Haikai No Ku surprisingly hails from Newcastle and has through recent years proven itself as the pinnacle of transcendental noisy psychedelia. What makes Haikai No Ku special among a large selection of noisy psych bands, is that they cast aside any notions of refined sound and instead take influence from cult Japanese psychedelic noise rock bands like the Les Rallizes Denudes and Makoto Kawabata's Ohkami No Jikan. All of which bring about a churning low hum repetitive bass with a destructive slow bluesy guitar jam together with crashing drums. A slowly evolving noisy psychedelic blues jam that makes you transcend to a violent astral plane, where you realize that transcendence is achieved through being slowly ripped apart in a matter distorting and consuming black hole.
These kind of violent cosmic jams reach their most ideal shape on Sick On My Journy - perhaps Haikai No Ku's most notable album to date. A track called ''Maximum Zenith'' epithomizes Haikai No Kus perfect mix of good old Western doomy psychedelia with a distinct Japanese psych feel, brining to mind the best of Les Rallizes Denudes and especially Ohkami No Jikan's ''Aruji''. Haikai No Ku's other albums like Blood Sunst and Ultra High Dimensionality also carry on the same vibe of deadly doomy transcendence, while the earlier albums often replace the cosmic and astral dimensions with being slowly cut apart in a 70s horror film, the soundtrack of which might have come from John Cameron and Frog.
Haikai No Ku's brilliance should not come as a surprise since it is a brainchild of Mike Vest, who is known from many other well-known stoner/doom/psych bands such as most notably Bong, Blown Out, Ramesses and Drunk In Hell. With their clear Japanese psych underground influences through the likes of Takashi Mizutani, Makoto Kawabata and Asahito Nanjo, Haikai No Ku blows like a fresh solar wind in the somewhat stagnant noisy psych space.
Some useful links:
Bandcamp: https://haikainoku.bandcamp.com/
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/artist/2760116-HaiKai-No-Ku
Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/HaiKai+No+Ku
