WaqWaq Kingdom - Shinsekai (2017) Hi-Res

Kiki Hitomi follows her killer solo debut, Karma No Kusari with a whole new project produced by Shigeru Ishihara a.k.a. DJ Scotch Egg, Waqwaq Kingdom, where the Japanese cyber-dub-pop sprite really lets her imagination run away with itself.

Shinsekai is a sprawling, humid ruck of ideas rent in dazzling colour and density by its operators, intersecting Jahtari’s usually economic aesthetic with a far more animated, layered and piquant electronic style that’s definitely more Japan than Jamaica, but serves well to highlight the links and differences between their shared dub cultures.

It’s maybe best to compare the sound with, say, the psychedelia of Liverpool’s Naffi Productions or some long lost On-U Sound session discovered and updated by The Bug and Disrupt; diffracting dub’s roots thru a far eastern lense and fusing those strands with traditional melodic scales, taiko-style percussion and advanced electronics, resulting stellar gems such as the weightless stepper Blow It Up and the very King Midas Sound-ing Koko Says, plus the delirious colours of Love Game and imagining what Kate Bush might sound like if she fancied a Scotch Egg in Waqwaq Dream and Bird.