A Kaleidoscopic Musical Universe

On Sky Fish Fly, Jonny Kasai’s kazaizen project refines its core premise: music not as structure, but as environment. Across 13 tracks, Kasai assembles a patchwork of psychedelic rock, alternative soul, and experimental pop that prioritises texture and sensation over linear cohesion, with mixed but often compelling results.

The album’s strongest moments emerge from its embrace of disorientation. “Nanoo Nanoo” and “Make It Love” operate on looping grooves that feel both hypnotic and unstable, their arrangements subtly mutating as they progress. Rather than building toward traditional climaxes, they dissolve, suggesting an interest in process over payoff.

Kasai’s fascination with sonic nostalgia is evident, though rarely straightforward. “What Is” gestures toward 70s soul, but its degraded textures and collage-like assembly complicate any sense of revivalism. “What’s the Meaning – Self” similarly borrows from city-pop, only to warp its clean lines into something more impressionistic.

At times, the album’s looseness works against it. “State of Mind,” with its shoegaze-adjacent density, feels more like a sketch than a fully realised composition, while the playful concept of “Mr. Musk” risks tipping into novelty. Yet even these moments contribute to the album’s overarching sense of experimentation.
Where Sky Fish Fly succeeds is in its commitment to ambiguity.

Tracks like “Beyond the Stars” and “Somewhere Somethings Waiting” hint at fully formed hybrid genres—psychedelic R&B, progressive synth-jazz—but stop short of codifying them. It’s an album defined less by what it is than by what it suggests, a collection of ideas in motion.

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