Cicala Mvta (pronounced shikala moota) are one of Japan’s most exciting and original groups. Like other innovative musicians, their music is hard to define; “punk chindon jazz”, “world and noise band to clarinet in a chindon group. Colorful chindon groups used to be a common sight in Japan, marching in the streets noisily banging a chindon drum, while saxophones or clarinets would pick out the melody to the hits of the day.

Cicala Mvta includes tuba, drum, percussion, cello, fiddle and electric guitar players, led by clarinetist/composer Wataru Ohkama. Ohkama was a member of the seminal Masami Shinoda bands, who took the chindon off the streets and into the edgy world of hard jazz and rock. This band follows that same tradition, with a vengeance.

The melodies move from sublime Japanese folk tunes to insanely outside rock fusions, and it never lets up. They can dig into an original tune that comes out as eastern European klezmer one second, a Turkish time signature the next, and then spirals out of control as Ohkama’s clarinet spins melodies from outer space.