In many ways, luscious psych rockers Kikagaku Moyo’s latest (and supposedly final) record Kumoyo Island simply continues doing exactly what the band have excelled so thoroughly at previously. Loops of guitar gallop over deft, pattering percussion and soft, textural vocals – five albums in, we know what to expect from the sextet. But Kumoyo Island also lays out clearly reasons for the band’s adoration. Within such trances and gentleness is a remarkable amount of both instrumental and stylistic depth. Plodding funk, rapturous folk and meditative ambience are fashioned out of horns, woodwind, sitar, airy field samples and vast expanses of space, all of which combine to conjure up an actual island in audio form. It’s all executed with the kind of shimmering, strutting confidence you’d expect of a band ending on a high: if Kumoyo Island really is the last we hear of Kikagaku Moyo, it’s as solid a send-off as anyone could really ask.

Listen to “Dancing Blue” below.