Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.
€8.99EUR or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Crafted with precision, this limited edition PURPLE vinyl boasts high quality encased in a sleek sleeve, accompanied by a printed insert.
Includes unlimited streaming of Wheels of Ömon
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.
ships out within 5 days
edition of 100
15 remaining
Purchasable with gift card
€25EURor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Experience the mesmerizing blend of music and art with our captivating LP album featuring a stunning printed insert!
Includes unlimited streaming of Wheels of Ömon
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.
ships out within 5 days
Purchasable with gift card
€23EURor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Experience the mesmerizing blend of music and art with our captivating CD album featuring a stunning printed poster.
Includes unlimited streaming of Wheels of Ömon
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.
ships out within 5 days
Purchasable with gift card
€14.75EURor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Get two KUUNATIC albums (Wheels of Ömon & Gate of Klüna) at a reduced price and immerse yourself in their cosmic, tribal, and psychedelic sounds.
Includes unlimited streaming of Wheels of Ömon
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.
ships out within 5 days
Purchasable with gift card
€35EURor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Get two KUUNATIC albums (Wheels of Ömon & Gate of Klüna) at a reduced price and immerse yourself in their cosmic, tribal, and psychedelic sounds.
Includes unlimited streaming of Wheels of Ömon
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.
ships out within 5 days
Purchasable with gift card
€25EURor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Spring 2025 LP Bundle – Glitterbeat/tak:til
A bundle of all five Glitterbeat/tak:til LPs released in Spring 2025:
- Park Jiha – All Living Things
- Los Pirañas – Una Oportunidad más de triunfar en la vida
- Kuunatic – Wheels of Ömon
- AMMAR 808 – Club Tounsi
- Brìghde Chaimbeul – Sunwise
The bundle is priced at 10% off the combined Bandcamp price for the LPs and ships as a single package from Germany to ensure friendly shipping costs. Bundles will ship after June 27th.
Buyers will receive download codes for Park Jiha, Los Pirañas, and Kuunatic shortly after purchase. Codes for AMMAR 808 and Brìghde Chaimbeul will be sent on June 27th. All codes will be delivered via email.
Thank you for your support!
Includes unlimited streaming of Wheels of Ömon
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Elevate your music collection with our Limited Edition LP Test Pressings – only 20 copies available, each meticulously pressed on eco-friendly bio vinyl. Own a piece of sonic history, where raw artistry meets unmatched exclusivity.
Includes unlimited streaming of Wheels of Ömon
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
"Grumbling psych played on a whirring blender of guitars, synths and traditional Japanese temple instruments"
-- The Wire
Kuunatic’s hotly anticipated 2nd album “Wheels of Ömon,” takes another adventuresome deep dive into their self-made fantasy mythology, proposing whole new worlds of psychedelic drama and ritual.
In addition to their core sonic palette of tribal drums, pulsing bass, atmospheric keyboards and grouped female vocals, the acclaimed Japanese psych-rock trio played an array of Japanese traditional instruments on "Wheels of Ömon." The result is a thrilling, kaleidoscopic album that brushes against tradition as it whirls into an other-wordly future.
First the facts. Kuunatic are the trio of Fumi Kikuchi on keyboards, Shoko Yoshida on bass and Yuko Araki on drums. All three of them also sing. They formed in 2016 and released an EP and 7” single before, in 2021, dropping their debut album, Gate of Klüna, on an unsuspecting public.
Here’s where things get unusual. Gate of Klüna was no ordinary album. Following on from their Kuurandia EP, it developed a mix of psychedelic garage and prog rock, ritual drumming, chanting female vocals, lush keyboard textures and traditional Japanese folk instruments to tell the mythic tale of the planet Kuurandia – a bold saga of magic, volcanoes and battle.
Now, with the release of their second album – Wheels of Ömon – Kuunatic have come to take us further down the rabbit hole.
Wheels of Ömon builds on the story of Kuurandia, its moon Klüna and its sun Ömon with more tales of prophecy, mysterious powers and magical healing lakes. Each of its eight songs pinpoints a specific moment from one 45-hour orbit of Ömon with atmospheric evocations of fleeting seasons and the rituals that accompany them.
Kuunatic’s imaginative flights of visionary fancy achieve the same kind of epic, science-fiction world-building as legendary French jazz-prog heroes, Magma. But their inspirations come from further afield. “The three of us listen to completely different types of music so our ideas and influences come from all different places,” they say.
