Oriental Force

When the festival in Koenji was winding down we went down this unpromising stairwell, to the small gig venue Oriental Force.

I guess the total capacity of this is about 20 people, including 8 musicians and their gear.

These two ladies are Hanazono Ninin. They were very strange and played a lot of different instruments. The linked video gives a pretty good idea of their vibe.

These two gentlemen are ラロトンガ (Rarotonga). The guy with the guitar also plays drum machine, synths, and a bunch of stuff coming out of his laptop. A bit Aphexy. The ohter guy is the vocalist, who does some mixture of throat singing, rapping, and just a lot lot of screaming, all hyped up by a bunch of guitar pedals. It was fucking nuts.

At the end the singer decided to have a bit of audience participation and just waded in screaming.

It probably wasn't the best gig I've ever been to, but it might have been the maddest.

Any that is one of the great things about Tokyo, just these tiny little venues where people can just do their no audience show in an anonymous basement, and it doesn't have to be about the money or the fame. Just you screaming through a loop pedal at 10 friends and strangers.

And then we went back up to street level and everyone was just hanging out, none the wiser about the madness just happened beneath their feet.