DAI KAHT

Love their young, aggressive, and restless sound paranoia. DAI KAHT, hailing from Finland, can be called as one of impressive acts who see the light in 2017. Their debut eponymous album veiled in a colourful psychedelic dot-printed sleeve as if we would take various hallucinogenic agents together in a minute. This eccentric sleeve's reminded me of some stoner psychedelic combos actually, but the content completely betrayed me. Their sound / play style could be fit for such a phrase - Mr. Bungle, Sun City Girls, or especially Japanese Magma follower Korekyojin meets post-punk, slightly with a nuance of jerky Area-related jazz essence. And their remarkable attitude in an audible manner can be heard via sticky, repetitive, convoluted melodic or vocal phrases here and there. Punksy in a sense but we cannot avoid enjoying along complicated rhythms and melodies. Basically upon heavy but charming sound basis, melodic irregularity performs eccentrically and excitingly. One of my favourite tracks is the second one 'Wak'', featuring pleasant chorus even in a mischievous atmosphere. 'Advent' is characterized with loud, psychedelic guitar explosion and Demetrio's enthusiastic voices. This creation is filled with sound variation inspired by lots of heavy / psychedelic / avantgarde / jazz-fusion progressive rock vanguards. Bravo for such a quite promising outfit.

DAI KAHT are a young 4 piece band out of Finland who have blessed us with their take on Zeuhl. The bassist/singer discovered Zeuhl through RUINS and later MAGMA. I must say that any new Zeuhl or Krautrock band that comes along is an automatic purchase for me. I'm just really into these sub-genres and it's always interesting to see where new bands take those particular styles of music. These Finns have two guitarists, a drummer and a bassist/ vocalist. So it's disappointing not to see electric piano or not having the bass fuzzed out and in my face. They seemed to focus on the vocals as far as the Zeuhl style goes and for me they are hit and miss. In fact after the first 5 songs I'm not even thinking it's worth the three stars but then track 6 and 7 really impress before the closer which is more like the rest in my opinion.

"Karaouh" opens with some deep atmosphere before the guitar, bass and cymbals take over rather quickly. A zeuhlish rhythm kicks in before 1 1/2 minutes with drums but it's light. When the vocals arrive it's catchy but just too light and I'm not exactly sold here. It becomes more uptempo before the guitar leads the way before 4 minutes as the vocals step aside. "Waku" sounds good with that pleasant guitar with bass and drums. Vocals just before a minute. Kind of a relaxed and poppy tune at least for Zeuhl.

"Helvet Sttroi" opens with atmosphere as the bass and drums kick in and yes this sounds really good. The guitar starts to make some noise then it turns powerful after a minute. Suddenly vocals and a beat take over. It's okay. Guitar to the fore around 2 minutes as the vocals stop. This is better. "Gnyynlaggor" opens with the guitar and drums trading off before we get this steady sound with vocals. I just can't get into this. The vocals are brief but they return before 2 1/2 minutes. Please tell me you don't like this section? Some Vander-like vocal expressions follow that are right on. That uptempo section is back 3 1/2 minutes in, vocals too. Not my scene.

"Addurrenn" starts out with some atmospheric guitar along with bass. It picks up with vocal melodies and a beat around a minute. It's building still until that zeuhlish chanting kicks in around 1 1/2 minutes. It's instrumental again with guitar leading until it settles with vocals before 3 minutes.

"Kadett Mozami" is my favourite. The guitar growls away as we get some relaxed drumming but then it kicks in with vocals at a high speed just before a minute. The tempo keeps changing as themes are repeated. I like when it settles down 3 1/2 minutes in then the vocals return singing slowly. This is so good with those deeper vocals before 4 1/2 minutes. There's some dark atmosphere later that I really like.

"Advent" is another one I quite like. It has this catchy guitar led start with drums and bass. The vocals arrive after 3 minutes sounding distant but they are brief. He's speaking the lyrics before 5 minutes as the trippy sound continues. The guitar comes in awkwardly after 5 1/2 minutes.

"Doover Uouh" opens with light vocals and sound. It kicks in before a minute. Some interesting rough zeuhlish vocals before 2 1/2 minutes. Man this is all over the place, a nod to Japanese Zeuhl I presume. I like the guitar after 4 1/2 minutes. The band yells around 7 minutes as we get a dramatic ending.

I know this album is going to get a lot of rave reviews, this is more about my personal taste for sure. I knew from the first spin that this wasn't for me and many plays later it was confirmed. Check it out!

When you think of zeuhl, two countries predominantly come to mind. France of course where Magma reinvented the context of progressive jazz-fueled rock and inspired a legion of followers over the ensuing decades. In second place is Japan which has produced some of the more extreme examples of bubbly zeuhl driven bands such as Ruins which took things into strange new turf. Finland however is not a nation that comes to mind but that's exactly where this band DAI KAHT came from. The central city of Kajaani to be exact. This band formed in 2013 by bassist Atte Kemppaninen and in the beginning was smitten by the usual prog suspects such as King Crimson, Yes, ELP, Camel, Gentle Giant and Pink Floyd but somewhere along the line caught the zeuhl bug.

When it comes to zeuhl, all roads of course lead to Magma and DAI KAHT is no exception going as far as to even follow in the footsteps of Christian Zander's eccentricities by crafting an entire language and mythology. While it does seem completely derivative, DAI KAHT crafts a concept that focuses on future space colonialism and even went as far in creating the invented language called Kolöniel which is clearly based on Magma's Kobaïan. The mythology revolves around a spaceship dubbed the Doover Üouh that traverses the universe in order to find that utopian world that is far removed from the corrupt and infected cesspool of reality that plagues the human race on planet Earth. The band released its debut self-titled release in 2017 and in many ways sounds very much like a parallel universe version of Magma with those bubbling zeuhl bass-fueled rhythmic drives with lyrics in an unintelligible language narrating some fictions tale of who knows what.

While dangerously close to Magma territory, DAI KAHT does distinguish itself in a couple of significant ways. The band infuses a heavy dose of guitar fueled heavy psych into the mix which offers a more aggressive assault than anything Magma dished out. This quartet features Atte Kemppainen (voices, bass), Osmo Saarinen (drums, voices), Ville Sirviö (lead guitar) and Tommi Ruotsalainen (rhythm guitar) and although the style is very much out of the Magma playbook, the bombast of the guitars takes a few cues from the psychedelic Finnish band Kingston Wall. The production is rich and the album is a nice modern mix of zeuhl driven psychedelia that is unfortunately too dependent on its inspirations rather than crafting anything remotely clever and original. The band also exists without keyboards and jazz instrumentation which gives this a more heavy rock sound than many zeuhl counterparts but due to the similarities in vocalizations and musical motifs, one can only wonder if this is a long lost Magma album that got rejected.

Overall this is not a bad album at all but i personally have a problem with over-reliances of influence and DAI KAHT on this debut album seems more like a Magma cover band than an original entity in its own right. Through the album's eight tracks and 41 minute playing time, we are treated to those familiar Jannick Top styled bass antics and the consistent flow of marital zeuhl rhythmic flows along with bouts of high tempo frenzies and those vocal led counterpoints. DAI KAHT was created after the sound of Ruins and in terms of tones, timbres and dynamics resonates more with the Japanese bands but as far as compositional flow is much more in the Magma camp. Way too derivative for my tastes but decently done and for those who just can't get enough zeuhl in their world this is not unworthy of exploring but in the end i'd rather just listen to classic Magma over and over than an album brought to us from a group of imitators. In other words, at this point the band needed to develop its own sound.