Just before the time of Rei Harakami’s performance, I got back to the hall but what I heard was house music which was different from Rei Harakami’s jazzy and beautiful electronica. When I saw the stage from the distance, the DJ seemed to be Akufen. My heart quite failed me because Akufen was supposed to perform after Rei Harakami, I thought I missed his stage.

Akufen

Akufen is a leading artist of click house from Canada. His DJing didn’t seem to be in good condition. That might be because Akufen’s performance was forced to be brought forward, I found out later that Rei Harakami couldn’t make it on time due to the traffic problem by the serious typhoon.

Rei Harakami

Then, Rei Harakami appeared. Visual by Shiro Takatani from Dump Type and the electronic music which wraps the hall was magnificent. Especially, visual by Shiro Takatani was not like the ones used in usual VJing, it’s quiet and very organic synchronising perfectly with music.

After the Rei Harakami’s performance, I moved to SonarSound Cinema which was focused as another theme of Sonarsound Tokyo. “The Three Ages” by Jeff Mills was been screening at that time. The work is the experimentation that Jeff Mills put sounds on a silent film by Buster Keaton. In the discussion after the screening, he told that he would like to control the balance of mixing between visual and sound by changing the volume of music, not by the tone of music or composition.
I spent rich time here not only with Jeff Mill’s work but also with enjoying quality visual and music in the theater at midnight away from the noise at the main hall.

Photo: Akihiro Saga

There was a bar in front of the main hall and of course there it was filled with the audience and even artists who were performers sometime. I found Ceephax Acid Crew, who is a younger brother of Squeare Pusher walking around with three cans of beer in his hand. When I talked to him, he casually replied me. This openness is one of the best point of this event, without too much security. The rest of the first night was kept lively with Chicks on Speed, Juan Atkins and Carl Craig.