stubnitz
5/28 Wurzburg @ Immehrin
5/29 Brussels @ Archiduc
5/30 Paris @ Le Triton
5/31 London @ Cafe OTO
6/01 Genova @ Villa Rossi
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