This minimalist version of "Smoky Bubbles" by Denki Groove (from the "A" album, 1997) was performed on a jailbroken iPod Touch 1.1.2.
Bass: Pocket Guitar (Electric Bass)
Synthesizer: iPhone Synth
Drums: BeatPhone
Guitar: Pocket Guitar (Acoustic Electric Guitar)
Piano: iAno (now known as "Pianist")
This 1980s TV commercial touts an effective cure for athlete's tentacle.
On March 8, pianist Yosuke Yamashita donned a fireproof suit and played a burning piano on a beach in Ishikawa prefecture. The improvised jazz performance went for about 10 minutes until the flames rendered the piano silent. This video shows a few excerpts.
Yamashita's performance was a reenactment of a similar one he gave in 1973, which was made into a short film by Japanese director Kiyoshi Awazu. You can see the complete 1973 performance on Awazu's website.
[Source: Sankei]
The music video for Ken Ishii's "Space Invaders 2003" is a touching, behind-the-scenes look at a Space Invader family torn apart by war.
This video -- a follow-up to a previous post about strange cloud formations seen over the Sea of Okhotsk last summer -- provides a rare close-up bird's-eye view of cloud streets, which are created when convection currents cut low-lying cumulus into long, clean strips. According to the video narration, these clouds floated just over the sea surface, stood 300 meters tall and stretched for over 100 kilometers.
"Toy Box Series, Episode 3: Picture Book 1936" (Omocha-Bako Series, Dai-3-Wa: Ehon 1936) is a 1934 propaganda-ish film about a future (1936) conflict started by a swarm of evil, bat-riding Mickey Mouse clones that descend on a tiny island inhabited by peace-loving dolls and cats (including a Felix lookalike). Overwhelmed by the attack, the desperate island residents bang on the cover of a large picture book to enlist the help of Momotaro, Urashima Taro (the Japanese version of Rip Van Winkle), and other traditional fairy tale heroes and characters. After Urashima Taro uses his famous "mystery box" to turn the big Mickey into a decrepit old fogey, Hanasaka Jiisan makes the cherry trees bloom and the cats and dolls celebrate by dancing to "Tokyo Ondo" (an old Japanese folk song). The soundtrack also includes renditions of the Momotaro song and Gunkan March ("Warship March"), a song that is nowadays typically played at pachinko parlors.
[Via Cartoon Brew via Needcoffee]
"Musashino Plateau" and "Japan" -- a pair of 3D computer animations directed by Nobuo Takahashi -- illustrate (in dramatic fashion) how Japan's landscape changed during the postwar period of rapid economic growth. The animations begin slowly with the early postwar recovery years, but the pace quickens to a frenzy as explosive growth during the bubble years (late '80s/early '90s) transforms the cityscape into a chaotic, tightly packed jumble of single-family homes, large apartment complexes and high-rise buildings. In the end, development grinds to a halt with the collapse of the bubble.
Video 1: Musashino Plateau
Video 2: Japan
[Source: Yoshida Gakuen Joho Business]
The promo video for "ILL MACHINE (x ULTRA BRAiN)," a track off the recently released Nu Riot CD by Wagdug Futuristic Unity (a project involving Kyono of the Mad Capsule Markets), is set in a world 50 years hence (according to Kyono's blog), where heavily armed gas-masked clones battle giant machines that assemble themselves from trash and set out to cleanse the planet by blasting everything to smithereens. Directed by CG artist Satoshi Kuroda.
[Link: ILL MACHINE (x ULTRA BRAiN)]
T-shirt retailer Beams-T is handing out a free art-themed DVD magazine to customers in Japan. The DVD showcases the work of five artists from around the world, including this incredibly loony scrolling video-collage of found GIF animations put together by international man of mystery Subway Lung (a.k.a. Tokyo Windbag).
You can see the other DVD magazine videos on kurandofuruya's YouTube page (the light-based graffiti video by Kieph/Atsushi Sasaki is also recommended).
