Benji & Banden | MoE, Ikuro Takahashi

 MoE / Ikuro Takahashi                                                                           

After seven Japan tours and collaborations with artists such as Keiji Haino, Ikuro Takahasi and Painjerk, MoE has decided to bring one of their favorite drummers from Japan to Europe. For the frst time in many years Ikuro Takahashi will be back in Europe.
MoE has collaborated with Takahashi several times in Japan, and have already released “Painted” (Relative Pitch, 2020) with Mette Rasmussen. Ikuro-San and MoE are currently working on a new release recorded in Sapporo in November 2023. The material is based on a mix of improvisation and new material.

                   

Takahasi (b.1957) is a force of nature and is one of the most notable drummers from legendary Japanese band Fushitsusha, and an important voice on the Japanese psychedelic and experimental scene through the 80s and 90s with groups like High Rise, Kousokuya, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Ché-SHIZU, Nagisa ni te, LSD March, Gu-N, and Akebonoizu, Tetsuya Umeda and Fumio Kosakai of Incapacitants. From 2000 to 2017 his work centered around Anoyo no Dekigoto, a unit with butoh dancer Yoko Murono. Since 2017 his work has mainly focused on solo, prints and installations.

                   

MoE is a Norwegian rock band trapped inside two experimental musicians.
(Guro S. Moe and Håvard Skaset )
A janus-faced duo that is constantly drawn in both a melodic and abstract direction and is hard to categorize. For more than 15 years MoE have challenged the borders of music in a wide variety of formats. With saxophonist Mette Rasmussen they walked along the edge of free jazz, with the Japanese legends Keiji Haino and Ikuro Takahashi they have looked inside territories they hardly thought existed, with Lasse Marhaug they have sculpted monumental arctic noise, with Painjerk they have built bridges between electronic noise and rock music, and over the years the power trio situation has been deeply explored with a multitude of drummers from all over the world.
But the duo format has been the core ever since the dawn of the band in 2008, and when they frst tuned their compass to the sound of the likes of Suicide and DNA.