KASAI

Thursday 28 May 2026 - 7:30 pm
@ MAO
KASAI
Wonderfully naive blend of Japanese folk music with footwork-inspired beats and glitching sound designs

Kyoto-based artist KASAI has been experimenting with ancient folk styles since 2015. Using the Japanese concept of 温故知新 (onko-chishin), meaning "developing new ideas based on study of the past," Kasai finds a totally unique expression of Japanese Ondo and Minyo folk music infused with a hypnotic and exuberant modernity through beats and complex rhythms of footwork.
Like many of his generation, KASAI has lived in different places, often in the suburbs, and does not see himself rooted in a hyper-local folk culture as a minyo artist might have been a century ago. Yet he brings minyo back to its roots in the everyday — the material realities of ordinary life, with its timeless hardships and joys, making it a rare look into the life of the contemporary working-class in Japan. He has released the albums OWN ℃ (2021) and J/P/N (2023) on Chinabot, and also ran the cassette label Hoge Tapes.

Participation included in the admission ticket to the exhibition The Soul Trembles.