MOUNTAIN MOCHA KILIMANJARO

LAST IN TOWN TWO YEARS AGO, THAT SELF-DESCRIBED JAPANESE COLLECTIVE OF ‘NASTY GROOVE-MAKING CATS’, MOUNTAIN MOCHA KILIMANJARO ARE HEADING BACK WITH A NEW ALBUM. MICHAEL SMITH interviews NAOKAZU ‘BOBSAN’ KOBAYASHI.

Beginning life in 2004 in, as they describe it, “the most unknown prefecture in Japan on the outskirts of Tokyo,” as a funk/rock cover band with a love of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, everything changed for Mountain Mocha Kilimanjaro when they heard the old school soul and funk of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, courtesy records by Sly & The Family Stone, The Meters and, of course, James Brown.

Signing to the prestigious Japanese P-Vine label, which specialises in jazz, Latin, soul and funk records and has been the Japanese distributors of live and recordings by Parliament/Funkadelic among others, they released a self-titled debut album in 2009. When they hit Australia at the end of the year, it’ll be with a brand new album for here, Uhuru Peak. Guitarist Naokazu ‘Bobsan’ Kobayashi fielded questions on what we can expect.

“We spent a lot more time on recording and production with Uhuru Peak, so we feel that the arrangements, minute details, the small nuances are all a lot deeper and more complex and deep than the first album. We felt a lot more confident about the sound and not being scared to drift off into different styles of funk music. It’s a lot more diverse, much better sound production, whilst keeping that raw energy of our live shows in there.”

We wondered if the band, which includes drummer Satoshi ‘Tiger’ Okano, keyboards player Yuki ‘Mzo’ Mizoguchi, sax player Kunimitsu ‘Carlos’ Ohashi, bass player Yusuke ‘Ginger’ Kondo and trumpeter Naohito ‘Temjim’ Yomoda, had discovered any new gems from that golden age of American soul/funk that was particularly influencing them.

“Too many to mention, but yes we are still discovering lots of stuff. It helps that so many great labels release some great reissues! At first we were trying to copy what we heard and then tried to express it through original songs. We are aiming to capture not just the soul/funk ‘genre’ of that era though. We feel that what the ‘60s/’70s had was an amazing blend of blues, soul, jazz and rock – and funk was not really a ‘genre’ but a vibe, a way of life. We want to capture that ‘vibe’ and bring it to the modern day.”

Between that eponymous debut album and Uhuru Peak, the wholly instrumental Mountain Mocha Kilimanjaro have worked as the backing band for a couple of singers as well as doing a track with Japanese hip hop group Rhymester. They’ve also contributed the odd track to a couple of Japanese compilations and released an initially digital-only single, The Preacher, which they’ve now released on 7” vinyl.

“We’ve thought about vocalists,” Kobayashi admits, regarding their continuing to work as a purely instrumental band, “but we are yet to meet anyone that we could feel we can work with.”

Australia is in fact the only country the band has played outside of Japan. So one wonders how much they enjoyed their other Australian gigs last time round.

“All of them were amazing in their own right. The bigger festivals at Sydney and Woodford were some highlights, but also the club shows as well, as it was more intimate and everyone was so energetic. You guys have so much energy and dance a lot, which is great! We feed off that, so it’s nice to be so appreciated.”

Playing at Peats Ridge, Woodford Folk Festival

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