The Dublin-based Irish-Japanese trio’s latest single arrives ahead of debut album KiiKO Forever, out October 9th.
KiiKO are back with ‘Dance World’, a track that barely sits still for its whole runtime, jumping between electronic pop, live instrumentation and the kind of left-turn songwriting the Dublin trio have made their calling card.
Made up of Emmy Shigeta, John McDowell and Dave Rogers, the band pull from both Irish and Japanese music worlds, and ‘Dance World’ is arguably the clearest example yet of how naturally those influences sit together in their hands.
The song follows a night out that never quite has a destination, that stretch of time once plans dissolve and the rest of the world starts to feel far away. Musically it plays out the same way: hushed, echoing stretches give way suddenly to loud, distorted rushes, capturing that specific feeling of losing yourself in a crowd and forgetting there’s anything beyond the room you’re in. It never really settles into one groove, veering constantly between held-back and let-loose.
Reference points like Cornelius, Towa Tei and Kero Kero Bonito are easy to hear in the DNA here, but KiiKO’s own mix, drums and bass sitting alongside strings, glockenspiel and synths, gives the song its own unique identity.
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Melodies keep slipping in and out of the arrangement, instruments surface and vanish again, and the whole thing resists sitting still long enough to be pinned down, which is very much the point. It’s built for dancing, but there’s enough going on underneath to reward paying closer attention too.
‘Dance World’ arrives ahead of KiiKO’s debut album, KiiKO Forever, out Friday October 9th, with more music and details still to come.
Previous single ‘July’:
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
