photos credit: benjamin Oliver Hicks
Mix matching beats, riffs and solos; Kyoto Lo-Fi’s garage rock sound seems to be striking a chord in the local DFW music scene.
By: Juan R. Govea
Lead guitarist, Gabriel, and Nico (rhythm guitar/vocals) state that while trading riffs and veering from the psych-rock sounds, which they say seems to be the local norm, veer from casual rock.
The group has had ins and outs of past members, but with the reincarnation of drummer Nehuen and new bassist Paul; the current Kyoto Lo-Fi have been together for about half a year and are fresh in experimenting with their garage-rock sound.
The most recent add-on Bassist, Paul, says he’s fitting in with the group well. “The First week we brought in Paul, he played at our SXSW show and did great,” Nico says. “But his first show with Kyoto Lo-Fi was in Denton then South by.”
Kyoto Lo-Fi’s new singles On The Way and Flowering Boulder were self recorded and still keep the themed lo-fi sound and Garage Rock riffs with soft dramatic vocals.
With the help of Alex Bhore and Greg Muzljakovich of Next Level Muzic the band will likely be releasing more music in the future.
To promote their new releases the band took to the road at the end of October. Stopping at a gig spots in Norman, Oklahoma, The Deli starting their 6-day tour. The group then traveled up the east coast as far North to New York and Chicago and back down to Dallas.
Nico says most of the planning of the tour was done by drummer Nehuen. While traveling and having shows cancel, sleeping in their tour van in freezing temperatures and minor car trouble, which the band says was a minor set back. Nico stated the New York crowd and Chicago bands were all amazing.
“The Chicago stop was worth the travel, and had the best bands and most shows in New York drew a good crowd,” he says.
This was the bands first tour, but say they came back to Texas with a lot of fun life experiences and are looking to release more singles and Albums in the future.
You can catch Kyoto Lo-Fi performing with Mean Motor Scooter at the Grotto in Fort Worth on Saturday Nov. 18, and you can find their new releases Flowering Boulder and On The Way along with their earlier album on Bandcamp.
https://kyotolo-fi.bandcamp.com/
