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.
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Shintaro Sakamoto’s Music: Slowly Dissolving into the Atmosphere
Shintaro Sakamoto followed, but it was still too early in the evening to call it dusk. It is rare for him to appear at festivals in the daytime, but I had already experienced Shintaro Sakamoto in the light of day last year at “Gyafun! Still, for the viewers, this brightness and proximity seemed to be new. Perhaps Sakamoto himself was aware of this, as he opened the live performance with “In the Season of Swallows. This is a mellow and groovy song that has often been performed as an encore at live concerts, but on this day, a new arrangement with a slightly longer introduction left a strong impression, as if the music was waiting to blend into the air.
“In A Phantom Mood,” “You Just Decided,” “Mask On Mask,” “Like A Fable.” The band played the songs they should have played in an hour on stage, ending with “Disco Is.” An imaginary mirror ball illuminated the grove as the lights gradually increased their presence.
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Exploring the Fusion of Children and Music at the Event
While waiting for the band to appear, I noticed that there were many children in the audience. Come to think of it, I remember they were renting noise-canceling headphones at the entrance. Children’s reactions are always interesting. In a sense, it is the senses of children, which are not yet tinted with any colors, that can respond most directly to noise and electronic sounds. If you listen to anime theme songs or video game music, they are the ones who can take in all the surprisingly informative lyrics and difficult developments in the music. So it seems to me that the children at this festival today are enjoying the opportunity to enjoy music with all their senses, rather than being unusual children. It was cute and endearing to see the children dancing on the sides of the stage and behind the set. I think this way of mixing with the children, which is different from the “children go play in the child space over there,” presents a different idea.
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Capturing the Magic Hour with OGRE YOU ASSHOLE
Now, the set of OGRE YOU ASSHOLE. They opened with a new song, “Fleeting Moments,” which had just been released the day before. The sound was slow, simple, and stripped down. Kei Mabuchi was on the synth and did not play the guitar until about halfway through the song. The words sung by Manabu Ideto suggest a scene in which one can look at the ineffability of time to move forward and space to expand. Stoic but psychedelic, it lasts about 9 minutes. From there, Takatsugu Katsuura and Takashi Shimizu’s rhythm section leads us into “Muda ga Naitte Subarashii” and then “Sutekina yokan.” The contrast between the tightening and the opening of the song, which is like a repeated contradiction, is truly a pleasant sensation of Ouga. This is the chemical change that releases this small venue like a green mortar into the vast outer world.
New songs released in 2023, from “wait time” and “outside of the house” to “Kioku ni Nokoranai”, “Morning After Morning”, “Mienai Rule” but there is really no break between the songs. The euphoria was so great that I was under the illusion that there were no pauses between the songs. The four beats and intermittent pulses interpreted in the style of “Auger” are the exact opposite of the mellow sensation that one would expect at dusk, yet they intoxicate the listener with darkness. The music “shakes” rather than “dances,” and “shakes” rather than “shakes. I noticed that everyone was dancing like crazy at the end of “Invisible Rules. However, the view of the audience, which was like a tree surrounded by this forest, just trembling and shaking, was also very memorable. It was very memorable. It was a scene, perhaps, from the place where Oga had lured me out of the entrance to another world.
The encore “Balance (twilight ver.)” was a song that perfectly captured this place and this magic hour. More than any announcement after the show, I think it made the audience more aware of the end of the event. And while the lingering echoes of sound were still lingering in my senses, darkness soon enveloped the area. If Ooga knew the magic of this time, it was a home game.
After the show, we had dinner at “Chatora Restaurant” near Fujimi Station on the way home. I saw many deer floating in the darkness illuminated by the headlights. From here on out, it was their time. Thank you for your time. The deer might have talked to us, saying, “There was some kind of unknown sound in the daytime today.
LIQUIDROOM 20th ANNIVERSARY OGRE YOU ASSHOLE LIVE
Date: Saturday, August 3
Venue: Ebisu LIQUIDROOM
OPEN 17:00 / START 18:00
Ticket: STANDING ¥5,000 tax included (1D fee not included)
Ticket sales URL: https://eplus.jp/sf/detail/4093910001-P0030001
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LIQUIDROOM 03-5464-0800
OGRE YOU ASSHOLE “Fleeting Moments”
Distribution date: May 10, 2024 (Fri.)
Distribution URL: https: //linkco.re/pvVzbqxZ