The K Mail Order Department

THIS IS A PRE-ORDER FOR THE UPCOMING IROIRO ALBUM, IN STORES OCTOBER 30, 2026

ALL PRE-ORDERS SHIP BY OCTOBER 6, 2026.

IROIRO [GU002/KLP327], the debut album by IROIRO, a four song, black vinyl long playing (LP) phonograph record. A co-release by Grand Ultra Records and K.

It only took a few gigs for IROIRO to establish themselves as Seattle's most exciting rock group. This may surprise fans of IQU, whose Michiko Swiggs and Kento Oiwa form IROIRO's creative core. Whereas IQU combined samples and live instrumentation to put playful spins on trip-hop, drum & bass, and synth-pop, IROIRO produce extended, vocal-free jams that blossom into powerful psychedelic rock. You can hear the band's rapid, splendid evolution on their self-titled debut album, produced by Stuart Hallerman in the '70s room at Avast! and mixed with vintage equipment. In the aftermath of early-'20s IQU reunion gigs and the disbanding of synth sorceress Swiggs and drummer Justin Schwartz's electronic unit Zazaz, they asked Oiwa to join them in a new project. Kento—who'd been involved in Malaise, his solo outlet for guitar and Theremin improvisation—agreed. They assembled for Friday night sessions at which the trio combined Zazaz's “man-machine methods” and Malaise's spontaneous noise excursions. The resulting album will convince you that rock still has ingenuity to burn. “We would spend hours finding grooves and making crazy noises with the synths/guitar/Theremin,” Swiggs recalled. “We would sit around for hours and make sounds that we weren’t hearing from other music, or taking small inspirations from performances we liked and throwing them in.” James Drage joined the sessions and his effected bass sounds were, says Swiggs, “amazing and otherworldly. He was the perfect piece that we were missing in the band.” IROIRO's four songs average nearly 10 minutes, and each gains intensity as it progresses. An easygoing chugger with a winsome melody and Theremin melisma, “Nanashi” is suffused with a gentle euphoria that eventually gets subsumed by tumult. “This is the most 'pop' of all of our songs,” Swiggs says. Influenced by Brian Eno, “I Didn't I Will” has the feeling of an inexorable ascent toward enlightenment. “Cool Man Sicks” has a similar processional motion, but is more understated and metronomic, like a measured take on Can's “Mother Sky.” You can imagine this scoring the climactic scene of an art-house thriller. Swiggs notes, “Kento wanted a longer song with no chord changes so that we could really explore the groove.” Inspired by a New Mexico mountain Kento visited, “Sandia” starts like a soulful, Spiritualized meditation before exploding into towers of fizzing guitars, then returning to calm. Michiko calls it “subtle and over the top at the same time”—an apt description of IROIRO's astonishing debut LP.

Also available:

IROIRO, "Once (Single Mix)" / "Formosa (Single Mix)" [GU001/IPU152] 7" 45rpm