psychedelic · experimental
maya ongaku
Three musicians from the Enoshima coast, on Guruguru Brain, drifting somewhere between dub, folk and the sea.
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Hometown
Enoshima, Kanagawa
Genre
psychedelic
Upcoming
0 shows
About
maya ongaku are a trio from the seaside towns around Enoshima, south of Tokyo: Tsutomu Sonoda on guitar and vocals, Ryota Takano on bass and Ikeda on keys and saxophone. They came together in 2021 and signed to Guruguru Brain, the label that has carried most of Japan’s current psychedelic wave abroad. Approach to Anima, the debut, came out in May 2023; the Electronic Phantoms EP followed in August 2024. The name is a coined word — their gloss is something like “imagined vistas just beyond the horizon of perception”. The first European tour, in 2023, was done the hard way. Sonoda remembers “sleeping cramped together, sometimes on the floor, and once even on a boat”; the American run after it was worse, self-funded, with meals skipped. By the second European tour in 2025 the rooms had grown, London sold out, and Ikeda could finally bring the exact gear he wanted — “equipment compatible with 240 volts”, which is the kind of detail a band only mentions once it has gone without.
You asked, the internet answered
Frequently Googled
What does “maya ongaku” mean?
It isn’t a phrase you’d find in a dictionary — the band coined it. “Ongaku” is music; the “maya” part they describe as pointing at imagined vistas just past the edge of what you can perceive, which is a fair description of how the records sound.
Have maya ongaku played London before?
Yes. They toured the UK and Europe in 2023 after Approach to Anima came out, and came back in 2025 for a run where the London show sold out. The first tour was floors and one boat; by the second they were, in Sonoda’s words, “treated with more care and respect”.
Where do I start with maya ongaku?
Approach to Anima (2023) is the album; Electronic Phantoms (2024) is the EP where the electronics come forward. Both are on Guruguru Brain’s Bandcamp. The live show leans on the longer, slower-burning pieces.
Who is playing with maya ongaku at MOTH Club?
Support on the 11 September London date is Sophia Hansen-Knarhoi. Doors are early evening; tickets are through DICE, and the band’s own Linktree points at this page for it.
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On stage