3rd November 2010

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Live From Tokyo is Good.

A while back I tried to hip you to a film that had its world premiere last Friday in the Upper East Side’s Asia Society Museum: Live From Tokyo. The trailer looks way cool, and, having seen the film, I can tell you that it does live up to the trailer. Mostly.

Despite the fact that the film contains music from roughly a billion artists of all sorts of underground, experimental sensibilities, it manages to keep a continuous theme through its use of bright sounds and bright colors. The word to describe the sensory experience of Live From Tokyo is “vivid.”

When you look at the film as a documentary, it might not be a particularly informative piece of video; the interviews, while often entertaining, and I’m sure well-informed, weren’t always incredibly interesting. They touched on the music industry in Japan, which is going through much of the same stuff the American music industry has been going through for a while. So, nothing mind-blowing. There were some stand-out moments, however; the Muzenji Monk, owner of an experimental music venue called Muryoku Muzenji, was bizarre, funny, and, if you ask me, a lot smarter than the audience at the Asia Society Museum seemed to pick up on. And experimental musician and instrument maker Makoto Oshiro explained the science behind a creation of his that, basically, was just a way cool feedback machine. But other than those, unfortunately many of the interviews, while enthusiastic and worth hearing, were a bit dull.

When you look at the film as a collection of music videos, it fares better. As I said before, the film keeps colorful and energetic visuals throughout, and manages to match up different looks to different musical styles, while still keeping its own feel. Maybe the coolest part was d.v.d., a combo featuring two drummers and a visual artist. They performed a musical game of pong in the film that was absolutely fantastic, so check them out (though most of the artists featured in the movie were interesting in some way or another):

Tagged: Asia Society Museumlive from tokyod.v.d.Muzenji MonkMuryoku MuzenjiMakoto Oshirorobots fucking