In the case of Wheels of Ömon, a huge influence came from a residency at the PALP Festival in the alpine village of Bruson, Switzerland, close to the Vallée du Rhone and enclosed by mountains. Spending time there before recording the album in the Netherlands, Kuunatic found themselves inspired by the region’s rich history and breathtaking scenery.
“We create fantasy stories,” they say, “but it’s deeply influenced by historical events that happened on Earth. So, when we stayed in Switzerland, looking at the Alps and Vallée du Rhône, they made us imagine vast histories of grand Earth and times of several hundred million years ago. We also climbed one of the Alps to do a photo shoot and we learned more about the area. Through the experience, natural scientific facts were added to our concept, and our fictional world became clearer and more vivid. And we scattered the stories around this album.”
Perhaps it’s this majestic natural setting that has imparted to the new album a deep connection to folk traditions, to human stories, to the very roots of storytelling.
It’s a mood that manifests most powerfully in the album’s varied use of Japanese traditional instruments. The band explains: “This album begins and ends with sho, a Japanese traditional instrument consisting of 17 slender bamboo pipes that are used in gagaku, Japanese ancient court music.”
Throughout the album, Kuunatic also play chappa (hand-sized cymbals used at temple rituals or festivals), sasara (a percussion instrument of 108 wooden plates strung with a cotton cord), ryuteki (a flute used in gagaku), kagurabue (a flute used for Japanese traditional shrine music) ougidaiko (a fan-shaped hand drum), kokiriko (small bamboo stick instruments), and wadaiko (a huge traditional drum that has been used for rituals or festivals since ancient times).
“We would say the sounds of the flutes and drums we used have a very strong folk sense and atmosphere and they helped us to create a mysterious landscape,” says Kuunatic. “Sasara and kokiriko are used for the oldest Japanese folk song called ‘Kokiriko Bushi’ as well, so the historical fact is also included in the album’s narrative. But we mixed those Japanese elements with all different musical cultures and ideas, so this is a fusion of ancient times and modern times, crossing borders to borders.”
One of the most daring and evocative inclusions on the album is the appearance, on the track ‘Kuuminyo,’ of vocalist Rekpo, a member of the marginalised and persecuted Ainu indigenous ethnic people of northern Japan. “We met her when she was touring with Oki, an Ainu music band,” says Kuunatic. “We played together in 2022 and kept in touch. Rekpo is also from Marewrew, an Ainu female vocal group that is on a mission to rebuild and hand down their traditional music of Upopo. They sing this during labours and rituals, and sometimes fortune telling, so we interpreted her as a prophet in our world.”
Voicing the character of a prophet of Klüna on ‘Kuuminyo,’ Rekpo sings the Ainu traditional song ‘Hanro’ with an intimate yet otherworldly resonance that’s surprisingly catchy. It’s just one of the many musical highlights of an album that charts a course from the chilly grandeur of opening track ‘Yew’s Path,’ through the ambient shimmer and ritual chants of ‘Mavya at The Lacus Yom,’ and the stark, insistent tribal rock of ‘Disembodied Ternion,’ to the whooshing galactic prog of ‘Halu Shanta.’
A sweeping tale of far-off worlds and strange civilisations performed by ritual rhythms, chanted vocals, throbbing electric bass and ancient folk instruments, Wheels of Ömon is like nothing you’ve heard before. Climb aboard and let Kuunatic take you on a trip to the edge of imagination.
Formed by 3 female members who have completely different
musical and cultural backgrounds, KUUNATIC explores pulsing, unconventional and atmospheric sound with diverse sonics and ritual vocals.
supported by 30 fans who also own “Wheels of Ömon”
the world can only heal if we come together now more than ever. Unity and bravery is key to our success. let the music guide our hearts but we guide our voices. let us march, let us fight, let us sing. guentoginggof
Sustained by seismic psych riffs, proggy shifts, and vivid sci-fi storytelling, these Milwaukee cosmonauts command respect. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 29, 2023
supported by 30 fans who also own “Wheels of Ömon”
Even at 80 years old, Pharoah Sanders played his tenor sax with the conviction of a gospel preacher. Every second of this album is arrestingly beautiful. As far as I'm concerned, this is essential listening for anyone who considers themselves a fan of music. 3sidesinasquare
