Kero Kero Bonito

It’s been almost a decade since Kero Kero Bonito — the trio of Sarah Midori Perry, Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled — released their first single on Soundcloud. They picked up a cult following online in their early years, with fans locking into the band’s incisive and almost cartoonish proto-hyperpop vision. And since then they’ve built a large and committed fanbase while imagining new musical and thematic parameters — without veering from their core principles. Their latest EP Civilisation II (the sequel to 2019’s Civilisation I) pulls together ambitious dream pop, analog mythology, and urgent observations on humanity into three of their sharpest songs yet. Ahead of its release, The FADER’s Salvatore Maicki caught up with the band remotely to discuss how the project came together, the thrill of revisiting that early aesthetic to soundtrack the video game Bugsnax, and the challenges of realizing pop potential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices