OGRE YOU ASSHOLE held the outdoor event “”DELAY 2024″” on Saturday, May 11 at Yatsugatake Natural Park Concert Plaza in Nagano, Japan.
“”DELAY 2024″” has been held in the past with guests from Japan and abroad. This year’s event was held in Nagano, the band’s hometown, and featured Shintaro Sakamoto and Jim O’Rourke.
Writer Ryohei Matsunaga reports on the time when nature and music blended together from noon to the magic hour of sunset.
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Mount Yatsugatake: Setting of ‘Evil Does Not Exist’
Stepping into the concert plaza of the Yatsugatake Nature Park, the venue for the event, I flinched for a moment. There was a stage, a smaller floor in front of the stage, and seats on stone steps arranged in a semicircle around the stage. It was much smaller than I had imagined. However, the somewhat cheerful name “Concert Square” is not unnatural. It has that kind of modest cuteness. The distance between the engineers’ tent and the stage is also close.
I was told that 1,300 people would be admitted here today (tickets were sold out). What? That many people? But as I got closer to the stage, I realized that this was a needless worry. There was room to sit in the trees that spread out behind where the seats were located, and with the fine weather we had had the day before, it seemed possible to sit and enjoy the concert in the moderately mowed grass. I found that the capacity of this place was set up so that people could enjoy the performance and acoustics where they wanted, rather than cramming people in.
Hara-mura Village in Suwa-gun, Nagano Prefecture, where the Yatsugatake Nature Park is located, and the area around Fujimi Station on the railroad are also the setting for director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest film, “Evil Does Not Exist. Originally commissioned by Eiko Ishibashi for footage to be used in her live performances, Hamaguchi’s film has evolved into a film with a single, independent story. Although I did not see any of the wild deer that make such an impressive appearance in the film when I came here today, I was not surprised to find them listening to the music in such a quiet and rich natural setting.
For OGRE YOU ASSHOLE, the organizers of today’s event “”DELAY 2024″”, this area is their home base and, in a sense, their home game. They have held several “”DELAY”” events in the past, but choosing a location that is physically close to them is a special occasion. Jim O’Rourke and Shintaro Sakamoto will appear as co-hosts at this memorable event. Jim O’Rourke has worked with Ishibashi on many projects, including the soundtrack to “Evil Does Not Exist,” but today he will perform in a solo electronic sound set. This is the first time that Shintaro Sakamoto has appeared on stage in an opposing fashion to Ooga since he began performing as a solo artist.
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Jim O’Rourke’s Electronic Sound: A Blend of Gentleness and Tension
The sun was still high in the sky, but Jim O’Rourke appeared almost on time. The electronic sounds sounded improvised, but they seemed to be as meticulously composed as on his former solo album “The Visitor” (2009). There is no seamless transition from song to song. The sound blended with the swaying trees, birdsong, and the movements and murmurs of people slowly gathering around. The electronically generated sounds do not exist in the natural world, and they should have been at odds with each other.
Jim O’Rourke’s approach is different from the gentleness of music for plants advocated by Mort Gerson and others, which is sometimes stiff and strained. It seemed to reflect the attitude and frank realization of the attitude that humans should take as intruders living on this borrowed space.
