Music into 2014 continues with about the wildest live vocal and electronic virtuosity you can imagine…
If what “beatboxing” means to you is just someone sputtering drum sounds out of their mouth, Ryo Fujimoto might change your mind.
Ryo, born in Japan but based in Berlin, is a whirling dervish of a performer. Vocal fragments do indeed form percussion, but listening to the artist himself is like listening to a human sampler. Sounds from his voice and assembled electronics spin and build in dizzying, hypnotic splendor, rapid-fire lyrics reaching frenzied proportions, before being dialed back more contemplative mantras.
And Ryo, while he augments his voice with plenty of technology, is just as fun to watch as he assembles an aerobic workout controlling his live machines. The music is electro – meets – percussion, avant-garde maximal-minimalism punk. The gear:
Ableton Live
AKAI APC40
Three KORG KAOSS KP3 effect units
Novation UltraNova synth
Leap Motion gestural controller
Mackie 1202-VLZ3 mixer
In Dommune 2013, he treats us to a full-length live album in video form. You might imagine that the video is, at times, running in fast forward. Nope – that’s just him.
As he describes the work:
This is a masterpiece in 2013. 40 minutes.
This is music, live installation , movie , contemporary art, this is my life.
Indeed.
http://humanelectro.net/Biography
Previously:
Cyborg Beatboxer AV: Gloves, Heartbeat, Gesture Merge in Wild Performance